Category: Featured

Well, it’s January again.

The early months of last year were dominated by the Conservatives’ slow swan dive into electoral oblivion, and then we got a general election that saw little serious discussion of the sector’s future, aside from the trotting out of a few old canards.

And since Labour took power in July, there have been two broad phases: an initial “these things take time” framing in which universities – as well as many other groups and industries – were asked to be patient. In November we got the tuition fee uplift in England (in cash terms, for one year) and news of a bigger reform plan due next summer. A little movement, but in grand terms it was still can-kicking. Even the concrete announcements we’ve had, such as on level 7 apprenticeships, have not been accompanied by detailed policy papers or formal consultations.

There’s reason to think that 2025 will have more for wonks to get their teeth into. There’s plenty pending, promised, or otherwise pretty damn urgent. So the below is an attempt to reckon with absolutely everything we know is on its way that matters for HE. Please charitably ascribe any oversights to a post-holidays sugar crash on my part rather than wilfully turning a blind eye, and let me know what I’ve missed in the comments.

Big ticket items

In Westminster politics, the first half of next year is going to be completely dominated by the spending review, which will set departmental budgets for three financial years (2026–29) as well as lay out a five-year programme of capital spending. It has always been described as being “in the spring”, but recent reports suggest that Labour will fly as close to the summer solstice as they can with this definition, so make sure you’ve got some free time in June to deal with the fallout.

If what we read in the papers is to be believed, what is – counterintuitively – the default policy of inflation-linked tuition fees will be confirmed for England at this point, taking us up over £10,000 a year by the end of the Parliament.

This is also when we’ll hear more about the government’s plans for ten-year R&D budgets. Attendees of the 2023 Labour conference may recall science secretary Peter Kyle promising a decade of confirmed funding for UKRI and ARIA – this commitment has been repeatedly qualified since then, partly due to issues of practicality (given that it’s not a ten-year spending review) and partly due to a question mark over whether fixing research spending in this way is really a good idea. It’s likely to be restricted now to “specific R&D activities” – the (much) bigger question will be around levels of investment in R&D. Plus we’ll see to what extent the government really wants to commit to linking research and its missions – last autumn brought only a small pot of cash for this in 2025–26.

Also due alongside the spending review is “further detail and plans for delivery” for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement – so don’t expect to hear much more before then, though the delayed commencement in 2027 makes the need for information marginally less pressing. And the finalised industrial strategy will also arrive, “aligned with” (and likely published together with) the spending review, laying out specific sector plans for areas like the creative industries, the life sciences, and professional services. Once complete, the idea is that these plans can then inform Skills England’s work, and potentially migration policy – it’s all very ambitious.

The HE reform announcement in England that we’ve been promised for “the summer” will land – it appears – fairly hot on the heels of the spending review settlements, and any money needed for it will need to have been allocated already, or at least tucked in to Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) projections in some way. On the topic of the OBR, its spring forecast is due on 26 March – there are rumblings that its revised projections could spell fiscal trouble for the government.

There are also clear indications that the HE reform statement will be preceded, or possibly accompanied, by a review of some kind. There have been rumours of a panel in place, and the indications are that this will fly under the radar somewhat and happen quickly – think Becky Francis’ curriculum review or Lord Darzi’s NHS audit, rather than a grand commission in the traditional “major review” style we have become used to.

Around the sector

Part of the Westminster government’s reform agenda is predicated on the sector coming up with ideas itself, which may end up drawing quite a lot on Universities UK’s blueprint from back in September. UUK’s own “efficiency and transformation taskforce” will be busy putting out recommendations on business models and collaboration, with the endorsement of education secretary Bridget Phillipson – “all options are on the table,” we are told, with plenty of policy debate likely to ensue once publications begin to appear.

With many universities in poor financial shape, the search for longer-term sustainability will likely be derailed at regular intervals by news of redundancies and course closures. National industrial action is a possibility, though there are real questions around the willingness of struggling union members to take action on pay at this point. Local disputes will continue to flare up. Alongside this we have a renewed push for newer English universities to be exempted from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme due to the massively increased costs it is now carrying, a move which would substantially inflame industrial relations if it came to pass.

