Mandarins dismiss fear over university governance bill

Stephen White, strategic policy lead at the Scottish government, told the Scottish Parliament’s finance committee that there had been a “thorough consideration of the risk with the emphasis squarely on the indicators of control”.

Mr White said: “Nothing in this bill requires higher education institutions to ask ministers for permission for anything. It’s not about ministerial control.”

He added: “There’s absolutely no intention on the government’s part to have any direct involvement or control on appointments.”

Alistair Sim of Universities Scotland told MSPs the bill presented a “very significant risk” to Scottish universities of re-classification by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) under European accounting rules.

Such a move could affect universities’ charitable status and see them lose out on important donations and tax breaks.

Mr Sim told the committee: “The advice we’ve had from our legal advisers is that the bill, when looked at in cumulation with existing indicators of government control, creates a significantly increased risk of ONS reclassification.”

However, Kerry Twyman, a Scottish government finance expert, said the government would respond to any reclassification decision by asking for “a period to view the entire structure around universities to potentially make changes that would keep them outwith that boundary”.

The committee also received a letter from the Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator, which said universities would not lose their charitable status as a consequence of the bill.

The letter states: “Our view is that the provisions do not form part of the constitutions of the chartered universities or designated institutions, and that ministerial control therefore does not fall to be considered in respect of these charities.”

Image © Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body – 2012. Licensed under the Open Scottish Parliament Licence v1.0