The 2020-21 financial year represents – depending on your perspective – either the height of pandemic-related restrictions in the UK, or the calm before the cost-of-living crisis.
So above all, what we are looking for in this year’s crop of provider-level data from HESA is evidence of stability and resilience.
Big, anchor-employer size entities like your local university should – in a rational world – be pretty much impermeable. Should a serious storm hit, there are numerous emergency devices – ranging from more gentle acts drawing down more accessible reserves or pre-agreed overdrafts through to expensive new borrowing and rapid, painful, reconfiguration.
