Education budget drops

Higher education budgets in Scotland have dropped by £135 million in real terms in the last decade, according to Scottish Labour.

The party said figures provided by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICE) show the Scottish Government has “deprioritised” universities.

The figures show a drop since the 2010-11 financial year from £1.16 billion to £1.025bn for next year – when the figures are adjusted for inflation.

All of the figures released by the party reflect real-terms spending in 2019-20.

Public Finance Minister Kate Forbes announced the Scottish Government’s draft funding pledges in Holyrood on Thursday, pledging £1.044bn in cash terms for higher education in the next year.

The proposed difference, in real terms, between university funding for this year and the coming year is just £100,000.

Capital budgets for universities have also remained largely stagnant, at £41.2m for the coming year, a real terms rise of £3m – but representing a fall of more than 50% in real terms from 2010-11, when the budget stood at £97.4m in 2019-20 prices.