Governance News Alert: Scottish Government Progress as a precursor to a pivot: fair access in Scotland in 2026 and beyond Annual Report 2025/26

The report is the second from the Commissioner for Fair Access Professor John H. McKendrick, and the seventh commissioner report since the Scottish Government established the post. It plots the progress towards a series of widening access targets and highlights the challenges facing the sector in recruiting and retaining disadvantaged students. The targets, set in 2016 following the Scottish Government’s Commission on Widening Access, states that students from the 20 Most Deprived Areas in Scotland (SIMD20) should represent 20 per cent of entrants to higher education by 2030. An interim target of 16 per cent was set for 2021 and met two years early. 

The Commissioner makes a series of 20 recommendations with implications for institutions, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and other stakeholders. The SFC has also published a consultation document seeking feedback on its own recommendations published last year. While the recommendations in both papers focus on the Scottish sector, many of the general points resonate with widening access issues facing institutions in the rest of the UK.

The full report from the Commissioner can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/independent-report/2026/02/commissioner-fair-access-annual-report-2025-26/documents/commissioner-fair-access-annual-report-2025-26/commissioner-fair-access-annual-report-2025-26/govscot%3Adocument/commissioner-fair-access-annual-report-2025-26.pdf

The SFC consultation document can be found at: https://www.sfc.ac.uk/publications/consultation-on-the-report-on-widening-access/

At-a-glance:

• New institutional commitments in 2026-27 challenge 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. These “stretch” targets that are bespoke for each institution will replace the flat-rate target of a minimum of 10 per cent drawn from SIMD20. Currently 16.7 per cent of entrants to higher education are from the 20 per cent most deprived areas – the figure has not changed for three years. The 2026 target is 18 per cent 
• Of the 18 higher education institutions (HEI) in Scotland, 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. However, there is significant variation across disciplines in the proportion of entrants from the most deprived areas, ranging from 27.4 per cent in combined and general studies to 7 per cent in geography, earth and environmental studies in 2023-24
• The fair access agenda should be recalibrated to give equal weight to entry, student experience, and outcomes, the Commissioner’s report says. The impact of the new institutional target will be monitored. 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 
   
• SIMD will be retained as the central metric to indicate national progress in achieving fair access until it is practicable to adopt an individual-level metric of socio-economic disadvantage. An individual-level indicator must be identified, at the very least to complement if not replace, the area-based indicator 
• The primary focus on fair access should remain on Scottish domiciled, full-time, first-degree entrants. However, for a rounded perspective on fair access, it is necessary to also focus on Graduate Apprenticeships, part-time undergraduate study, and postgraduate study 
• A national framework for early intervention is required – in 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
• The number and proportion of care-experienced students continues to increase: 2023- 24 marked the seventh annual increase in the number of entrants from this group
• 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 
• The proportion of entrants from SIMD20 areas entering 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 

Implications for governance:

The Commissioner’s report shows that while widening access to Scottish universities has moved in the right direction in recent years, progress towards this year’s target may be proving harder to achieve. Across Scottish universities, 16.7 per cent of entrants are from the 20 per cent most deprived areas. The figure has not changed for three years and is still some way off the 2026 target of 18 per cent.

At institutional level, it is a mixed picture. Data in the report shows that five Scottish universities already exceed this benchmark while at others, recruitment from SIMD20 is in single figures. 

New institutional-level commitments come into effect in 2026/27 and are likely to require a higher level of focus and assurance at board level. Institutions who are not making progress towards their specific benchmarks will need to be clear about the reasons for this and how to address them.

While the report covers Scotland, many governors across the UK will be familiar with the challenges of boosting access and the tensions inherent in meeting this aim at the same time as producing the kind of outcomes that the various regulators want to see. For example, retention and progression are central to the Office for Students B3 Conditions for registration in England. The Scottish commissioner is also suggesting that a greater focus on outcomes should be the direction on travel north of the border. 

The report explores retention data and the gap between SIMD20 and other students and says that targeted work to reduce attrition should also acknowledge other social gradients. For instance, students who report a mental health condition are more likely to not return to study in year two. In contrast, retentions rates across other groups, such as minority ethnic students, some groups of disabled students, women and older students, are higher.

In his recommendations, Professor McKendrick says that the fair access agenda should be “recalibrated” to give equal weight to entry, student experience, and outcomes, although he does not provide any detail of what this might look like.

In the meantime, institutions are asked to provide data to more finely demonstrate progress on access. The report urges them to focus on areas such as disaggregating different pathways to higher education including adult education and providing more information on part-time learners. These requirements are included in a new consultation document from the SFC on its own widening access recommendations published last year.

Funding to support widening access work is also highlighted in the Commissioner’s report. It asks the SFC to “commit to more secure and longer-term funding” for Scottish Community of Access and Participation Practitioners (SCAPP).

While the report touches on a few examples of initiatives that universities have undertaken to boost access (eg Student Success Model at the University of the West of Scotland) it does not systematically explore what is happening across the sector. The commissioner does, however, ask for an appraisal of the breadth of evaluation activity and the impact of these evaluations on the progress being made on fair access.

Debate about the best metric to use for disadvantage, and the limitations of area-based measures, is ongoing in Scotland, as it is elsewhere. An individual-level metric of socio-economic disadvantage is proposed by the Commissioner but has yet to be identified.

There is recognition in the report that fair access is an issue for the whole education sector, not just the responsibility of universities. One recommendation asks school leaders in Scotland, the SFC and its National Schools Programme, SCAPP (Scotland's Community of Access and Participation Practitioners) and Universities Scotland to consider what steps should be taken to underpin the fair access agenda within the broad general education phase in Scottish education.