THE Scottish Funding Council prides itself on helping to make Scotland the “best place in the world” to “educate, research and innovate” but that claim looks a little threadbare in the light of concerning revelations about how the body has been operating in recent years.
A leaked report into the handling of £50 million of unspent funds which the Scottish Government wanted back lays bare poor communications within the SFC as well as what political opponents label “gross mismanagement”. The investigation highlights that the council was in talks with some institutions about how some of £50m reserve could be spent despite having been told by the Scottish Government that it would have to repay the money. At least one university had to scale back a campus-relocation project as a result.
On any objective reading, SFC demonstrated startling incompetence in its internal communications, its communications with ministers, and its accountancy procedures. That said, questions must also be asked of Education Secretary John Swinney, who, last December, told MSPs all institutions had received all of their public funding. This, say the Conservative and Labour opposition, does not dovetail with the SFC’s actions. And why were ministers so keen to reclaim the £50m at a time of budget cutbacks and fees being introduced in England?
This is a sensitive time for the SFC as its board may be scrapped under a review of enterprise and skills agencies. It is worth pointing out, however, that the investigation does not blame the board, and there are still significant concerns about the impact on universities of centralising control over the SFC. Overall, this has been an unedifying episode, not least the fact that the limited public pronouncements about what was happening behind closed doors at the SFC point to a climate of secrecy and cover-up.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel