Commissioner for Fair Access: annual report 2025/26

6 - The future for fair access in Scotland – an expansive conception of fair access as a national mission

What we currently understand as fair access in Scotland (and much of the UK) is an amalgam of approaches. We might describe fair access to higher education in contemporary Scotland as accumulating a range of strategies since the establishment of universities as institutions to train society’s elites, i.e.:

• For much of university history, those with limited means could secure access through competitive bursaries or preferential patronage. This tended to be limited to a small number who often demonstrated exceptional excellence and potential on entry.
• Widening access was achieved through university expansion, which in the UK was initially facilitated through fee-free access, maintenance grants during term-time, and access to wider welfare benefits.
• Purposeful widening access work was introduced to facilitate access for those with potential who had not demonstrated capability through ‘traditional’ pathways to higher education. This was an explicit acknowledgement that more people were deemed capable of pursuing higher education than were accessing it. This work was an integral part of a rapid expansion of university education, which paradoxically coincided with a scaling back of financial support for students.

This was largely the shared history of higher education in the UK. More recently, since the adoption of the Commission on Widening Access (CoWA) in Scotland, some divergence in strategy/purpose can be identified:

• Conception of ‘widening’ access as a focused target to achieve national social justice has characterised recent work in Scotland. This has an explicit focus on Scottish-domiciled students, first-degree students, students pursuing full-time study, students in higher education institutions, and students from Scotland’s most deprived areas.

Although it would be misleading to portray fair access work in contemporary Scotland as limited to the narrow conception of the CoWA target populations, it is inevitable that these shape practice and dominate discussion and debate. I would argue that this approach has served Scotland fairly well, as it has energised and incentivised recent work to promote fair access. However, there are limitations to conceiving of fair access in such limited terms, and as we approach 2030, it is timely to consider future directions, which I would suggest should be an expansive conception of fair access as a national mission. It is my intention to develop a vision of the future shape of fair access work in Scotland, which I will present in my next report. Progress is already being made on key aspects. This will comprise:

• Entry, experience and exit. Consideration of what is required up to, and beyond, the point of entry to higher education.
• Sharpening of target focus. Ensuring that fair access work is targeted effectively.
• Ecosystem. An understanding of all the contributions to promoting fair access.
• Parity of esteem. A focus on both higher and further education.
• Totality of higher education (tertiary education). An extension of a fair access focus beyond Scottish-domiciled, full-time and first-degree students.
• Enriched analysis and use of data. More granularity in analysis, introducing longitudinal perspectives, and using data earlier to shape practice.
• Evaluation. Strengthening the evidence base on what works, under what conditions.