Gordon Marsden
Main Page: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)
Gordon Marsden ExcerptsTuesday 6th September 2016
(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Chair
Welcome to our afternoon sitting. We will now hear oral evidence from Which?, the Confederation of British Industry, moneysavingexpert.com, and the chair of the teaching excellence framework panel and vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.
Would you like to introduce yourselves? The session is quite informal. Colleagues will ask you questions—already about six colleagues have said that they are interested in doing so. Obviously, we have not got a lot of time, so I ask for brief answers. I will leave it to you to decide, as a question is asked, which of you wants to answer it. Would you like to introduce yourselves quickly?
Martin Lewis: I am Martin Lewis, founder of moneysavingexpert.com and former head of the Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information.
Neil Carberry: I am Neil Carberry. I am director for people and skills at the Confederation of British Industry.
Professor Chris Husbands: I am Chris Husbands. I am Vice-Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University, and I have been appointed to chair the teaching excellence framework panel.
Pete Moorey: I am Pete Moorey, head of campaigns at Which?
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Q 55 May I say at the beginning of this sitting that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward?
Let me turn to our colleagues. Can I start you off with a question about the issue of students as consumers? Obviously, the language of the Bill talks, significantly—as the Government have—about boosting the rights of students as consumers, yet the paradox is that, in the past few months, some of the main controversies have been about the way in which students as consumers seem to be getting a raw deal from the Government, who have moved the goalposts in certain areas. With that in mind, would you like to comment, first, on whether the Government are right to put so much emphasis on students as consumers and, secondly, on whether there are practical measures in the Bill that strengthen their position as consumers?
Pete Moorey: I am happy to start. The fact is that universities have been covered by consumer law for some time—that was further confirmed by the passage of the Consumer Rights Act 2015—but the Competition and Markets Authority, partly as a result of research that Which? conducted, has demonstrated that, on occasion, some universities have failed to comply with consumer law. That has gone across a range of issues, including the information that they made available to students, whether prospective or sitting; their terms and conditions; their complaints handling; and a whole range of other issues. We welcome the fact that as a result of the Bill we will have, hopefully, a proper regulatory structure to deal with that issue.
We very much welcome the creation of the office for students. We think that there has been an issue with regulation of this sector. Clearly, we now need to ensure that that regulator works effectively and has the powers to take action because, although we have seen some improvements from universities, in the way that they are complying with consumer law, we are still finding too much evidence from students around problems that they are facing. Therefore, action needs to be taken by regulators when that is found, so that students who are, obviously, now paying an awful lot of money are properly protected.
Martin Lewis: I think that raises lots of things. Students as consumers is a difficult one. It is a difficult to be a consumer where we should not automatically give a good consumer full choice: they should not choose what the make-up of their course is and what the academic standards are. The subtext to this question is the abominable and disgraceful behaviour of the Government in the retrospective hike in student loan fees. Looking at students as consumers, if they had borrowed money from a commercial lender, the Financial Conduct Authority would have struck out in a second the idea that, five years after announcing that the repayment threshold would go up from £21,000 in April 2017 with average earnings, that would be frozen.
Let us make no bones about it: that is a hike for students. They will pay more each month and the vast majority of them will pay more in total. In fact, the only ones who will not pay more in total are the very high-earning ones who will pay off their loans more quickly. There has been a lot of debate about whether the Government actually promised this or not. It was not in the terms and conditions, but the FCA regulations are quite clear: if your major marketing states that you will do something, whether the terms and conditions have an exemption for it—we have seen it with shared appreciation mortgages and others—it will be ruled out.
I am very pleased that last week—which was rather wonderful timing—I finally got my hands on this letter that I would like to submit as evidence, if I may. It is from David Willetts, the former Minister for Universities, and is written to a parent telling them that the rate would go up in April 2017 with average earnings. If I were sitting in another forum I would be here lobbying you, if a company had done this, for mis-selling and for compensation for the students who have been affected. We have a higher education Bill, which touts throughout, and goes on about, equality and fairness. It is built on a lie if the Government and the state itself are not behaving fairly to students.
