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PESTLE Analysis for UK Higher Education Institutions

Function: IT/Library
Collaborative analysis performed by FLP Cohort 4, October 2009
PESTLE
Analysis
Factors

Political

Function

Potential
Impact

Implication and Importance

IT

Overall impact
(High, Medium,
Low,
Undetermined)

Time Frame
(0-6 months, 6-12
months etc)

Type
(positive,
negative, u/k)

Impact
Increasing,
decreasing,
unchanged,
u/k

Relative
Importance
Critical,
important,
unimportant,
unknown

All political parties likely to target Higher


Education as an easy win for expected
spending cuts

High

0-12 months
depending on
political calendar
for election,
budgets

Negative

Increasing

Critical

Changes in education policy if different


party elected
Ageing electorate may mean that
manifestos focusing on health and law
and order are more politically popular
than those preserving spending
on education.
The threat of terrorism combined with
counter-terrorism measures (e.g. new
UK border authority regulations) may
deter some overseas students from
attending UK HEIs and thus increase
competition amongst universities for

those who do come.


Political push for efficiency savings
through shared services and
public/private partnerships
Overseas governments may provide
incentives to welcome UK students and
to prevent home students leaving their
country for education - Germany
promotes free HE to its students to
increase the skill base; China
encourages students to study abroad
but then cascade skills at home to
reduce the need for overseas education
in the long term.
Government policy on widening access
could imply greater use of remote
learning facilities, which in turn brings a
range of infrastructure and security
implications
Public policy aspirations to place UK as
global centre of innovation in the
knowledge economy (JISC Edgeless
University report 2009)
Public policy on life-long learning giving access to education regardless of
background (JISC Edgeless University
report 2009)
An increase in open access content may
generate changes within copyright &
IPR law
Greater diversity of learning providers of
higher education - e.g. private
institutions with degree awarding power

Greater diversity of and thus increasing


competition from private HEIs
Impact of the Bologna Process and the
European Higher Education Area could
have an impact on areas such as
program design, , student mobility, and
quality assurance
Open source legislation? Not sure what
this is.

Economic

With decreasing direct government


funding for HE, HEIs will have to develop
new income streams

High

Social

Participation for non-manual classes has


increased from 35% to 50% in the
period from 1991-92 to 2001-2
Participation for manual classes has
increased only from 11% to 19% during
the same period
Investigate working with suppliers to
find solutions that provide HE
institutions with common interfaces
between applications regardless of
which systems they are using. HE
institutions should be driving suppliers not the other way round. Isnt this a
desire rather than a reality? I think
were supposed to be looking at how

Medium

Technolog
ical

Medium
High

6-12 months

Negative

Increasing

Critical

technological change could impact on


our areas of responsibility
Systems such as Sharepoint have the
potential to improve internal processes
and communication via enhanced
document management and workflow
systems.

High

SAAS (Software as a Service)

Legal

Data protection and security issues


likely to increase in importance

High
High

Environmental

Immigration legislation pushing for more


rigorous Identity Management system
within and between education
institutions
Increasing pressure to reduce energy
consumption of IT infrastructure with
green data centres, efficient cooling etc

High massive
investment
required

Ongoing no
current legal
requirement but
this may become
a reality

Short term
ve impact
(financial
outlay);
longer term
+ve through
reduced
power

Increasing
impact,
lessened to
an extent if
technologie
s such as
virtualisatio
n are

Important
becoming
critical as
climate
change
impact
develops

WEEE regulations this is both


environmental and legal requirement to
dispose of electrical and electronic
equipment in a responsible manner with
recycling of materials and secure data
removal

'Green' policies and


regulations impacting on businesses e.g.
Carbon Reduction Commitment, linked
with financial penalties

Medium
requires asset
management
procedures, staff
and budget
resources to
administer

Current
regulations are
already in place

consumption

adopted

+ve impact
for
environment;
-ve in terms
of potential
for additional
resources
required

Impact
likely to
increase if
IT and
electrical
equipment
usage
increases

Important

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