13 August 2025 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
BUFDG
Do you know, someone who is organised, enthusiastic, and keen to learn new skills? Someone who would appreciate working in our friendly, supportive team, based from home, but with UK travel involved? We're still recruiting for our BUFDG Support Officer role and we are looking for an enthusiastic and proactive individual to join the team, to play a key role in coordinating webinars and online meetings, assisting with e-learning initiatives, and supporting the BUFDG team with general administrative tasks. The role has plenty of scope for the successful candidate to develop and shape it, and also scope for them to develop new skills! The closing date for applications is next Monday 18th August (10am), so have a look now / pass it on / tell someone who you think would be ideal for our team!
A reminder that we've launched five new e-learning courses in the past few weeks, so we’ve now got 52 courses in total (all CPD certified), and you can access them all from our e-learning webpage. (Use the 'Access the e-learning button link on that webpage to link through to our e-learning platform). The new courses are:
And there are two more on their way shortly:
We recently submitted written evidence to the Education Select Committee's inquiry into Higher Education and Funding: Threat of Insolvency and International Students on behalf of BUFDG members. Don’t forget you can find information about a lot of the advocacy work BUFDG undertakes on behalf of members on our Advocacy webpage.
SECTOR
Wonkhe wants to hear from staff in universities and HEPs to “build a picture of aspects of higher education staff experiences that might not always get captured in institutional surveys or be well understood at national level…to help inform policymaking and the leadership and management of change given the financial and external pressures currently facing higher education”. So if you’ve got a few minutes, have a look at the Wonkhe HE institution staff survey (and you could win a £50 voucher plus a £50 donation to charity).
How much does it really cost to be a student today? According to research carried out by Loughborough University for this HEPI and Technology One report on A Minimum Income Standard for Students, around £20,000 a year as first years – twice the maximum maintenance support available (for England). The report covers all four UK nations.
The OfS has released the latest B3 data covering completion rates (2016-2019), continuation rates (2019-2022) and progression rates (2019-2022), and Wonkhe has some further analysis tables.
In a HEPI article, two academics in the field of Education, have reviewed what has happened in education policy over the past 12 months, and what may be announced in the government’s white paper on post-16 skills and H E (now hopefully incoming in the autumn). Suggestions of what it might contain include proposals for: the development of regional education and skills pathways to support the credit and modular funding arrangements needed for the LLE, how the 6% international student levy will be used to pay for the upskilling of domestic learners, rebalancing of funding towards institutions that have not recruited international students, tightened controls over franchise and transnational education arrangements, and changes to CMA guidance on regional institutional cooperation, among others. And this HEPI blog looks at the cost of the previously proposed levy on international student fees, using data from 2023-24 to determine the potential cost for each HEP in England, which totals £621m across the sector. You can also listen to Nick Hillman of HEPI talking about this on the Today programme (at 53:52).
Universities UK’s new Chair, Malcolm Press CBE, VC of Manchester Metropolitan University, is now ‘in post’, and provided an interview to the Times Higher in which he demonstrated a realist position – “There’s no point saying ‘Can we turn the clock back? Can we put these things back to where they were?’ Because the resources just aren’t there… we have to…be very reasonable in what we ask for. And when we’re asking for things, we have to show to the government that there is a quid pro quo.”
The FT (£) reports that “US buyout group Brightstar has agreed to buy 50% stake in Arden University in a deal worth more than $1bn” and they intend to use AI to translate Arden’s courses to expand to offer degrees globally next year.
GuildHE’s CFO, Mark Taylor, has written this piece on how insolvency can happen more quickly than you might imagine. It identifies the “key risk points any institution experiencing financial challenges should take on board and the strategies institutions can put in place to mitigate these risks”.
A-level results come out tomorrow (14 August) so look out for a slew of information on the outcomes and the implications for clearing and for university places (and finances) in all the usual places: Wonkhe, HEPI, THE, as well as the mainstream media. Some are already at it with the Guardian predicting that “A-level results in England [are] expected to return to near pre-pandemic levels”, and the Times Higher reporting that a quarter of A-level students plan to undertake an apprenticeship, with almost two in five students believing a degree is not necessary for a good career, and the Times (£) reporting that some schools are teaching sixth-formers “how to make phone calls and manage the anxiety of speaking to university admissions officers before clearing”, as they have “phenomenal digital literacy but their interpersonal skills are less developed”.
SCOTLAND
The SFC has released the Accounts Direction for Scotland’s universities for 2024-25.