This is a retrospective hike. It breaks all good principles of good governance. It breaks all good principles of good finance. Moreover, not only that, but this breach of trust makes it more difficult for people like me who have been trying to say to students, regardless of the political spittle generated—forgive me—by you people when you argue over these issues, that students can still afford to go to university. I get asked the question, “Can we trust what you say?” Well, how can they if the Government will retrospectively change terms?
Let us not just treat students as consumers; let us treat them as voters and citizens. The danger here is that, when you retrospectively change terms, when people have signed a contract with the Government and you breach that contract, you knock not only the faith in the student finance system, but the belief in politics as a whole. It is absolutely wrong and until that is sorted out, until student finance is put on statutory terms and until the Minister—who it is nice to see sitting there, and we have discussed this—gets his Government, in this new era of fairness and equality for all, which we hear about, to turn this abomination around, then no, students will not be treated fairly as consumers and this whole thing is a bloody farce.
The Chair
Okay. I will appeal for crisp answers. Are you finished with your question, Gordon?
Mr Marsden
No, I am almost speechless at that strong rhetoric that was used. I would like to press one—
The Chair
One more question—perhaps we will just get one answer to the next question, because there are a number of other people who want to come in.
Mr Marsden
The point that you touched on, Mr Lewis, is about the spirit of the proposals, as well as the letter of the proposals. It is in that spirit that I want to—
The Chair
Gordon, you have the floor for a brisk question and a brisk answer. As time is now galloping on, just one answer from our panel to each question, please—and a crisp answer. You decide between you.
Mr Marsden
Q Thank you, Sir Edward. Moving on from the consumer issue, I want to ask about where the panel sees the role of skills in the Bill. Mr Carberry, you have waxed lyrical on this issue on a number of occasions, but the fact of the matter is that the skills issues that affect us are, I would suggest, relatively untouched in the Bill. Are you concerned by that? Do other people have concerns?
Neil Carberry: You are right to raise it. Clearly, we live in different times from the last time we regulated universities. Participation at higher levels is much higher, and necessarily much higher now. Our key concern regarding skills is, first, making sure that the diversity of our university base is protected through things like the teaching excellence framework, and what it recognises as good provision. To ensure that diversity of provision is encouraged, we would very much like to see more focus on a statutory basis for the promotion of part-time learning, which is something we need to be thinking about, as most of the people who will be in the labour market in 2030 are in the labour market now. Broadly, the approach of the Bill is one that we support.
I will put one other thing on the table, which is around research and engagement with business on the research side. A lot of focus goes into things like the higher education innovation fund and knowledge transfer, which helps businesses to develop their skills and production. We would like to see more focus on knowledge exchange and protection for the Innovate UK role so that that remains business focused and we get some really genuine business engagement out of the new system.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Q I want to move on to the alternative provider of student finance, which some of the panel have talked about heavily. Given that, over the years, a large number of religious students are not necessarily able to access that funding, I was wondering in terms of the Bill itself whether you support what is being detailed and outlined here, or is there anything that should be enhanced or improved?
Martin Lewis: Certainly on sharia finance, I think it is a very good move towards having an alternative. The provisions need to make sure that there is no benefit or disbenefit in doing so, and that it works on the same basis as for other students. I think that is important, because having been out there talking to people, there is often a question from non-sharia students, “Does this mean that they’re getting a better deal than us?” We do not want to get involved in that type of social division. On a straight basis, certainly having given many, many talks on this issue over the years, every time I go there and there are members of the Islamic faith there, if they are more religious they are disengaged from the student finance process and looking at parents funding them. That is not often possible, because we are talking about large amounts of money and, generally, it is bad finance for anyone to be funding up front—it does not work with the way our system works. Therefore, they are disfranchised from the system, so I wholeheartedly support it—it is something I have asked for in the past. I need to do more work on the exact structure, but presuming it is a sharia-compliant mimic of the existing system, I think it is very good news.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Q Returning to the TEF, do you think it is going to raise teaching standards or is it going to provide a mechanism to increase fees? Could we end up with a very complicated system of fees, where the levels are changing from one course to another or from one year to another, leaving quite a difficult situation for students to comprehend?
