Foreword by Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning
The Scottish Government's purpose is to create a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth. This aim centres around five key strategic objectives, to make Scotland, Wealthier and Fairer, Healthier, Safer and Stronger, Smarter and Greener.
Maintaining a word-class education system is at the heart of all of these objectives and in particular, education plays an essential role in both our Economic 1and Skills 2 strategies. To get the best out of our education system, it is essential that all those who can benefit from participation have the opportunity to do so. While there are a number of factors that surround access to learning, we believe that learner support, in particular the reduction of debt, plays an important role in ensuring that access to higher education is based, as it should be, on academic merit and not on the individual's ability to pay.
That is why this Government set out three key commitments when coming to power:
- To abolish the unfair graduate endowment fee
- To replacing students loans with a means-tested system of grants
- To service the debt of Scottish-domiciled and resident loan borrowers.
Within our first year in power we delivered the first of these by successfully legislating to abolish the unfair Graduate Endowment fee, benefiting over 50,000 graduates and students immediately and restoring free education in Scotland.
We also made the first steps towards replacing loans by introducing a £38 million package of grants for part-time learners in higher education, benefitting up to 20,000 students a year.
In addition to this, we have also delivered a number of other policies to help students:
- We have increased the threshold for the non-medical personal helpers element of the disabled students allowance by 60 per cent.
- We are providing £16 million per annum to institutions to alleviate student hardship.
- We have introduced a fairer means test in further and higher education to ensure that support is targeted where it is needed most.
This is an impressive list of achievements and while we do not intend to stop there, we have to recognise that there are a number of restrictions, outside this Government's control, which may prevent us fully delivering on all of our commitments. Three main issues constrain what we are able to do in relation to student loans in the future.
First of all, despite student support policy being fully devolved, student loans are funded directly by HM Treasury and not through the Scottish Government's devolved budget. This means that we have no control over a large proportion of the loans budget and must work within the restrictions this places on us. If we had control over all of these budgetary elements it would make it far easier for us to deliver our manifesto commitments in full.
A second constraint is that last year's spending review was the toughest for Scotland since devolution and as a result, the Government has been forced to make hard choices on its spending priorities. In addition, there are the proposed cuts in Scotland's budget in 2010/11 and 2011/12 contained in the UK Government's recent pre-budget report. While we have been able to increase the overall spend on HE learner support during the spending review period, we will need to consider whether existing funds could be used more effectively. These issues will also be addressed in this paper.
Through the spending review, we have been able to make an additional £30 million available for HE support in 2010-11. Our intention is that these funds should begin the transition from loans to grants for full-time students - the second stage of our three-part plan for student support. While this remains our preferred option, we are aware that there are a range of views on how best to support students. Taking this into account, this paper sets out a number of options as to how support could be improved with this additional £30 million and it provides an opportunity for all interested parties to set out what their priorities are.
The final constraint is political. As a minority Government, we know that there is no consensus of support from other parties for our proposals, therefore, we have to concentrate our limited resources on areas that we can deliver within existing legislative frameworks. It was these financial and political constraints which led the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth to state in Parliament that the 2008-11 budget did not include proposals to service graduate debt.
In presenting this paper, I hope to stimulate debate over a number of fundamental issues so that we can develop a new system of support that meets the needs of Government and learners in Scotland and which lays the foundations for the future. In particular, we need to consider the options presented in the context of the changing economic environment to ensure that the student support system is able to adapt to changing pressures and demands that these difficult times are likely to present. I look forward to hearing as many of the wide-ranging views as I can throughout the consultation process.
Fiona Hyslop
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning