Secondary sources

The trouble with lifting quotes ("Funding council grant repayments will also hit Kingston and Portsmouth", 5 February) from a story in a local paper, itself based on an earlier story produced by journalism students at Kingston University (which, in turn, was based on the minutes of a governing body meeting six months ago, freely available on the university's intranet), is that your story can end up being badly out of date. Yours was.

For the record, Kingston will not have to return £1 million after the Higher Education Funding Council for England audit. As your story makes clear, it is now back in its contract range after a one-year blip produced by a (fairly modest) change in the percentage of estimated non-completions. This is not the same as students who fail to complete their courses. Kingston's teaching grant in 2008-09 will not be reduced.

For the record, over the past ten years Kingston has made five successful bids for additional student numbers - and delivered them all. It has been the fastest-growing university in student numbers in London and probably in England, too. It receives the largest number of applications of any university in London, bar none.

Peter Scott, Vice-chancellor, Kingston University.