Commissioner for Fair Access: annual report 2025/26

Executive summary

The time is now

Over next few months, work will be completed that will determine whether Scotland has met the next interim target milestone set by the Commission for Widening Access back in 2016, i.e., “By 2026, (Scottish-domiciled) students from the 20% most deprived backgrounds should represent at least 18% of full-time first-degree entrants to Scottish universities as a whole”. With the support of school teachers, college lecturers, and access and participation practitioners, school pupils and college students will be working hard to achieve the grades needed. Adult returners with unconditional acceptances will be laying the groundwork for a return to full-time education to manage the challenges that will bring alongside its opportunities. Within universities, a range of professionals will perform a diverse range of duties - induction programmes will be further improved, arrangements for Clearing will be made, estimations of the numbers of new entrants will be counted, calibrated and modelled, and academics will be thinking of how best to embed new students into their chosen programme of study. The UCAS’ end of cycle report toward the end of 2026 will give an early indication of the likelihood of the 2026 target being met, as will the Early Access Returns of the Scottish Funding Council that will be available early in 2027. However, official confirmation will not arrive until the publication of the Report on Widening Access (RoWA) in 2028.

Time to up the ante

Whatever the outcome of the 2026-27 admission cycle, there is a now a need to pivot and introduce a new phase of work to achieve fair access to higher education in Scotland. I understand that some may retort that the time is not right, making reference to the challenging financial circumstances with which the tertiary sector is grappling, or the fact that we already have an ambition for fair access and should be focusing all our attention on achieving this. I do not accept either as a valid reason for being less ambitious. First, as I argue in this report, the many challenges that tertiary education faces render it more important that we are more ambitious in our work to achieve fair access. Second, as the RoWA of 2023-24 evidences, we can strengthen our commitment to fair access from a position of strength – recent progress has been achieved on many fronts, despite the challenges that present.

Where to next?

We have achieved much, but there is much more to be done. The priority actions I suggest are a mix of contemporary action and reflection, and necessary actions to strengthen the foundations for the future of fair access work:

• First and foremost, we need to ensure we do all that is reasonable over the next few months to achieve the 2026 Interim Target, and then reflect on the outcome and respond to it.
• We need to commit resource and develop a plan to introduce a single student identifier that would enable us to better understand student journeys through education, identify ‘what works’ best, and evaluate the efficiency of investment (public, private, and charitable).
• A preferred individual-level indicator must be identified, at the very least to complement if not replace, the area-based indicator that is currently used to appraise whether those from ‘deprived backgrounds’ are accessing higher education.
• A national framework for early intervention is required - in the Broad General Education of schools, and in Community and Adult Education – with a focus on raising awareness, familiarisation, and inspiration, which would allow existing national, regional and local access programmes to focus more squarely on conversion and progression.
• We need a more inclusive focus for fair access, i.e., one that is sharply focused on, but not limited to, the entry to undergraduate higher education in universities, of full-time, first-degree students of Scottish-domicile.

Something for the pessimists, something for the optimists

There is plenty of evidence to please those who view the world with a glass half full:

• The 16.7% of entrants from the 20% Most Deprived Areas in Scotland (SIMD20 areas) in 2023-24 matches the highest proportion previously recorded (2020-21) and the number of such entrants (5,445 in 2023-24) is just short of the highest number of such entrants previously recorded (5,595 in 2021-22). Notably, 2023-24 returned the highest proportion and highest number of SIMD20 entrants outside the exceptional circumstances of entry to higher education during the COVID pandemic years.
• Five institutions reported their highest ever proportion of entrants from SIMD20 areas in 2023-24, with a further six institutions reporting their highest ever proportion in 2023-24, outside the ‘pandemic years’.
• The number and proportion of care-experienced students continues to increase: 2023-24 marked the seventh annual increase in the number of entrants who are care experienced.
• 16,115 (19.2%) of Scottish-domiciled entrants to higher education in Further Education Institutions (FEIs) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (together) in Scotland were drawn from SIMD20 areas in 2023-24.
• After two rounds of falling rates in retention, there was a three-percentage-point increase in 2023-24 in the proportion of fair access entrants returning to study in year 2.

On the other hand, praise must be qualified, and complacency should be avoided:

• Rates of retention in 2023-24 were lower than at any time since 2013-14, other than 2022-23. One in seven fair access students are not returning for a second year of study.
• If each HEI had matched their highest ever proportion of entrants from SIMD20 areas in 2023-24, 17.5% of entrants would have been from one of Scotland’s 20% Most Deprived Areas. This is considerably higher than the 16.7% of entrants that was reported, but still less than the 18% that is the next Interim Target for 2026.
• There is significant variation across disciplines in the proportion of entrants from the most deprived areas, ranging from 27.4% in ‘Combined and General Studies’ to 7.0% in ‘Geography, Earth and Environmental Studies’ in 2023-24.
• The proportion of entrants from SIMD20 areas articulating into higher education from a college route fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2023-24, with those students now comprising just under one-third of such entrants.

