Managing for a post-recession society

Steve Egan, Deputy Chief Executive, HEFCE

HEFCE's Deputy Chief Executive, Steve Egan said that while universities should make the case for increased investment, they had to recognise the financial pressures in a post-recession society.

There would be no more fully-funded additional student numbers in the medium term. At the same time, there was increased demand from students, government and employers, and growing international competition, including more courses taught through English in European universities. Interestingly, a combination of better school results, higher staying-on rates and immigration had reduced earlier fears that demographic pressures would reduce demand.

Success would depend on four key approaches by universities and colleges:

• first, they should focus on strengths, dropping weaker activities, building the right partnerships and improving their brand
• second, they should align funding to their strategic priorities – without alignment, strategy is useless
• third, they should improve efficiency with new business models, shared services and better procurement. Benchmarking spending on estates and staff costs could help
• and, fourth, they need to maintain public confidence – the lighter regulation enjoyed by the sector can't be taken for granted.

Governors played a key strategic role. And HEFCE could help through its strategic development and leadership, governance and management funds, as well as through Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) - the methodology used by higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK for costing their activities.