Commissioner for Fair Access: annual report 2025/26

1 - Introduction: If not now, then when?

The ninth Scottish Funding Council Report on Widening Access^[1] (RoWA) would have been warmly welcomed by those working toward and those responsible for Scotland’s 2030 target to achieve fair access to higher education. There was evidence of progress, with the first uplift in three annual rounds for those from the 20% Most Deprived Areas in both the proportion accessing higher education in HEIs and the proportion returning to study in year 2. There was also a return to an uplift in the proportion of those from the 20% Most Deprived Areas among qualifiers following the sharp fall reported in the 2022-23 report.^[2]

The timing of the release for this seventh report of the Commissioner for Fair Access requires some explanation (and perhaps an apology) for those who have waited for this follow-up to the previous report^[3]. As will become apparent, these RoWA data from 2023-24 provide a very different context for my report, than had it been written to reflect on the RoWA data of 2022-23. The unavoidable delays and staged publication of RoWA 2022-23^[4] led to the release of data that seemed to contrast with the then current realities that were being reported by HEIs as they prepared their submissions for the SFC’s Early Access Returns. I judged it to be counter-productive to publish my seventh report at the start of 2025, when it seemed probable (as it transpired) that RoWA data to be published a few months later in the middle of 2025 would report a very different trajectory for fair access.

There were four other (partly data-driven) reasons that delayed the publication of this seventh report. First, as signposted in my sixth report, I was keen to take time to digest learning from the Student Finance and Wellbeing Study Scotland report (commissioned by the Scottish Government), which was published in December 2024, with detailed data tables released in October 2025.^[5] I was also keen to incorporate insights from Public Perceptions of Higher Education Funding in Scotland, which was commissioned by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and published in March 2025.^[6] Third, it was prudent to reflect on the report on Widening Access to Higher Education that was published in May 2025 following the inquiry of the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee.^[7] Finally, the RoWA for 2023-24 was released in stages in 2025, with articulation data added in October 2025.^[8]

This body of evidence – together with the wider work that is discussed in this report – leads me to propose that there is 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,^[9] 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 will 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. Although I present the future of fair access as a new phase of work, it is perhaps more accurate to view what should lie ahead, as a consolidation of, and evolution from, work that the sector is already pursuing.

The report opens with a review of recent developments to promote fair access in Scotland. I showcase ten developments, but make reference to a much wider range of work. I want to acknowledge the energy, commitment and innovation that this agenda continues to attract from a wide range of stakeholders across Scotland. The second part of the report is a deep dive into the evidence base. This starts with an appraisal of the core RoWA metrics, before drawing on the wider evidence base that the RoWA comprises. As alluded to above, the fair access evidence base has been strengthened with several key contributions beyond RoWA, all of which are used in this report to deliver a comprehensive and rounded appraisal of progress with fair access in Scotland. The third part of this report reflects on existing innovation and evidence to make recommendations on very specific ways in which we should strengthen our routine fair access practice. The focus on recommendations continues in the fourth section when I review progress with each of the twenty recommendations and ten priority action areas that I set in my sixth report, before I outline a vision for fair access in Scotland that carries us up to 2030 and moves beyond. The report concludes by updating my recommendations and outlining priority actions for the year ahead.