And looming over all of this is the possibility of a disorderly market exit, and the question of whether the government has a viable plan in place to step in if a large institution were to hit the wall. All the other policy developments we are highlighting here could be hugely complicated by a sudden shock to the system and what is likely to be a political rather than a strategic response.

The world of regulation

There’s a lot to look out for from the Office for Students, from the appointment of a new permanent chair down (interviews are being held this month).

There’s the ongoing consultation on a new strategy, the continuing fallout from the temporary closure of the register (this should supposedly also bring new proposals on improvements to the registration process), whispers of a more “integrated approach” to quality and whatever that means for the TEF, and a greater regional focus to access and participation.

We should start getting assessment reports for the second round of quality investigations (where franchising and foundation years will be a focus) as well as the belated release of those grade inflation investigations that were announced on 2 September 2022. We’re waiting for consultation responses on a new approach to public grant funding and even on LLE regulation, though you can’t blame them for waiting to see what exactly the government is planning with this one.

According to last summer’s business plan, there should also be consultations of potential new initial conditions of registration on both management and governance, and consumer protection. And this year’s National Student Survey will have a sexual misconduct questionnaire appended – though it’s not clear at time of writing to what extent the results will be made public.

Over in Wales, Medr is taking shape, with a finalised strategic plan due to have been submitted to the Welsh government for approval just before the Christmas break – we should hear more of this soon, along with the consultation response.

And if all that sounds like a lot, in Scotland we are due a Post-School Education Reform Bill at some point in the 2024–25 parliamentary session, which will make big changes to how the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and Student Awards Agency Scotland operate. A consultation which closed in September asked stakeholders for thoughts on what the funding agency landscape should look like – we haven’t heard much since then. The sector is keen to stress the importance of universities retaining their autonomy, whatever happens – legislative passage could see MSPs push for new duties on the SFC.

We’ve been aware for a long time that the Office for National Statistics is undertaking a review into whether higher education should be seen as “public sector” in the national accounts – it’s now been slightly rejigged into a review of the statistical classification of “the transactions in which UK universities engage.” For what is a very technical definition, an eye over the recent travails of the FE sector suggest that there are potential implications for everything from procurement to senior staff pay. The long delayed work will kick off early in 2025.

The research agenda

What little research policy we’ve seen come out of the new government so far has been limited to haggling over budgets and science minister Patrick Vallance stressing that ministers should not meddle in university research. There’s no reason to think we will get big policy pronouncements out of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which feels more interested in the tech and digital side of its remit, both legislatively and aesthetically. But there’s lots going on around the margins that could end up being quite consequential.

First up we have the appointment of a new UKRI chief executive, where there’s already evidence the new minister has been having a think about longer term strategic direction. While the new roleholder won’t take up office until June, we should get news of the appointment fairly soon.

In the Research Excellence Framework world, the “modular” approach to releasing different policies on a staggered timetable will see the release of the volume measure policy (imminently) and the contribution to knowledge and understanding policy (scheduled for the summer). The more contentious people, culture and environment pilot will continue throughout the year, with criteria and definitions due for the winter – any slippage on this will likely provoke controversy.

At UKRI, January will bring an update on its work reviewing how PGR stipends are set (as well as the stipend level for 2025–26). Elsewhere, the ongoing National Audit Office work looking at UKRI grants and loans could be a wildcard – it’s due to report in spring 2025 – and at the very least is a moment where the government will need to comment on how the research funding system is operating. Research England is also thinking about the current state of research infrastructure, via its condition of the estate survey, and how the sector’s financial challenges are affecting research – for both of these pieces of ongoing work, it’s doubtful that much will be shared publicly.

Further afield, a European Commission proposal for the successor to Horizon Europe is due midway through the year, preceded by an interim evaluation of the current funding programme which will likely give an indication of its plans. We will also get regulations for the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme in the new year – the measures, which will speak to research security, are now expected to come into effect in the summer. It’s been reported that the government is resisting calls to put China on the “enhanced tier” of the scheme, a move that would have greatly complicated UK-China academic partnerships. On a related note, the government has quietly been conducting a “China audit” – this will be released in the coming months, and in theory will spell out the policy areas where closer ties will be permitted.

