WEEKEND READING: Beyond the balance sheet: why psychological safety must be part of Scotland’s higher education funding framework

This blog was kindly authored by Elaine Jackson and Gary Gillon, Lecturers in Business and Management at the University of the West of Scotland.

Professor James Miller’s recent HEPI blog made a compelling case for practical reform in Scottish higher education. If universities are to remain sustainable, he argued, the next Scottish Government should prioritise multi-year funding settlements, a Unique Learner Number and greater flexibility in graduate apprenticeship policy. He is right. These are serious, necessary reforms for a sector that needs greater stability, better data and more room to plan.

The 2026-27 Scottish Budget appears to recognise that context. With over £55 million in additional resource and capital funding, equivalent to a 5 per cent uplift in university resource and capital funding on the previous year, the Scottish Government has acknowledged the vital role universities play in Scotland’s economy and wider society. That matters. It reflects an understanding that higher education is not a marginal public service, but part of the country’s long-term social and economic infrastructure. But investment, important though it is, cannot be the whole story of sustainability.

There is another dimension of sustainability that deserves to sit alongside it. If Scotland is serious about widening access, supporting successful learner journeys and building a higher education system that works for the next generation of learners, then psychological safety should be treated as part of the infrastructure of success, not as a secondary pastoral concern. A system cannot be called sustainable if it focuses only on institutional endurance while overlooking the conditions students need to succeed.

This matters because financial instability is never experienced evenly across the student body. When institutions face restructuring, staffing reductions or prolonged uncertainty, the effects are felt most sharply by those students who already have the least margin for error: first-generation entrants, mature students, and those balancing study with caring or employment responsibilities. Graduate apprentices may feel this especially sharply because they are navigating pressure in two demanding environments at once: the workplace and the university.

For these learners, institutional uncertainty can quickly become personal uncertainty. Will support still be there next term? Will teaching continue as planned? Is this the right moment to ask for help, or will I simply be adding to the burden on an already stretched system? These are not marginal questions. They shape retention, belonging, and students’ willingness to take the risks on which higher education depends: asking questions, acknowledging difficulty, seeking support early, and staying engaged through challenge. Advance HE describes psychologically safe learning environments as those in which students feel able to ask for help, make mistakes and participate without fear of judgement. This is not a soft benefit. It is a condition that supports learning itself.

Scotland has made real progress in opening the doors of higher education to more students from underrepresented backgrounds. That is an important achievement and one the sector should be proud of. But access is only the first stage. The more difficult test is whether students are enabled to stay, to belong and to complete successfully.

That is why the next phase of reform must consider not only whether students can enter higher education, but also whether the conditions exist for them to thrive once they arrive.

In practical terms, that means designing for predictability, clarity and support. Students unfamiliar with the culture of higher education must often work harder than their peers to decode institutional norms, judge whether a setback is routine or serious, and determine where responsibility lies when academic, financial, and personal pressures collide. When services feel stretched, communication becomes inconsistent or routes to support are unclear, that burden becomes heavier still.

Graduate apprenticeships provide a useful example. Skills Development Scotland is clear that graduate apprenticeships are intended to support work-based learning and workforce agility. But flexibility should not mean transferring more uncertainty to learners. Flexibility must work for learners as well as for employers. If agility simply means transferring risk downwards to those trying to study while in work, then it will widen opportunity in theory while narrowing it in practice. A genuinely sustainable model would ensure that communication is transparent and that support structures students trust remain in place when needed.

This is where Professor Miller’s policy agenda becomes even more powerful. The reforms he identifies are not only financial or administrative levers. They are also the means by which a more psychologically safe system could be built.

Take multi-year funding settlements. Their value is not simply institutional certainty, although that matters greatly. They are also a means of protecting continuity in the student-facing services that often make the difference between persistence and withdrawal: disability support, mental health services, apprenticeship coordination and the quieter relationship-based work that often prevents withdrawal long before a formal intervention is triggered. At UWS, for example, this function is undertaken by appointed Link Tutors assigned to each graduate apprentice on our Graduate Apprenticeship Business Management programme. Multi-year settlements would allow institutions to plan support capacity with greater confidence and thereby improve student retention and completion.

The same applies to the Unique Learner Number. As Professor Miller argues, it would improve Scotland’s ability to understand what works and where resource is best directed. Just as importantly, it would help connect widening access to continuation and completion more effectively. If Scotland wants a clearer picture of who enters higher education, who thrives and who is lost along the way, then better data infrastructure is part of the answer.  

This is also why the new Framework for the Sustainability and Success of Scotland’s Universities matters. It offers an opportunity to think beyond short-term financial pressures and ask what kind of system Scotland wants to build over the longer term. The 2026-27 Scottish Budget has already signalled that universities are recognised as vital to Scotland’s economy and wider society, with a 5 per cent uplift in university resource and capital funding. But the answer cannot be framed in institutional terms alone. Sustainability must be understood in the round: financially, certainly, but also educationally and socially. A system is not truly sustainable if those students facing the greatest structural disadvantage are also those expected to bear the greatest weight of uncertainty.

None of this is an argument for lowering expectations. It is an argument for taking more seriously the conditions under which students are expected to meet them. Clear communication, visible support and structured opportunities for peer connection are not optional extras. They are part of the conditions that make academic success possible, especially for learners whose routes into higher education are less straightforward. So, the challenge for the next Parliament is not whether to choose between financial sustainability and student wellbeing. It is to recognise that, for a system committed to fair access, they are connected. Public investment matters because it gives institutions greater certainty, supports innovation and strengthens their capacity to respond to changing skills needs. But if widening access is to mean more than admission, that investment must also help create the conditions in which students can remain, participate and succeed. Psychological safety is part of that task, and Scotland’s next higher education settlement will be stronger if it recognises that it needs both.