To: OFFA contacts responsible for access agreements
In brief…
As we move into September, you will be aware that the Government has not yet confirmed the fee limits and student support arrangements for 2011-12. We don’t yet know the date for the announcement, but once a statement has been made, we will write to all institutions with access agreements inviting you to confirm your fee limits, bursaries and eligibility thresholds for 2011-12 and, where necessary, submit a new access agreement.
Some institutions have access agreements which run out in 2010-11. Where this is the case, you should decide whether you wish to ‘roll on’ your existing access agreement for the 2011-12 academic year, or submit a new agreement.
All institutions will need to review their milestones and targets to ensure that they are measurable, and that they reflect their institution’s position and are fit for purpose. For example, if you have milestones and targets linked to the HESA performance indicator relating to ‘low participation neighbourhoods’, you should ensure that your milestone uses the POLAR2 methodology.
Once the announcement has been made, we will be asking you to respond within a short timeframe of around three weeks.
Background information
Each year, normally over the summer, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirms the student support arrangements for the forthcoming application cycle (2011-12). This includes:
- the basic and maximum fees payable by new and continuing students (currently £1,310 and £3,290)
- the maximum level of Higher Education Maintenance Grant (HEMG) (currently £2,906)
- the qualifying household income levels for the HEMG.
This year, as a result of the general election in May, this confirmation will not be received until the autumn. This means that access agreements, and fee and bursary levels, will not be confirmed by the start of the 2011-12 recruitment cycle.
What you need to do
You do not need to submit new access agreements or advise on fee and bursary levels at this stage. However, as soon as an announcement has been made on fees and bursary levels in the autumn, we will write to you, asking you to confirm your fee limits, bursaries and eligibility thresholds for 2011-12. The deadline for returns will depend on any BIS announcement; however, it is likely that we will be asking you to respond within a short timeframe of around three weeks in order so that we can confirm approved fee limits of institutions and their partners with the Student Loans Company prior to the start of the student finance application process.
We will also be asking you to confirm any franchise partners that will be covered by your access agreement in 2011-12 and their maximum permitted fee.
Access agreements last for up to five years, and many institutions will have access agreements that are due to run out in 2010-11. In light of the forthcoming Browne Review, we will be allowing institutions to ‘roll on’ existing access agreements, where appropriate, for the 2011-12 academic year, rather than requiring a new agreement in advance of the outcomes of the Review.
Those institutions that wish to submit a new or revised access agreement in 2011-12 may wish to use their existing agreement as a template. However, where the information provided in your access agreement duplicates that provided in your widening participation strategic assessment (WPSA), for example relating to contextual information, we recommend that you strip this out of your access agreement, and cross-refer to the appropriate section in the WPSA.
Any material changes you make to access agreements will only apply to new students. Continuing students must continue to pay the fee and receive bursaries under the criteria they were originally offered.
Are your milestones up to date?
In their 2008-09 monitoring returns, around a quarter of HEIs had difficulty reporting against their statistical milestones. In many cases, this was because of a change in the method for producing the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) performance indicator relating to low participation neighbourhoods, which meant that the new measure (POLAR2) was not comparable with the old low participation neighbourhoods data on which many institutions had originally based their targets. As well as asking you to confirm your fees and bursaries for 2011-12, we will also be inviting you to review your milestones and targets to ensure that they are measurable, reflect your institution’s position and are fit for purpose.
Provision of information to students
Once BIS has announced the student support arrangements for 2011-12, you will need to update bursary and scholarship information for 2011-12 applicants on your website and elsewhere as soon as possible, including informing directly any applicants that are already in the system of any changes to the advertised offer. In the meantime, we suggest that holding statements are put in place that indicate your likely arrangements, but with appropriate caveats that these are provisional and subject to approval. If you intend to make material changes to your bursary you should discuss these with us in advance of advertising them to potential applicants.
Got a query?
If you have any queries about this note, or about how to submit a revised or new access agreement, please contact Chris Scrase or Richard Smith by emailing accessagreements@offa.org.uk or phoning 0117 931 7171.
1 Institutions wishing to submit an access agreement for the first time should visit www.offa.org.uk/universities-and-colleges/writing-an-access-agreement/ for further guidance on developing an access agreement.