Why the government's focus on social infrastructure matters to colleges

By Julian Gravatt, Deputy Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges

There are 217 college corporations in England, operating from around 5,000 buildings. If you stopped someone and asked them the way to the local college, they would send you to one of those buildings, rather than the college’s official address. Colleges use their buildings and space for the specialist courses they offer. Some buildings are architect-designed, purpose-built new constructions. Other campuses are assortments with different shapes and sizes, used for specific courses whether engineering, creative arts, business courses or whatever. All of us who work in the college sector know how essential it is to have high quality teaching - and workspace for staff and students. We also know that there are challenges ahead to use space well, to cater for changing student course choices and to keep buildings safe, warm enough and energy efficient. And in some positive news last week, His Majesty’s Treasury both recognised the importance of the college estate and recognised some of the challenges. The evidence of that is in a just-published paper about the government’s 10-year infrastructure plan.

Infrastructure is one of those buzzwords that gets used in a variety of work settings but rarely at home. On the assumption that everyone reading this knows approximately what it is, there is an interesting distinction made by HM Treasury between economic and social infrastructure. Economic infrastructure, in this approach, comprises roads, railways, other transport, energy, water, flood risk management, digital and waste management. While, for the first time, there is a new focus on the social infrastructure of housing, hospitals, prisons, schools and colleges. So we have made the list. Why does it matter?

Between now and the summer holidays, the Chancellor, Chief Secretary and the Treasury will be orchestrating a planning and negotiation process to set longer-term budgets. We do not have firm dates yet for the 2025 spending review, but the aim is to set out budgets for the next three to five years. Understandably, most of the focus is always on the £1,000 billion a year spent on current expenditure, such as pensions, benefits, debt interest and departmental budgets to run the NHS, education system and others. But there is also £100 billion spent this year on public sector capital investment, due to rise to £120 billion by 2027-28. This is the money that HM Treasury will be allocating towards a ten-year infrastructure. Last week’s HMT working paper set out some principles and proposals, while asking for views.

Moving from the macro to the local, college capital investment is small by comparison to the big projects that dominate discussions about big infrastructure such as new reservoirs, runways or train lines. But small can often mean good value. Colleges provide the facilities to teach the skills that get the productivity and growth that economic policy-makers are currently obsessed about. And some of those facilities in technical subjects are bursting at the seams – with waiting lists – because of lack of space. We can hope – and argue for – the necessary investment in this part of the UK’s social infrastructure.

Government policy towards college buildings and capital investment has had its ups and downs in the recent years. Fifteen years ago, the funding agency for the sector made quite a mess of managing its budget, which left some colleges with big new buildings and others in the lurch. A series of smaller projects followed and then, for a period of seven years, devolution involved Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) running a skills capital programme at a local level. LEPs are now, with a few exceptions, history and budget responsibility for college capital funding is now firmly back with central government but this time with the Department for Education not a funding agency. There has been a bigger budget, and as I write, 90 major projects are heading towards completion over the next year.

Colleges have juggled a number of different capital budgets over the last four years and have also had to cope with a ban on commercial borrowing since November 2022, which has made financing more of a challenge. Top of our list for the spending review is an appropriately sized budget but hopefully the longer-term nature of the infrastructure plan and the budget process will stabilise policy and build college confidence to make the next steps. For despite the swings in funding approaches and the limited funds, colleges seem to have fewer buildings in a really bad structural condition than schools. And along with schools and all other parts of the UK social infrastructure, there is a pressing need for investment and maintenance to improve condition, cut carbon emissions and provide the spaces needed to equip a growing number of healthcare, construction, engineering, digital and other students with the skills they will need in the future.