Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to raise just one issue. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has referred to disabled students. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, referred to her pride in her institution’s access programme for young disadvantaged students. I want to refer to mature part-time students; there has been a huge reduction in the number attending our universities, mainly because of the high level of fees and the huge debt, which older students are not prepared to take on. It is unclear to me—perhaps the Minister will explain it—how the access and participation plans will address this problem. Will they look at it? If so, what will they do in relation to the regulation of the proposals for that specific group? In the past, those drawing up access and participation plans have not been asked to look at this issue. Will they be in the future? What will the Office for Students expect them to cover in relation to trying to recruit more people who are likely to be both disadvantaged and from groups which have been underrepresented in higher education for many years?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out these regulations in such detail. Debating statutory instruments is frustrating in that we cannot amend or reject them, but these are not controversial and such a debate gives us an opportunity to reflect, review and offer suggestions.

It seems extraordinary that someone might be proposed as an OfS board member whose university credentials had been exaggerated and who was on record as making remarks that could not be consistent with the standards stipulated for public appointments. For many of us, the greater iniquity was the lost opportunity to broaden the base of the board and reflect diversity, in particular the total neglect of the FE sector, which provides a significant number of HE students. The board also lacks known champions of adult and part-time learners—I entirely endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has just said.

In his reply to my question on this matter a few days ago, the Minister replied with the names of vice-chancellors and other members of the HE sector, none of them known for their expertise nor interest in further education. Is this valuable sector once again to be marginalised and overlooked? How will such students be represented on the board of the OfS?

Just as there are still no active further education sector representatives on the body, so there are no representatives of the National Union of Students nor university or college staff. I am sure that the Minister will remember our concern during the passage of the Bill that the Office for Students seemed reluctant to let any students near its deliberations. These deficits need to be remedied rapidly if we are to have confidence that, as the regulations are taken forward, they will have input from people on the board who know about the issues that they are supposed to represent.

Will the Director for Fair Access take the lead on these issues? The Minister suggested that he would. Can we be assured that he will not be subordinate to the director of the OfS?

Can the Minister also say whether the tertiary funding review will include part-time and mature students? I come back to them again and again, because they are too critical to be forgotten. These students have been the most adversely affected by student finance changes since 2012. Since 2010-11, part-time participation has fallen by 61% and the number of mature students has declined by 39%. Yet they will be essential to fill the skills gaps and the employment vacancies where the younger generation does not have the numbers, nor indeed the skills, to meet demand. In addition, the part-timers do a great deal to support widening participation.

On widening participation, what steps are being taken to encourage more of those from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university, partly because of the decline in part-time opportunities? We note with concern the decline in the overall number of students from lower participation areas entering HE, which in England has fallen by 15% since 2011-12. Figures for full-time students have risen by 7% but this has been offset by a simultaneous 47% fall in part-time students from those same cohorts. Far more must be done by both institutions and government to ensure that higher education is accessible to all and that we can support students through their studies. Little progress has been made in narrowing the gap between those most and least likely to enter higher education since 2014. The Sutton Trust has pointed out that many of these issues go far back into primary and secondary education as well. I wonder whether the Office for Students will have any interest in talking to and liaising with schools on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We still maintain that we want institutions to think imaginatively about the support that individual students might need, and we will support them in that. That is because each institution is different: they have different needs and courses, and are based in different parts of the country. We think it is absolutely essential that they be allowed to decide for themselves how disabled students, including those with dyslexia, are looked after. I know that we and the noble Lord do not agree on this. Institutions vary in size, and within institutions there can be great variation in the way courses are actually delivered. Disabled students vary greatly in the type and level of support they require to complete their course successfully. The sector is moving towards greater inclusivity, but I am also aware that both the sector as a whole and particular institutions need to do more. However, we do not think being more prescriptive is the way forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked why there were no further education representatives on the OfS board. She has written a letter to me about this, and I have promised to reply. I asked today when that letter is due—it is coming shortly. Notwithstanding that, I will try and answer the question. Schedule 1 to the Higher Education Research Act 2017 sets out the desirable criteria for the composition of the OfS board, which Ministers have to have regard to in making appointments. These criteria were subject to a rigorous parliamentary debate about whether particular representation was necessary to enable the board to operate effectively—for example, a representative from the further education sector. Parliament concluded that there should not be a requirement for specific representation from every single part of the sector that might have an interest in higher education or in the OfS. Instead, the criteria to which the Secretary of State must have regard include the desirability of having members with experience of “providing higher education” and members from,

“a broad range of the different types of English higher education providers”.

