MOVES to get more students from poorer backgrounds into university are being hampered by the way potential applicants are identified, principals have warned.

Universities said the use of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) to measure success at improving access was flawed.

Because the index identifies pockets of deprivation through postcode areas critics argue it is too blunt to pick up the circumstances of individual applicants.

However, institutions are still being measured on their ability to attract students from the lowest SIMD areas and the sector also has an overall target to increase participation by 2030.

Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, said a much wider spectrum of measures should be used including eligibility for free school meals, household income and whether an applicant’s school had a low progression rate to higher education.

He said: “We are absolutely committed to widening access to universities, but we need to be looking at it on a properly evidenced basis where you look at a multiplicity of factors.

“SIMD tells you you live in a postcode area where there are a lot of indicators of multiple deprivation, but within that postcode you can go across the street from one area that is deprived to one that isn’t really deprived.

“Only about half the people who get free school meals are in an area of multiple deprivation and SIMD does absolutely nothing to measure rural deprivation. It is an inadequate measure.”

Vonnie Sandlan, president of student body NUS Scotland, backed the use of SIMD as a measure to compare individual institutions,

She added: "At a local level a broader basket of measures may be appropriate to target widening access programmes and help make individual decisions.

“However, the use of SIMD absolutely doesn’t disbar those additional measures being used to improve fair access.”

Iain Gray, education spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party, described SIMD as a “deeply flawed” measure of equity in university access.

He added: “Most young people from disadvantaged backgrounds do not live in the lowest SIMD areas, so will not count if they do get to higher education while students from better off families who happen to live in a poorer SIMD area will count as widening access.

“The Scottish Government’s own Widening Access Commission told them this, but they persist in a target based on SIMD.”

Dr John Kemp, interim chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council, accepted SIMD measures did not perform well when targeting individuals, but said they were very good at measuring how well the sector was doing to target deprived areas.

A Scottish Government spokesman added: “The Commission on Widening Access made clear that structural unfairness must be addressed through wider changes in the way the talent of potential students is evaluated and we will continue to work with the sector to make access even fairer.”