Latest news with #AlexanderIosad
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
26-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Want a UK degree? You could graduate with over Rs 62 lakh in debt
Students in England are now leaving university with average debts of £53,000 (nearly ₹62.43 lakh) according to new data from the Student Loans Company (SLC). The figure marks a 10% rise from last year's average of £48,270 and reflects a growing dependence on loans to meet rising living expenses. The SLC's latest release for the 2024–25 academic year reveals a stark gap in borrowing across the UK. In Scotland, where local students do not pay tuition, average debt is £17,000. In Northern Ireland it stands at £28,000, while students in Wales owe around £39,470 on average. As prices climb, many students are taking on paid work during term time to manage their finances. A survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that 68% of full-time students in the UK are now working, up from 56% a decade ago. The average working week is now 13 hours—more than at any time in the last ten years. Meanwhile, nearly 3 million graduates are repaying student loans. According to the SLC, 40% of those required to pay are making monthly repayments averaging £1,100 in 2024–25. The size of the student loan book in England has soared to £266 billion—up from £64 billion just ten years ago. It is expected to grow further, with the government planning to raise domestic tuition fees from £9,250 to £9,535 starting September 2025. Universities under pressure Despite the rise in fees and borrowing, universities are facing growing financial uncertainty. A recent report by the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education found that 25% of university leaders believe their institutions will need major restructuring to remain viable. Over half said financial stability was now their top concern, while 28% named international student enrolment as a priority. A separate study by the Tony Blair Institute noted that real-terms income from domestic tuition has dropped by nearly a third since 2012 due to inflation. The report warned that possible changes to student visa rules—such as a 6% levy on international fees, tighter compliance measures and reduced post-study work options—could disproportionately affect post-1992 universities that rely more heavily on international enrolments. 'Universities with lower international rankings and former polytechnics had weaker finances and were most reliant on international students,' said Alexander Iosad from the institute. 61% of students borrow to pay rent Rising rent costs are placing further strain on students, particularly international ones. According to a global student accommodation platform, rent now consumes a larger share of student budgets than ever before. 'Spending on student housing in the UK has jumped 15 per cent, driven by rising rents, an influx of international students and a growing preference for higher-end purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA),' Mamta Shekhawat, founder of told Business Standard. 'The 15 per cent increase in the proportion of student budgets dedicated to accommodation is a clear indicator of a worsening affordability crisis,' she added. 'Without immediate and effective interventions, the rising cost of accommodation will continue to risk student wellbeing, academic success, and the fundamental principle of equitable access to higher education in the UK.' Of all students approaching for UK housing, 52% were Indian. PBSA prices rising faster than maintenance loans The average cost of PBSA now stands at £13,595 per year for 2024–25, up from £11,500 in 2022–23—an 18% increase in just two years. In London, average monthly rent is £1,211, far above Northern Ireland's £904. Nationally, rent rose 8% in early 2025. In cities like London, Manchester and Edinburgh, annual increases have ranged from 8% to 12%. Though PBSA comes with amenities like en-suite bathrooms and common spaces, its cost often outpaces available loans. In London, the maximum maintenance loan is £13,348, falling short of average rent for PBSA. To bridge the gap: 61% of students have borrowed money 36% from family or friends 25% via loans, credit cards or overdrafts Many have increased their work hours during term, which has raised concerns around academic performance and mental health said its services include verified listings, budgeting tools and tenant rights information to help students navigate the UK housing market. International student numbers rising despite cost pressure In the 2023–24 academic year, more than 600,000 international students were enrolled in UK universities. That number is expected to rise, putting further pressure on housing. But supply has not kept up. The UK has around 678,000 PBSA beds, while demand is estimated at 1.4 million. A fall in landlord participation due to mortgage costs has also reduced the number of shared rental houses. Why Indian students still choose the UK Despite rising costs, Indian students continue to choose the UK for its prestigious institutions. Imperial College London ranks 2nd in the QS World University Rankings 2025, followed by the University of Oxford at 3rd and the University of Cambridge at 5th. University College London comes in at 9th. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, Indian student enrolment rose by 39% in 2022–23 to reach 173,190—surpassing Chinese student numbers for the first time since 2018. Between April and June 2023, more than 16,185 student visas were issued to Indian nationals. The UK is targeting 600,000 international students by 2030, according to ICEF Monitor. The Office for National Statistics reported that inflation in the UK was 3.5% in the 12 months to April, driven by rising household energy and water bills. The Bank of England expects inflation to tick up again later this year. Interest rates have been cut four times since August 2024, now standing at 4.25%.
