This morning, I published Renewing the Alliance for Fair Access.
It is the sixth annual report of the Commissioner for Fair Access and the first for which I am responsible, since I stepped into the very big boots of Peter Scott and assumed responsibility for the role in January 2023.
I have made 20 recommendations and outlined my ten priority issues for 2024.
Peter made 78 recommendations over his five reports, responding to the 34 recommendations in A Blueprint for Fairness, the agenda-setting report of the Commission on Widening Access, published in 2016. Just as my predecessor found it necessary to make subsequent recommendations on issues that featured as recommendations in earlier reports, some of the content in my report will be familiar.
For example, I re-affirm that the primary focus of fair access work should continue to be improving outcomes for those who experience or have experienced socio-economic disadvantage, which is not inconsistent with encouraging 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. And, I implore funders to act on the advice of the previous Commissioner for Fair Access, specified as a recommendation in each of his last four annual reports, to commit to more secure and longer-term funding for Scottish Community of Access and Participation Practitioners (SCAPP).
