University finances published today

Goldsmiths, University of London has published its Annual Accounts today (Thursday 10 December 2015).

The accounts, ranging from the financial year 1 August 2014 to 31 July 2015, show that:

 

Income increased by 7%

• Tuition fee income increased by 14%, from £59.41m to £67.67m.
• We had 7,604 FTE students last year, compared with 7,392 the previous year. FTE means Full Time Equivalent, for instance all part-time students are added together.
• Funding body grants decreased by 17%, from £17.66m to £14.59m, reflecting the loss of teaching grant as the pre-£9,000 Home/EU undergraduate fee came to an end.
• Research grants decreased by 4%, from £5.94m to £5.69m.

Expenditure increased by 7%

• Expenditure increased by 7% in the last year if you take out the impact of one-off items – this means anything that was an exceptional event and won’t occur again, like the sale of a building or an unexpected bill.

Staff costs were the largest bill

• Staff costs, excluding one-off items, have increased by 6.2%, from £55.5m to £59m. There were 4.8% more staff.
• All staff received a 1% pay rise and some received promotions such as moving from Senior Lecturer to Professor.
• The Warden also received a 0.9% pay rise – the first in three years. This was decided by a committee which includes a student – the first in the country to do so. The Warden does not sit on this committee.
• The Warden’s pay (£232k) is among the lowest in the University of London (11 out of 16) and £10,000 below the sector average.

£20.3m was raised from a partnership with an accommodation provider

• The university received £20.3m from entering a partnership with Campus Living Villages. They will provide accommodation on behalf of the university and cover the cost of refurbishments.
• This payment, which was received in September 2015, has been ring-fenced for a new flagship academic building at the front of the campus.

The university made a surplus of £1.66m

• The university made a reported surplus of £1.66m (£2.2m excluding the impact of one-off items).
• Our reported surplus represents 1.6% of income.  For the higher education sector as a whole in 2014/15 HEFCE expects this figure to be 3.9%.
• The surplus left over at the end of the year is added to our reserves.  Our reserves provide us with funds for long term investment.  They also give us resilience and the ability to withstand financial shocks.
• Our reserves are retained in their entirety for the benefit of the Goldsmiths.  We do not pay dividends to third parties.
• After taking into account capital investment and repayments to long-term loans, the £1.66m translated into a cash outflow of £6.3m.

 

Patrick Loughrey, Warden, commented:

“University finances have changed significantly in the past decade. Government grants have reduced and have been replaced with student fee income. Public funds for capital projects are much reduced. Funding for research, and particularly in the arts and humanities, has become more challenging. Competition for students from institutions here and overseas is as high as ever.

“At Goldsmiths, we use our income to ensure we provide the best possible student experience. That means improved teaching and learning spaces, world-renowned teachers, highly skilled support staff, better equipment and learning resources and high quality accommodation.

“We want to continue to invest in all of these areas. This means that we need to look far into the future as well as thinking about the here and now.

“We keep a surplus to withstand such financial shocks, such as the increase in pension costs and the reduction in QR research funding that will impact us in 2015/16.”

He added: “If this money isn’t used, it’s invested back into the institution. There are no shareholders requiring dividends and we do not run bonus schemes. All of our money stays on campus and as much as possible within the local economy to sustain Goldsmiths as an independent, self-determining and culturally vibrant institution.”

Download our Financial Statement 2014/15 and an 'at a glance' look at our Annual Accounts 2014/15.