The SQA has announced that results day on 5 August marked a “landmark year” for results, with Wonkhe reporting that “[m]ore Scottish 18 year olds will start university in 2025 than ever before, with nearly 80 per cent (16,490) placed at their first or insurance choice of course”.
WALES
University of Wales Trinity Saint David VC, Elwen Evans, is the new Chair of Universities Wales (effective 1 August).
Medr has confirmed £1bn of H E and FE funding allocations for 2025-26 based on the assumptions published in January. For H E this includes a small drop in research funding and a small increase in teaching funding.
TAX AND PAYROLL
Andrea is gathering information from members about what you may want to hear about from EY India in an upcoming Time to Talk session – if you’d like to know more about tax issues in India, add your views on the discussion here!
Draft legislation has been published for umbrella companies. Whilst of limited interest to universities, some do contract with umbrella companies for the supply of staff. If universities want to continue to do this, without an organisation in between, it is imperative to carry out far more robust due diligence procedures, at a minimum, to reduce the risk of non-compliance.
PROCUREMENT
We are delighted to announce that Emma Keenan, Head of Procurement at SOAS, University of London, is the new Chair of the £100m to £200m turnover Head of Procurement group. The next meeting of the group will be on Monday 15 September via Teams - sign up here.
You can now subscribe to a new, monthly digital update from the Jisc Procurement and Supplier Management team, designed specifically for procurement professionals across the H E sector. You can find out about the topics each update will contain here, and sign-up via the Jisc website here.
FINANCIAL REPORTING
The FEHE SORP has now reached the final phase of approval with the Financial Reporting Council, and the SORP Board is in the process of gaining permission to publish from the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation (IFRS). Those working on the implementation of the new SORP, which is effective from 1 January 2026, can book onto the next FEHE SORP Implementation Forum taking place online Tuesday 9 September, 1-3pm.
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
UKRI has published the latest analyses using TRAC data that visualise the funding flows in the H E sector.
SUSTAINABILITY / ESTATES
AUDE has published a new Guide to Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, authored with Arup.
The Carbon Trust Cities and Regions team is hosting a webinar series to explore practical, actionable steps that public sector organisations, including H E providers, can take to accelerate their net zero journeys.
FUNDING
QMPF has published an article about Income strip considerations for the H E sector, identifying a number of matters universities should contemplate where they are considering this financing route.
INVESTMENT
The Financial Times (£) has published an article on the Cambridge-led Banking Engagement Forum’s bond index, cash, and quasi-Money Market Fund projects, describing them as “a long-overdue development in the divestment and exclusion debate, which has long paid too little attention to debt finance”.
LGIM is holding a webinar for universities on 11 September exploring cash ladder strategies. LGIM’s team believes this approach has the potential to improve real returns on universities’ cash portfolios and can help to ensure cash is available as needed. Find out more and book your place here.
BUFDG’s Investment Management and Practice (IMP) and Financial Sustainability And Climate Related Environmental Disclosures (SACRED) groups have evolved from regular working groups to occasional task-and-finish groups, meeting only when needed. Therefore, the Chairs of these groups will therefore no longer sit on the Exec Committee, but will continue to advise as needed.
PENSIONS
Julia has put a pensions update on the discussion board, including information on a new Pensions Commission, the Pensions Policy Institute’s latest UK Pensions Framework, overseas pensions guidance updates from HMRC, the USS annual reports, updates to the NHS Pension Scheme, June’s LGPS update, some TPS updates, as well as notes from First Actuarial’s webinar on pensions challenges. Phew!
MISCELLANEOUS
The main Job of the Fortnight has to be our own BUFDG Support Officer role! As mentioned in the BUFDG section above, it’ll be a varied role working with an awesome team (if we do say so ourselves!), mainly based at home with some UK travel. The closing date is next Monday (18 August) so check out the details now, and pass the link on to anyone you think would be a great fit.
As well as our BUFDG role, we’ve picked this vacancy for a Grants and Finance Officer at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford. The post holder will support all aspects of pre and post award research and financial administration at the institute, working closely with the Faculty’s Research Support Team, the Institute Administrator and Institute’s Head of Research.
Have you thought about your training and development for the autumn? Check out our BUFDG Events calendar for plenty of options, including Strategic Finance Business Partnering, Time to Talk Financial Planning and Analysis, a non-contracting authorities group meeting, and the TRAC Practitioners Conference, and much more…! And don’t forget to check out all our e-learning courses and make a plan to undertake some of those too (all CPD certified).