Finally, the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will be conducting a timely inquiry into regional R&D, which should be a good opportunity for some more insight into how the government’s English devolution-related plans for more mayoral involvement in the research system will come together.

International

If you had to pick a policy area that will have the biggest macro impacts on the sector in 2025, you could do a lot worse than opt for international recruitment (you would arguably have been proved right if you’d chosen it in any of the last few years).

Two big policy items are on their way here: a legal migration white paper, spelling out how the government will fulfil its electoral promise to bring net migration down. And a revised international education strategy (IES), which we’re told is coming “early spring” – whether it will appear before, after, or alongside the white paper remains to be seen, but could be significant.

The big questions here are whether the government will put a recruitment target on the face of the strategy – the aspiration for 600,000 students in the last one ended up coming back to haunt the Conservatives among their own base – and what the plan for education exports targets might be. But there are other areas we could see movement, such as on post-study work, where some in the sector seem hopeful that a little improvement could be on offer, despite the enormous political pushback the Graduate route has faced over the last couple of years. It feels like an outside bet.

More important to keep an eye on will be whether some kind of arrangement is arrived at with net migration statistics – we know that the Office for National Statistics is looking at how estimates excluding students could be arrived at, and it’s been on the higher education sector’s wishlist for years.

If it did come to pass, the devil would very much be in the detail – the Migration Advisory Committee annual report has already been noting the contribution that students make to long-term net migration, and Starmerite think tank Labour Together’s recent proposal is for visa routes such as Skilled Worker and Graduate to have multi-year targets, even if the Student visa does not. Put like that, it sounds like a recipe for universities to recruit pretty freely but for students’ post-study options to remain a political football – the seeming lack of student involvement in the IES review would appear all the more glaring in this case. The Universities UK blueprint did promise a kind of quid pro quo on responsible international recruitment, and it has been notable that government ministers have stressed the importance of housing availability when the question has come up in Parliament recently.

Whatever comes out of it, it looks clear that the Home Office will continue to toe a careful line on student visas, and continue to implement the last government’s Graduate route review response. The use of “action plans” by UKVI for certain providers will continue, even if there is no substantive public comment from the Home Office about what these are and why they are being imposed. And there will also be a review of English language self-assessment policies over the next few months, “driven by growing concern around underlying reasons for reports of students being picked up at the border or entering UKHE with low levels of English” (in UUKi’s words). It’s unlikely much will be shared publicly about these, but they are items to watch, especially in the event that there is further negative publicity about international students in the media.

It’s worth stressing that developments in migration and visa policy do not only affect students – the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee is next week highlighting the interplay between visas and international researchers, and there are ongoing issues such as the future of the family visa income threshold where the government will eventually need to take a position.

And despite all this policy in play, the three most significant factors for future international recruitment with likely be the Australian federal election – where the incumbent government’s attempts to impose number caps have been thwarted by an opposition that wants bigger caps – the Canadian election – which could happen at any minute if Justin Trudeau is forced out, and where the Conservatives are strongly favoured to take power – and the impact of Donald Trump on the USA, where universities are already reportedly asking international students to return before he takes office. All these things have the potential to greatly benefit the UK “market”.

Skills, skills, skills

Before we get any HE reform news out of Westminster, there’s going to be policy elsewhere in the post-compulsory system, with Skills England gearing up for action – we’ll learn the appointments of chief executive and permanent chair pretty soon – and various policy pronouncements at this end of the tertiary sector are overdue.

Probably the most impactful for higher education is confirmation about exactly what is happening with the apprenticeship levy, both in wider terms of the planned additional flexibility for non-apprentice courses (this will be less than the 50 per cent originally proposed… at least probably), and for the “defunding” of level 7 apprenticeships.

Many universities are big operators in this space, and it appears that most if not all of these programmes will be removed from the levy’s scope (“a significant number” is the most recent framing from the government). Over Christmas the Telegraph reported that the much-feted doctor apprenticeship is now “paused in perpetuity”. We should get the full picture very soon, as well as the much-awaited post-16 strategy, which you would hope would give a decent insight into the government’s wider vision for tertiary education. Though it may not.

The defunding of level 7 apprenticeships is also relevant for those higher education institutions that have been spending their levy contributions on such courses for their staff as part of their professional development offer. DfE assures us all that employers are more than welcome to pay for them using different funds, “where they feel they provide a good return on their investment.”

