North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the Cabinet Secretary for Education to ensure universities across Wales are given the financial support they need.
Mr Isherwood said Universities, including Bangor University, which is being forced to lay off staff because of significant financial challenges, need assurances that they that they will not be required to continue ‘coughing up’.
Challenging the Cabinet Secretary, Kirsty Williams AM, in the Chamber this week, he said:
“Bangor University staff are facing 115 compulsory redundancies. The university says this is because they need to save £8.5 million to address significant financial challenges, and we understand a number of other universities across the length and breadth of Wales are considering how they’re going to square the financial circle in similar circumstances.
“We know that universities lost out on tens of millions of pounds taken from them and given in grants paid to English universities through the fees of students going over the border to study, something that your party (Liberal Democrats) and mine accepted from Labour couldn’t be done after your party and mine and Plaid voted to scrap student fees during the second Assembly.
“We also know that yesterday, Universities Wales, responding to your Student Support Package, referred to having had to absorb the increases in costs since the introduction of the current tuition fee system in 2012. Following your announcement yesterday, therefore, how quickly will the savings generated actually generate greater funding being received by universities in Wales to hopefully mitigate against these tough decisions they’re having to take?”
The Cabinet Secretary replied:
“Despite ongoing financial pressures, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been able to allocate funds in excess of £100 million to the sector for 2017-18, but there are challenging times ahead. However, our predictions over the implementation of Diamond should see HEFCW’s budget grow to be able to support our higher education institutions but, of course, that is subject to the usual budgeting processes that we have here in the Assembly. But you will be aware that, in my agreement that brought me into Government, I and the First Minister have agreed that universities should be no worse off as a result of the implementation of Diamond. In fact, it’s true to say that the implementation of Diamond will cost money to the Government in the first instance, but it is the right thing to do for Welsh students and Welsh institutions.”
Mr Isherwood added: “The Welsh Government has been ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ to fund its Welsh Student Fee Programme, with Welsh Universities playing the role of ‘Peter’, and it is simply not good enough for the Cabinet Secretary to now say that ‘universities should be no worse off’ under her new Student Support Package. Our Universities need assurance that they will not be required to continue ‘coughing up’ and we need to know why this Package, including its reduced grant threshold, will not be generating savings that can go back to our universities.”