Jacqui Smith: ‘All options’ considered to boost HE finances

Skills minister, who oversees higher education brief, wants ‘more robust’ sector

The government is well aware of the “financial peril” facing the higher education sector and is considering “all options” in a bid to address the situation, skills minister Jacqui Smith has told vice-chancellors.

Speaking at the Universities UK annual conference, Smith—a former home secretary under the last Labour government, appointed a Department for Education minister on 6 July, with universities as part of her brief—said she had only been in post an hour before people were “outlining for me the real financial peril” that the sector is facing.