According to this JISC Press Release: International Standards in Access Management: The Key to the Future UK universities are to be encouraged to adopt Shibboleth:

"13th April, 2005. Security, privacy and trust are cornerstones of our interaction with the Web, as much in our learning, teaching and research as in our everyday lives.  Accessing web resources, email accounts, library borrowing information, or on-line copies of lecturers’ notes, all depend upon effective access management procedures.  If these procedures are to be effective across educational and research institutions worldwide, then international standards have to be defined and implemented.

An announcement today by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) marks a key stage in the adoption of the developing international access management standard for education.  New technical developments and evolving needs of institutions and users have led JISC to adopt Shibboleth as the standards based architecture for access management in the communities it serves."...