As part of plans to ¡°make an early start on tackling the public finances in this Parliament¡±, George Osborne has asked the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to find ¡°further efficiency savings¡± in 2015-16.

The savings are part of measures announced on 4 June to save ?4.5 billion, including ?3 billion from Whitehall departments outside of non-protected areas such as schools, the NHS and international aid.

Other announced cuts include ?450 million from the Department for Education¡¯s non-schools budget, which includes sixth-form colleges.

It is not yet known how the savings at BIS will be found, but a Treasury statement mentions ¡°savings in higher education and further education budgets¡±.

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Universities have already been handed their annual allocations for 2015-16 when by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in March.

However, institutions were warned by Hefce that individual allocations could change depending on ¡°any subsequent changes to the funding available to us from Government for 2015-16¡±.

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¡°Accordingly, institutions should plan their budgets prudently,¡± it said.

If the ?450 million cut were to fall squarely on Hefce's allocation to universities, it would be equivalent to roughly one-third of all teaching grants for 2015-16 (a total allocation of ?1.4 billion) or a third of research funding (?1.56 billion allocation).

The cut is likely to renew pressure on student opportunity funding ¨C otherwise known as the "student premium" ¨C used to help harder-to-teach students and those from poorer backgrounds, which is worth ?380 million next year.

jack.grove@tesglobal.com