Our world in data

We’re getting the outcome of the Data Futures review soon! There may be some lessons to learn about programme management and platform delivery, which could play out as a shared commitment to improving processes or as an unedifying multi-agency row. Whatever the case, this year’s HESA Student data will arrive later than usual – “in the spring, earlier than last year’s August publication but later than the January release date achieved in previous years.” Whether this is spring as in daffodils, or spring as in spending review, remains to be seen – but the delay (and issues with data quality as we saw last year) will have a knock on effect on data releases elsewhere, once again.

At the end of this month we are getting HESA Staff data for 2023–24. The headline figures from last year’s release did get quoted the odd time by the previous government – in answer to questions about the impact of redundancies and cuts, it would occasionally be pointed out by ministers that (academic) staff numbers were still rising when you look at the sector as a whole. These figures won’t show the impact of this academic year’s cuts, however.

Of course, elsewhere we have the usual releases which make up the HE wonk’s annual working rhythm. UCAS end-of-cycle numbers, at provider level, are due out at the end of January, and further down the line (probably around spending review time!) we have HESA Finance data and the Office for Students’ accompanying financial sustainability report, which will likely once again be a moment of maximum attention for higher education’s bottom line.

One other piece of data we are getting this spring is a new ONS release on student suicides. This will come alongside the independent review commissioned by the last government, and whatever the findings is likely to generate a lot of press coverage and renewed pushes from campaign groups and opposition parties for a statutory duty of care. Early indications from the current government is that they are happy with the voluntary, sector-led approach to mental health – but things can change.

Elsewhere in government

It’s amazing it’s taken us this long to get to it, but probably the biggest, most controversial item on DfE’s to-do list is a decision on the fate of the free speech act and its associated provisions and complaints scheme. The Free Speech Union has its day in court on 23 January as part of a legal challenge over the pausing of the bill’s commencement – it’s just possible that the government will try to get a decision out before then. Or it could all drag on intractably for several more months, very much in keeping with the legislation’s passage through Parliament.

Another hugely consequential move which we may see from DfE this month is the launch of a consultation on proposals to “strengthen oversight of partnership delivery in higher education” in conjunction with OfS. The department “will be developing options for legislative change, if required,” the Public Accounts Committee was told back in September, with a target date of January 2025 for an update.

We’re due impact assessments and regulations for the tuition fee and maintenance “increases”, which should also involve a government pronouncement on how much the national insurance increase will cost the sector. And while it’s not higher education business, the soon-to-appear curriculum review (covering the curriculum in England from key stage 1 to key stage 5) will have long-term consequences for the wider education system – as well as likely sparking further backlash among those worried about it recklessly promoting diversity and risking PISA scores.

Elsewhere in Westminster, the ongoing parliamentary passage of massive pieces of legislation will have big consequences for universities and students. The Employment Rights Bill and the Renters’ Rights Bill will both likely see some amendments, and we’re still awaiting the text of the English Devolution Bill and the promised “Hillsborough” bill. The government’s NHS plan for change – again, due at some point in the spring – and proposed updates to the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan are important to keep an eye on as well.

Up in Scotland, one day we may see the fruits of the ongoing review of student maintenance for part-time students. Negotiations over the 2025–26 budget will dominate the parliamentary agenda in the early part of the year, with ministers appearing in front of committees to get into the details of what exactly will be funded and what will not – and then the countdown to 2026 elections begins (all of this sentence is also true in Wales).

It’s dangerous to go alone – take this

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. It feels like there is currently a huge number of moving parts in play in policy-land, all of which will contribute to the future shape and operations of the UK higher education sector in various, often hard-to-predict ways. Some are pretty immediate, others are issues that should have been tackled long ago, and then there are long-term policy changes that will be massive news in the 2030s.

Here at Wonkhe we try to cover every single policy development that affects the sector, especially in our Daily Briefings (which restart on Tuesday 7 January – my alarm is already set).

So if you’re interested in following even a fraction of the stuff that’s set out above, do join us for the ride this year. And fair warning, it’s likely that a good number of the most important developments that 2025 has in store for us are not even on this list. We’ll cover those as well, the moment they arrive.