New Statesman
13-06-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
Local government is adopting AI, but careful thoughtis needed
Photo byArtificial intelligence is already being widely used across local government to deliver services. These involve everything from customer service chatbots to writing paperwork to preventing damp. Central government is currently piloting a set of AI tools for local government. Other councils are working with commercial AI providers. Somerset Council was one of the first local governments in the UK to join Microsoft's Early Access Program for AI. Somerset started with Copilot, a generative AI chatbot, and has now moved on to Magic Notes, which turns meeting recordings into a first draft of paperwork and forms and is now used by around half of social care teams in the UK as a way to improve the quality of paperwork while reducing the time spent on it by 50 per cent. Somerset Council says this has allowed frontline staff to free up time to be spent on 'person-centred work' and improved their work-life balance. AI has great potential to improve democratic processes and decision-making and from there flows improved services for citizens, according to Alexander Iosad, director, government innovation policy at the Tony Blair Institute. AI can be used to engage with citizens and get data from them to accelerate the back-office process and to improve decision making, he explains. One problem of the traditional process for policymaking is having 'more data than you can turn into actionable insights', Iosad says. AI is not just able to process all of that information, and to do it faster so the information is still current or in real time, but is able to cross-reference it across services. However, there are still significant hurdles to integrating AI tools into council services and realising its potential. A survey of county councils and unitary councils by the County Councils Network (CCN) found that while 85 per cent were using AI (and the remaining 15 per cent were considering using it), local governments felt that a lack of staff capacity, funding and training were holding them back. The Tony Blair Institute report says councils 'lack the confidence, capabilities and infrastructure required to unleash this innovation'. The Tony Blair Institute worked with a local council in the UK and estimated that AI could be applied to 26 per cent of tasks, resulting in a saving of one million work hours, or £30m in financial costs, each year. Scaled up nationally, this would mean around £8bn in cost savings. Organisations of all types, but particularly government and public services, are looking to AI to save them money, but less than half of those surveyed by the CCN said AI had resulted in savings so far. This compared to over 90 per cent reporting improved staff productivity and three quarters that said it improved services. Transformation of services usually requires significant investment in order to realise improvements to the quality of services and their savings. Big digital projects have historically been difficult to deliver and to realise their benefits, particularly in the public sector. In 2021, Birmingham City Council invested £19m in a new IT system with the aim of reducing costs, but spending on getting the system up and running has since spiralled to £90m. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe There are also questions over some of the ways AI has already been deployed. Several councils have bought and use AI systems to identify families in need of support and young people who may be at risk of becoming involved in gangs, while others use them to highlight potential council tax fraud. These have been mired in allegations of bias, consent and lack of transparency. In Rotterdam, an algorithm was used to assign a fraud risk score to residents based on data from 12,707 previous investigations. But in practice, women, young people, parents and migrants got higher scores and were more often flagged for investigation. Subjective assessments by caseworkers, such as whether a person was 'flexible' enough to deal with the challenges they were facing, were incorporated into the data, giving it the sheen of neutrality. The city suspended its use in 2021 following an external ethics review. In 2015, Hackney Council paid for an Early Help Profiling System provided by the company Xantura that used data collected by the council to identify families that were 'at risk' – the families were never informed their data would be used in this way. These challenges mean the governance, transparency and privacy policies around AI in local government need to be robust. The Local Government Association says 'councils must also be mindful of the risks and challenges associated with safe and responsible AI adoption', listing strong data foundations, data protection, bias and privacy as key issues to address. The Tony Blair Institute advises councillors to champion AI innovation, but to de-risk it by looking to tools that are already in use, collaborating, using existing standards and training the workforce to improve AI literacy. 'The biggest challenge is data,' says Iosad. 'It's getting the right data and then setting up the systems allowing you to work with data effectively.' Where the UK is arguably weakest, he says, is having data sets collected by government that can be linked and used together in order to really personalise services and to make effective decisions at local, regional and national levels. 'The blueprint for modern digital government has a very encouraging line on this, not just recognising that there is a challenge, but mostly setting out the ambition that every data set that is used in the public sector has an API,' Iosad says. He adds this will also put in place the safeguards required for data. What is clear is that AI tools and technologies will be taken and used by local government in the way that new technologies have been in the past. Some of the risks and challenges around technical literacy, training, choosing good suppliers and managing those contracts are familiar. However, the challenges of transparency, scrutiny and identifying bias in complex systems are more novel and require local government not just to look for an easy answer but the best solution to create a better place and life for residents. Related
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Councils ‘could save households £325 a year using AI'
Councils could save households £325 a year by using artificial intelligence, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has said. Deploying AI in local government could improve productivity, saving the taxpayer at least £8 billion across England and Wales. A report by the institute said AI could be used to clear backlogs across public services and ensure that potholes were fixed more quickly. The study comes a week after another report by the Tony Blair Institute into net zero caused rows in the Labour Party. The former prime minister warned that plans to phase out fossil fuels were doomed to failure, but later had to row back after Downing Street intervened. The latest report, Governing in the Age of AI: Reimagining Local Government, is likely to be far less controversial. Alexander Iosad, the TBI's director of government innovation policy, said: 'Local government has shown in the past how it can be an engine of change but is at risk of sputtering. To keep it moving forward, it's critical that they seize this moment. 'By embracing new, AI-enabled tools, local government can deliver a real sense of hope and momentum for citizens who depend on it day-to-day. 'We can clear the backlogs in social services and repairs, radically speed up planning permissions to meet the Government's housebuilding agenda, and build strong local economies deeply rooted in place. From fixing potholes to ambitious projects that transform the fortunes of communities, AI can make councils match fit again. 'As new councillors of all political colours get to work, they have the once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine their role, reimagine local government, and build a legacy of true leadership and change.' Saving of one million hours Analysis by TBI discovered that 26 per cent of tasks could be automated or improved by AI, which would save one million hours of work a year per council. Extrapolating this data to the national level, this represents time savings worth £8 billion a year – or £325 per household – for local government in England and Wales, all while clearing backlogs and providing better services for residents. Giving routine jobs to AI could help improve services elsewhere, such as by ensuring that social workers can spend more time on face-to-face work. It can also speed up the assessment of elderly social care claimants, such as by transcribing conversations, creating care plans and streamlining documentation.