Professor Chris Husbands: The policy intention is to provide clearer information for students. The question some way down the track—I do not think the sector has begun to think this one through—is whether once you move to discipline level TEF you end up with discipline variability in fees. There is experience on this. If you look at the postgraduate or international market, which are unregulated in terms of fees, there tends not to be, with one or two exceptions, institutional differentiation—intra-institutional differentiation—on fees, so I think that is unlikely.
As I said earlier, at some point, the reality of higher education economics is that we have to have a framework for increasing the fee basis. We cannot be here in 30 or 40 years’ time on £9,000 fees when prices are considerably higher. The challenge for me and the panel is to make sure that as those fees increase, the institutions are appropriately focused on developing and further enhancing teaching quality.
Mr Marsden
Q At the risk of making this a TEF love-in, I would like to pursue a final point with Chris. The elephant in the room on TEF, which has not surfaced today, although it has at many other meetings, not least the meeting of vice-chancellors with the all-party parliamentary group, is the basis on which the TEF is produced. If we go back to the consumer conversations we had earlier, if you were a consumer, you would not just want to know whether chocolate was good or bad for you; you would want to know whether dark chocolate or white chocolate was. This inevitably raises questions about whether you do the test on the basis of disciplines, which would probably be hugely complicated, or perhaps by schools of humanities, et cetera. Have you any thoughts at the moment? Have the Government given you any guidance on where they want you to go with that?
Professor Chris Husbands: I will make three brief points if I may. First, the Government did not need, I suspect, to appoint a serving vice-chancellor to chair the TEF panel. I have taken that as an indication that they want to work with the grain of the sector on this. The second point is that we have said that as we move beyond year 2 and from institution to discipline level we will be working as far as we can to co-design this with sector bodies—with individual institutions, mission groups and the sector. That is very important.
The third thing—I genuinely do not have an answer to this, and as this is a TEF love-in, I am very happy to come back for another one—is this. There are some challenges that we have to negotiate in relation to discipline level, because one of the things that Neil’s members value is the very broad variety of course provision in universities. There is a real danger—I am keenly aware that we have to avoid this—that you produce an assessment regime that leads institutions to make their offering less entrepreneurial and more small-c conservative, whereas what we need to be doing to meet the demand in a very dynamic economy is increasing the diverse provision at discipline level. We have to get that right and we have to work at it. There are a range of ways—I have had some discussions with civil servants about what it might look like, but we are not in a position yet to say what it looks like.
Mr Marsden
Q All the members of the panel are—I will not say not in the mainstream—not in the usual stream of what people think of as higher education. I want to ask two questions to two sides. To witnesses from what might broadly be described as the vocational and further education sector, do you feel that this Bill has enough for you? There has been a lot of talk about alternative providers, but there is not much detail in the Bill about skills or about how FE and vocational education can help with the promotion and expansion of HE.
To our other witnesses from UCFB and Condé Nast college, a further question. You operate at the moment as independent providers in a different field. Some of your fees, not least those of Condé Nast, are fairly eye-watering. How would you feel about your institution and others being brought into the central process, where you might be regulated more than you are at the moment?
Susie Forbes: I can speak for Condé Nast college as its principal. I feel that we are already pretty regulated. Yes, we are operating as an independent, but we have already had to adhere to QAA and all of the other normal bureaucracy that everybody else is facing, so we are already in a highly compliant and regulated industry as part of the HE field. I believe that the idea is to bring in more streamlining and more ease for people such as us, so that we do not have to depend on HEFCE, QAA and everybody else. When we have a tiny team of 10 people it is quite hard to deal with the multiple systems of the HE pattern, so in principle that streamlining and ease of the OFS might help us. I do not get the impression that we are about to get a new fee structure imposed upon us, because we remain a private provider.
Mr Marsden
Q That is perfectly true, but it is also true that one of the aims of the Bill is to widen access and participation. The fees for your school are £27,000 per year. Clearly, at the moment you are probably not in a very good position to do that. If you come into a mainstream system, how will you be able to address that particular aspect of the Bill?
Susie Forbes: The way we do it now is to offer three full, free scholarship places. Out of 100 students that is not a bad proportion. We are also interested in looking at projects beyond the bricks and mortar college in Greek Street, and earlier somebody mentioned the apprenticeship levy. There are all sorts of things that we could do beyond our building. We also only set out to be a very—we give incredible value for money, and that is what all of our students say.
