SRUC has been urged to help fix what an independent report describes as ‘systemic failure’ in further education provision in north-east Fife, but the college has pushed back on calls for it to lead an Elmwood-centred FE project, insisting its role is wider than acting as a local further education provider.
In February, SRUC commissioned Professor Sir Ian Boyd – a former UK chief scientific adviser and chair of a major university governing body – to examine future economic growth opportunities for SRUC in north-east Fife.
His report, sent to SRUC in June, argues that the region has been ‘let down’ by the way FE provision has evolved and calls for SRUC to play a more assertive part in restoring local education and building a wider ‘natural economy’ hub around its Elmwood campus at Cupar.
Boyd concludes that ‘the people of north-east Fife need locally supplied further education’, warning that without a co-ordinated response, vulnerable learners are being disadvantaged while institutions act rationally in their own interests but collectively fail to meet the purpose of the system.
He also argues that Scotland needs ‘a strong, internationally credible educational and research institution to support its land-based economy’, and that there is ‘an urgent need to transform SRUC into this institution’.
SRUC’s response, published alongside the report, welcomes his analysis as ‘a very useful contribution to the future of Elmwood, north-east Fife and Scotland’s natural economy’, and accepts many of the broad conclusions – including the need for leaner structures, better partnership working and clearer strategic outcomes. However, it rejects Boyd’s specific recommendation that SRUC should invest in Elmwood leadership and front a local FE project group.
“SRUC would be very glad to participate in a wider group to discuss the future of Elmwood as an FE institute. However, this is not for SRUC to lead as we are an independent, mission-led tertiary institution, not solely an FE institution,” the college states.
Any community involvement, it adds, ‘would need to recognise the role of our trustees and our independent charitable status’. Boyd proposes that SRUC should appoint leadership at Elmwood capable of convening a project group involving the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Fife College, Dundee and Angus College, SRUC, and Fife Council to develop a new FE plan for the site, backed by a community consultative group reporting to Parliament.
He also suggests several investment themes for Elmwood, including AI and robotics to improve agricultural productivity, food manufacturing innovation, countryside management for recreation – including golf – and work on agricultural systems efficiency. SRUC, which has previously committed to retaining a presence in north-east Fife despite significant dilapidations on the Elmwood site after Fife College’s departure, says it agrees with the need to frame the opportunity in the region more broadly than agriculture alone. It points to a potential ‘natural economy’ proposition encompassing food, horticulture, land management, rural enterprise, golf, tourism, green skills and community wellbeing. The college highlights recent SFC support for a partnership involving SRUC, the James Hutton Institute and the Scottish Association for Marine Science to grow innovation and skills in the blue and green economy, and says it will ‘continue to explore further opportunities to establish a leading centre for modern production horticulture, controlled environment agriculture and skills’ at Elmwood.
On governance and structure, SRUC agrees in principle with Boyd’s recommendation to adopt a leaner approach and reconsider legacy fixed-asset arrangements, noting that it is ‘actively reviewing fixed-asset structures to identify partnership, collaboration and reinvestment opportunities’. It also accepts the need to ‘continue to refine strategy and map activity to verifiable outcomes’, and says its board and strategic performance committee already scrutinise delivery against agreed goals and key performance indicators.
The college says it will consider Boyd’s suggestions on fully implementing a group company structure and on normalising its contractual relationship with the Scottish Funding Council ‘through the appropriate governance route’, pointing out that SFC is consulting on changes to how it funds the university, college and tertiary sectors, and that SRUC is ‘fully engaged’ in these discussions.
However, it stresses that investment decisions at Elmwood must be taken ‘in the context of the exceptionally difficult financial climate that all further and higher education institutions are facing in Scotland’. SRUC’s wider estate carries substantial maintenance liabilities, and Boyd notes that the college is ‘a small university-college, teaching a proportionately small number of students across a huge range of abilities on a dispersed estate much of which is effectively at end of life’ – a combination he describes as a ‘millstone’ on its ability to deliver its mission under current funding formulas.
Community campaigners argue that Sir Ian’s findings echo concerns they have been raising for several years about how decisions at Elmwood have been made. Angela Anderson, from the Save Elmwood group, said local stakeholders had ‘been attempting to collaborate and work with SRUC for a number of years but without much success’, including through a formal participation request under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act.
She said the community council’s participation request, lodged in 2024, was subject to ‘numerous roadblocks’, including a request from SRUC to suspend the process and clear instructions that SRUC would remain the decision-making body throughout. Although a workshop was eventually held in November 2024, Ms Anderson said SRUC ‘was unwilling to create’ the short-term working group campaigners expected to explore alternative options for the site and ways to improve educational outcomes, effectively shutting down the process.
Ms Anderson said a meeting with an SRUC non-executive director left campaigners with the impression that demolition and the disposal of parts of the estate for housing were being considered.
“We believe that actions speak louder than words,” she said. “In our opinion, these management decisions to remove the assets from and implement a managed decline approach have been taken with the full knowledge that such an approach could make Elmwood College unsustainable.”
She also drew parallels with Auchincruive, where she said there is now ‘no longer an educational footprint’, and argued that Elmwood’s offer has shrunk from a ‘campus serving thousands of students’ to ‘Elmwood House and a horticultural garden’, with more than 300 students. She said there has been ‘no community liaison with SRUC since December 2025’.
SRUC refutes this and states it has engaged with various community groups and Fife Council. Elie and Earlsferry Community Council submitted a participation request in March 2024 with SRUC accepting parts of the request and a workshop took place on November 27, 2024, but campaigners say the process did not produce the continuing, jointly designed working group they had expected.
Ms Anderson also stated that FOI requests have revealed discussions about redesignating Elmwood land as brownfield to ease potential development. When this was put to SRUC, it stated the decision was made following discussions with Fife Council, and the organisation agreed a general-use planning application to give maximum flexibility for future use of the site in line with the council’s local development plan objectives.
Despite this, she said local groups intend to continue working towards a community-led solution. North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie said he hoped Boyd’s report would mark a turning point in the long-running dispute over Elmwood’s future.
“I have been a vehement critic of the management of the SRUC who run Elmwood Campus in Cupar for as long as I have been MSP for the area,” he said. “I was angry with the previous management for their plans to centralise and close campuses across Scotland, the decision by Fife College who shared the Cupar campus to pull out, of the failure of the SRUC to develop a vision and plan for Elmwood, of their decision to close the student accommodation, to sell the farm and to close the animal care unit. The list goes on.
“But while holding decision-makers to account is essential, it is also important to hunt for solutions which is what I have always sought to do in tandem with my criticism. That is why I have made the case for some time that SRUC needs a plan and vision for Elmwood. It’s what I told the board of SRUC when I met them in Cupar last year. And it is what they set in train afterwards by appointing Sir Ian Boyd to produce the report.”
SRUC said it has been ‘concerned about the negative and detrimental impact on both staff morale and student numbers at Elmwood of some recent commentary’, but expresses hope that Boyd’s report will help shift the tone from criticism to ‘positive and optimistic’ discussion. It pledges to be ‘clear about its intentions, honest about where further work is required, confident about its distinctive tertiary model, and practical about the steps that now need to be taken’ as it works to secure a ‘credible future for Elmwood’.
Whether that future is shaped around Boyd’s proposed local FE partnership model, SRUC’s broader natural economy vision, or some blend of the two now depends on how national bodies and regional partners respond to the report – and how far they are willing to share responsibility, and funding, for rebuilding
land-based skills and education in north-east Fife.
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