We believe that the board as a whole meets these criteria. However, I am absolutely aware of the importance of further education and of the points made by the noble Baroness. The letter may tell us more, but that is the answer I can give at this stage.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

If they are to represent a broad variety of providers, should further education not be within that broad variety?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

That point has already been noted but I will take it back to the department.

The noble Baroness also raised the issue of retention rates, saying that they had worsened recently. This is certainly an issue we are looking at closely, and we have put in place policies to ensure that universities remain focused on it. These regulations extend the remit of access agreements to become access and participation plans, the intention being that they will support both access and student success for disadvantaged groups. The TEF will use non-continuation rates as a core metric when ascribing gold, silver or bronze status to individual universities, although—before a noble Lord intervenes—this method of assessment is going to be subject to a review.

The new transparency condition created by HERA will require many higher education providers to publish their completion rates, broken down by gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic background. Making this data public will shine a light on providers that are underperforming in this area. Transparency is very important.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke about part-time study. That is very important, as it was in our discussions during consideration of the Bill. We have been taking steps to help those wanting to study part-time by offering financial support in the form of loans to cover fees and maintenance costs. We are working towards launching a new maintenance loan for part-time students studying degree-level courses from August this year. In addition, the Government are looking at ways of promoting and supporting a wide variety of flexible and part-time ways of learning.

For example, we are consulting on how we can help to make accelerated degrees more commonly available, a subject which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and I were wholly involved in this morning. Shorter courses offer to students the benefits of lower costs, more intensive study and a quicker return to the workplace. I know that mature and part-time students is a subject of interest here, and it is one of the areas the Government asked the Director of Fair Access to consider in the latest guidance—which, by the way, goes back to February 2016.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked what happens to an access and participation plan if there is a change to the provider—maybe it is sold or taken over. Under the regulatory framework proposals on which we consulted on behalf of the OfS, we suggest that any provider that is sold or is merging with another provider must notify the OfS as soon as reasonably possible. The OfS will then carry out a risk assessment and review what impact this change will have on the provider’s registration status. The outcome will determine whether any further regulatory action is required, such as the imposition of specific registration conditions and perhaps increased monitoring.

The noble Baroness asked what the Government were doing to ensure that more students from BME backgrounds could access and participate in higher education, which is a good point. We have seen record numbers of BME students going into higher education over recent years, and entry rates for all ethnic groups increased in 2017, reaching the highest recorded level. Black 18 year-olds have seen the largest increase in entry rates to full-time higher education over the period, increasing from 27% in 2009 to 40.4% in 2017, a proportional increase of 50%. Gaps in retention between black and white students have also narrowed. However, there is more to do. We are introducing further measures through HERA to tackle equality of opportunity. This includes the transparency condition, which will for the first time require all universities to publish applications, offers and acceptance rates broken down by gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic background.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about the Toby Young point. I know we had a debate during an Oral Question not so long ago and I do not think anything has changed. This is an issue that was unfortunate. The process and the due diligence that was gone through for his appointment were absolutely fine up until the point where we were not in a position to look at the 50,000 or so tweets that Mr Young sent. I pledged to the House that we have a “lessons learned” exercise on the go on that. Representation on the OfS board was debated in Parliament, and the make-up of the board complies with the requirements of the criteria set out in the Higher Education and Research Act. At the moment, during the “lessons learned” approach, we have not yet decided when the last position on the board will be decided. That is something we are considering very carefully in the light of what has happened.

The noble Lord also spoke about competition in the sector. He will know that the OfS has duties that are clearly set out in HERA, one of which is to have regard to the need to encourage competition where that is in the interests of students and employers. That is, if you will, a break that has been included. I hope that gives the noble Lord some reassurance on the issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked about the new arrangements for access and participation. Once it is integrated into the OfS—this brings us back to the regulations we are debating today—we expect that bringing resources and expertise from HEFCE and OFFA together in a single organisation, while still having a dedicated champion for widening participation appointed by Ministers, will provide a greater focus on access and participation. HERA ensures that the Director for Fair Access and Participation will be responsible for overseeing the performance of the OfS’s access and participation functions, for reporting to other members of the OfS on the performance of its functions.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked why, as he put it, we cannot get the Russell group or Oxbridge to do more on access and higher education. I have already mentioned that 18 year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds are entering full-time higher education at record rates, including to the most selective universities. However, the noble Lord is right to some extent: more could and should be done. As I mentioned, in the latest guidance the Government have asked the Director of Fair Access to push hard to see that more progress is made at our most selective institutions via the access agreements, and it is an important point. Prior attainment is obviously a critical factor, and universities have been asked by the DFAP to take on a more direct role in raising attainment in schools as part of their outreach activity.

I am not sure I have entirely covered all the questions that were raised but I hope that, with all those answers to a number of questions, I have helped.