Seòmar agus comataidhean

On the pressure on social infrastructure—housing for students who have come to Aberdeen and primary school places for their children—are you planning? It does not feel to me as if those pressures are being planned for appropriately.

We had a series of college principals in front of us last week who told us that the SFC was asking them to assume that there would be a 2 per cent uplift in pay. In their view—in everyone’s view, I think—that is deeply unrealistic; it is not happening. You are not making the same assumption about universities, are you.

In the years ahead, we are looking at very significant real-terms cuts to university funding on the teaching and research side. Ellie Gomersall, do you have hopes or signs from your members in the NUS that the situation might improve? What level of response do we require from the Government in order to change the situation?

It does not feel as if that balance works at the moment, given some of the evidence we have heard today. I understand that the issue does not sit on your desk, however.

During the years I taught at universities, international students made an unbelievable contribution in the classroom, to the richness of the learning and to diversity. Frankly, as a teacher, it is a pleasure to have international students in the room, contributing to those conversations.

I worry that we are not planning. It is difficult to plan for volatile markets and the pressures that colleagues have told us about this morning around the housing market and school places for the children of students coming into the country. You tell us now that those pressures will continue to increase given the demand and the need for universities to increase the numbers. Are we planning our social infrastructure to cope with those pressures?

It has been pushed back a month—it is not that much of an emergency, by the sounds of things.

We hear a lot of concerning issues, and we could talk about there being almost a crisis. Karen Watt mentioned the peak challenge. The Bank of England has had to step in to bail out UK pension funds, so the situation is getting worse. In the long term, what are the prospects if we continue on the current path? That is what we have to be concerned about. In the long term, where will the current path lead us?

It will be short. In the REF results, England is, in essence, improving at a faster rate than Scotland. The results were great for Scotland, but the long-term trend is not good.

It is my understanding that the Scottish Government has a legal duty to ensure, through the universities, that there is accommodation and support for students under the age of 18. Do you understand that to be the case?

There is an emergency situation at the moment, with people not able to find accommodation and having to withdraw from courses. I think that most people would agree that that is completely unacceptable.

I want to ask a couple of questions about the longer term. Why are we here? Mary Senior has already touched on some of that in relation to the business model. It strikes me that universities are caught in a growth cycle—they have to continue to grow in order to plug funding gaps. Do you have any confidence that the situation will not get worse again next year? Is that just the path that we are on, or is there any sign that we can get off that escalator and deal with the problems?