The strengthening of the foundations

Evidence matters, but student numbers do not convey the breadth of innovations and action that have been introduced to achieve fair access in the last few years:

• Replacing the flat-rate 10% target for individual HEIs with a stretch target, calibrated separately for each.
• Improving the utility of the RoWA by disaggregating SIMD data beyond quintiles.
• Reviewing and revising the National Schools Programme.
• The focus in 2025 of the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee on ‘widening access to higher education’.
• Introducing fair access criteria in applications for postgraduate studentships to the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science.
• Some individual academic disciplines are focusing on fair access.
• New investment in fair access by charitable trusts in Scotland.
• Adoption and strengthening of personalised and preventative models of support to fair access students after they access higher education.
• Strengthening of connections between the academic research community in Scotland and those access and participation practitioners concerned to measure impact.
• Closer working between the Commissioner for Fair Access, Scottish Funding Council (Student Interests, Access and Quality team) and Scottish Government (Student Equalities and Fair Access team).

These developments are most welcome, but even this list is not the sum total of new innovation with many other developments also strengthening the infrastructure to support fair access.

Further improving the existing evidence base

As noted above, fair access in Scotland is already underpinned by much good practice and is informed by a rich evidence base. However, there are ways in which both evidence and practice could be strengthened. The Scottish Funding Council (as author of the RoWA) is receptive to suggestions to increase the utility of the RoWA. In my report, I make ten recommendations to strengthen the RoWA evidence base, and three further suggestions to strengthen evidence beyond RoWA:

• Introduce a more accurate way of describing and/or explaining what are presented as ‘retention data’ in the RoWA.
• Disaggregate ‘retention data’ to provide data for each year of study within the degree.
• Examine the practicalities of disaggregating retention data for the second and third year of a four-year degree to enable comparison between students who, at the start of that year, (i) articulated and commenced degree study, and (ii) those who continued with their degree studies.
• Present data on the retention rate of students from SIMD20-100 areas, alongside existing data on retention rates for all students and for students from SIMD20 areas.
• Examine the practicalities of disaggregating exit qualification data by the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) Level of qualification.
• Disaggregate totals to provide data for Graduate Apprenticeships where data are already provided for Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree entrants.
• Disaggregate totals to provide data for Scottish-domiciled part-time first-degree entrants where data are already provided for Scottish-domiciled full-time first-degree entrants and Scottish-domiciled entrants (all modes of study) to sub-degree courses of higher education.
• Examine the practicalities and utility of presenting data on higher education in colleges for courses of less than 160 hours duration.
• Disaggregate totals in the RoWA where data are already provided (currently for courses of 160 hours or more duration) to distinguish between part-time and full-time students pursuing higher education in colleges.
• Present data for subject areas on each of the three Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework (SCQF) ‘levels’ of entry (articulation) to university education for college students.

And, beyond the RoWA, more information is needed on:

• Early withdrawals
• Experiences and insights from access and participation practitioners
• Access to postgraduate education

These asks are purposeful. Each would provide focused insight into aspects of fair access work that are currently obscured or unknown. The object is to use this insight to improve practice and inform decision-making.

Recommendations

In this report, I reinforce the 20 recommendations I made in 2024. Four of these are re-introduced as recommendations for renewal, having already been achieved since my last report (Recommendations 1, 2, 4 and 20): ten more remain recommendations, with progress having been made for each (Recommendations 3, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18 and 19). In this summary, I have already indicated that I consider three of these should be considered priority actions (Recommendations 7, 17 and 19). Finally, six have been amended (Recommendations 2, 3, 4, 12, 13 and 14):

