(Letter dated 28 September 2010)
To: OFFA contacts responsible for access agreements
Dear colleague
Please find enclosed OFFA/HEFCE guidance on how to complete your access agreement and widening participation strategic assessment (WPSA) monitoring return for 2009-10. The guidance sets out what we need from institutions in order to carry out our annual monitoring of access agreements and WPSAs and asks institutions to submit a completed return by 14 January 2011.
If you are not responsible for submitting the access agreement/widening participation monitoring return, it would be appreciated if you could forward this guidance to the appropriate person within your institution.
This year, we have integrated the annual monitoring process for access agreements and WPSAs to allow institutions to report on their full range of widening participation activity and commitments, ensure a joined-up process and minimise the overall administrative burden.
Your monitoring return template
As with last year’s access agreement monitoring return, you will need to download your monitoring return template and submit it to us via the HEFCE extranet, an encrypted and authenticated website. We will send you an ‘organisation key’ and ‘group key’ by post in October to enable you to register for the extranet facility and access your return.
For institutions with an access agreement in 2009-10, we will also be using this site to give you information that will help you complete your monitoring return, such as Student Loans Company income distribution data for your institution and details of expenditure paid through HEBSS (where applicable). We will e-mail OFFA-registered institutional contacts to let them know when this SLC data is available to be downloaded.
Please contact us if you’re not sure about anything
If you have any questions, please contact:
- Richard Smith or Chris Scrase, OFFA, tel: 0117 931 7171, e-mail: enquiries@offa.org.uk. (monitoring process or access agreements)
- Sian Griffiths, HEFCE, tel: 0117 931 7153, e-mail: s.griffiths@hefce.ac.uk. (WPSA monitoring requirements)
Yours sincerely
Chris Scrase Sarah Howls
Programme Manager, OFFA Head of Widening Participation, HEFCE