Time to address E&T funding

The future funding of legal education and training was the subject of a timely conference in Glasgow University yesterday: timely as the higher education sector, like every other, has to come to terms with the promised severe cuts in public funding, and new reports come to hand over current levels of student debt and the measures to which students are resorting to try and support themselves.

I was unable to attend for the whole day, but arrived in time for a session entitled "The changing roles of providers and the profession", followed by a look at the wider economic context.

In the former, a speaker from McGrigors described the extent of their investment in trainees, and how in London they have to adopt additional incentives in order to win talented people who might otherwise go into accountancy, banking etc. The top firms offer great posts if you can get one, but with relatively few smaller firms taking on trainees, how do we secure the new blood that the wider profession needs?

One speaker in the final session was Sir Andrew Cubie, whose report a decade ago led to the fixed graduate charge replacing upfront tuition fees, a charge which was in turn abolished under the present Scottish Government. Sir Andrew pointed out how this had led to Scottish higher education funding being lower as a percentage of GDP than that in the UK (1.05% against 1.3%), the OECD average (1.5%) and in particular the USA (2.5%), and suggested that we need a complete review of educational and student support. Personally he was still wedded to the idea of a graduate contribution, but a capped one.

He added that it would be necessary to widen the burden of training provision, and thought it "inescapable" that contributions would be required from legal firms. Differing views were expressed in this context: could it be sold? Would it give the Government an excuse to withdraw support? Is it unavoidable, if the profession wishes to impose and maintain certain standards, that it has to pay in order to do so?

A mix or balance of sources of funding appeared to be favoured; but that suggests a need for some mechanism to regulate the balance and ensure a proper sharing.

These are only snapshots from a conference that covered a lot of ground. Undoubtedly more questions were raised than answers. But they are questions that the profession will have to address urgently if it is to keep the demographic profile that it appears to wish for itself, reflecting the community it serves, in the years to come.