• Recommendation 1. The primary focus for fair access should continue to be improving outcomes for those who experience or have experienced socio-economic disadvantage.
• Recommendation 2. Retain SIMD as the central metric to indicate national progress in achieving fair access, until it is practicable to adopt an individual-level metric.
• Recommendation 3. To strengthen the utility of SIMD to understand fair access, institutions are encouraged to report evidence in deciles up to SIMD40, in addition to quintiles.
• Recommendation 4. Monitor the impact of the new institutional commitment, which will be introduced in 2026-27, and which challenges each HEI to improve upon, or at least match, the highest proportion and number of SIMD20 entrants that it achieved (outside the ‘pandemic years’) since 2013-14, and to make continuous annual improvements thereafter. Where it can be demonstrated that it is not possible for an institution to now match what they have previously been able to achieve, it is reasonable that an alternative benchmark is proposed.
• Recommendation 5. For universities in Scotland to collectively specify a basket of indicators from which individual HEIs may draw to demonstrate their wider work in promoting fair access.
• Recommendation 6. The Scottish Government should consider strengthening the remit of the Commissioner for Fair Access to assume responsibility for advising on fair access to the whole of tertiary education.
• Recommendation 7. The Scottish Government should take the necessary preparatory steps to embolden the fair access agenda beyond 2026 by transitioning toward individual-level indicators of socio-economic disadvantage, and thereafter to challenge institutions to achieve fair access for prospective students who have experienced such disadvantage.
• Recommendation 8. The fair access agenda should be recalibrated to give equal weight to entry, student experience, and outcomes.
• Recommendation 9. The primary focus on fair access should remain on Scottish-domiciled, full-time, first-degree entrants. However, for a rounded perspective on fair access to higher education, it is necessary to also focus on Graduate Apprenticeships, part-time undergraduate study, and postgraduate study.
• Recommendation 10. Wherever practicable, data on fair access should be disaggregated to understand the relative contributions of different pathways (direct entry from school; articulation; and adult wider access).
• Recommendation 11. The Scottish Funding Council (SFC), in conjunction with participating universities, should ensure that disaggregated data are available for each of the disciplines that comprise the ‘high demand professions’ that are part of the Access to High-Demand Professions (AHDP) programme (to enable the national impact of this work to be appraised) and the Transitions programme.
• Recommendation 12. SFC should act on the recommendation contained within previous Commissioner for Fair Access reports, to commit to more secure and longer-term funding for the Scottish Community of Access and Participation Practitioners.
• Recommendation 13. The work of SCAPP should be monitored to ensure that it remains a vehicle to support the development and professionalisation of a widening access and participation practitioner community in Scotland.
• Recommendation 14. The breadth of evaluation activity and the impact of evaluation activity research, which underpins the fair access agenda should be appraised.
• Recommendation 15. For universities in Scotland to collectively agree what intelligence is in the national interest to promote fair access (as opposed to that which is commercially sensitive), and thereafter to ensure that this intelligence is made available to all relevant stakeholders in Scotland.
• Recommendation 16. Should the decision be taken to withdraw funding for an intervention that had been integral to promoting fair access, or if an element of such work is to be radically altered, providers should undertake (and funders should encourage) an impact assessment to ascertain the impact on pupil cohorts who have previously benefited from this provision.
• Recommendation 17. School leaders in Scotland, the SFC and its National Schools Programme, SCAPP and Universities Scotland should examine if, and if so what, steps should be taken to underpin the fair access agenda within the broad general education phase in Scottish education.
• Recommendation 18. SFC, Universities Scotland and Skills Development Scotland should examine the prospects of introducing an easily accessible user-centred web-based resource that provides a single point of reference to inform prospective students and other stakeholders of the programmes and resources that are available to support access to higher education.
• Recommendation 19. Stakeholders should explore the prospects for introducing a single student identifier to improve tracking and to facilitate more robust evaluation of the impact of fair access activity.
• Recommendation 20. Stakeholders and leaders should reaffirm their commitment to promote fair access and commit to take those actions necessary to attain the next interim target for 2026.

My priorities

I conclude this Summary by outlining my priorities for 2026. I add two additional priority actions (Actions 11 and 12) to the ten I specified in 2024. Two of the original actions are re-introduced, having already been achieved since my last report (Actions 1 and 7): five more remain priorities, albeit that progress has been made for each (Actions 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10). Three have been amended (Action 2, 3 and 7):

• Priority 1. To follow up on each of my recommendations and to report on progress in my next annual report.
• Priority 2. To produce a third annual report, early in the Summer of 2026, soon after the publication of the next RoWA.
• Priority 3. To produce briefing papers to report in a timely manner on specific developments in relation to my recommendations.
• Priority 4. To engage with school leaders and universities in Scotland to explore whether inefficiencies in SCQF Level 7 can be addressed through system change and-or institutional practice.
• Priority 5. To engage with Universities Scotland and Colleges Scotland to better understand the prospects for increasing the proportion of HN students articulating with so-called ‘Advanced Standing’ into SCQF Level 8 and 9.
• Priority 6. To examine retention rates for SIMD20 entrants, focusing on why these have not improved substantially since the introduction of the CoWA agenda.
• Priority 7. To appraise emergent evidence to better understand how students’ financial situation impacts on fair access.
• Priority 8. To explore possibilities to enhance and promote regional intelligence, and to strengthen cross-institutional collaboration in regions to advance the fair access agenda.
• Priority 9. To review the deployment of contextual admissions and Minimum Entry Requirements across Scottish HEIs to appraise whether the impact on fair access is optimal.
• Priority 10. To engage with professional bodies, Programme leads, and Heads of Department (or equivalent) to promote shared responsibility for the fair access agenda in Scotland.
• Priority 11. To explore the prospects for acting on the three supplementary data issues and three provision issues introduced in the Considerations for innovation and evidence section in this report.
• Priority 12. To work with SFC to explore the prospects for acting on the ten recommendations outlined in the Considerations for innovation and evidence section in this report to strengthen the RoWA evidence base.