Mr Marsden
It is a very niche offering.
Susie Forbes: It is a very niche, very specialist offering. We sit where we sit.
Angela Jones: There are also economies of scale.
Mr Marsden
Q To be fair, perhaps I should bring in Philip to give us his perspective on that.
Professor Philip Wilson: We very much welcome the new HE Bill opportunity. Again, we are very highly regulated. We proactively subscribed to QAA oversight four years ago, and we are looking to start the TDAP—taught degree awarding powers—process in the next six to 12 months, hopefully with the university title following that. So we are very much conforming to the checks and balances of wider higher education. We charge a £9,000 fee through our validation partner, so any fee changes would be in line with any public provider.
Dame Ruth Silver: There is lots to welcome in the Bill in relation to further education colleges. Neil and I represent the college sector and the independent sector. The college sector, of course, has its roots in Victorian mechanics’ institutes, so we have long been around in this field. The Bill does much to lift lots of parts of the college sector.
I welcome the plans for regulation, though I am concerned about its fairness, both in terms of costs and data. If we look at the numbers of what is going on in colleges, 220 colleges offer HE provision, and 70 of those have more than 500 learners, but a lot have much smaller groups of learners, and for them to be paying the same fee as everybody else is really prohibitive. So, fairer regulation that is fit for size, context and purpose is what we are looking for in the FE sector.
Neil Bates: We are the first new college of advanced technology to be established since the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. We have been established to try to address a fundamental problem within the skills system, because we think there is a fundamental faultline that runs through it. On the one hand it unhelpfully channels people between an academic and vocational route, while equally a significant skills gap exists, particularly at technical professional levels 3, 4 and 5, which we need to solve. The UK economy is not going to be globally competitive unless we have people with the right skills to respond to that challenge.
We approach this not just from the point of view of the student, but from the problem we are trying to solve, which is that, in the engineering sector alone, we need 80,000 new technicians at levels 3, 4 and 5 in order to support businesses. The faultline has occurred because, after the 1992 Act, polytechnics became universities and a whole gap opened in HNC and HND level of provision. Further education colleges saw part-time participation in HE decline dramatically and the consequence is a gap between apprenticeships that are high volume and low level and an HE system that is high level but remote from the needs of business.
Mr Marsden
Q But what do you see in the Bill that is actually going to change that? Is there much read-across from the Bill and, for example, some of the proposals from the Sainsbury review? When you look at the forecasts in the technical documents that go with it, the number of FE colleges that are guesstimated to be providing HE courses in 10 years’ time is more or less exactly the same as at the moment. The concerns of many people are that this is a Bill that is predicated for alternative providers, but the FE sector does not really seem to be at the table.
Dame Ruth Silver: I have been both surprised and shocked at two things: first, the lack of mention of skills generally in the Bill, and secondly, the lack of knowledge or appreciation of what colleges do. To give some figures, 10% of HE graduates in 2014-15 came through colleges—180,000 learners every year. Those learners are different from the traditional, rather “boarding school” model of universities. They are part-time working while they have families, they are women returners and so on. Colleges widen access in crucial areas and areas where there is a cold place for communities. They are local, they are everywhere, and they are actually well used to the coming challenges, too. Neil talked about the polytechnics, which came from colleges of advanced technology, but the CATs came from technical colleges, so we have a long tradition of moving in, challenging and enriching the spread and fairness of offer to all in our communities, especially those in cold spots.
We are nearly ready. Look at the number of colleges that award higher education qualifications. I am hoping you will look, too, at thinking further about colleges having degree-awarding powers as well, again fitting employers’ and local community needs. This could be rather like the Olympic legacy planning. Start early and work with local communities; bring them in and bring them on. Go downstream and give people a fairer chance in the way that local colleges and local training providers can.
Amanda Milling
Q Good afternoon. I want to take a slight step back. Could you outline some of the barriers and challenges that new providers face in entering the market? How do you feel the Bill and the reforms will address these?
Angela Jones: We have just been through the whole process of finding a validating partner for our degree, and it was really difficult. There was no one place to go. There was no guidance. It was just a case of trying a few different bodies and trying to find some place that would support us. There was nothing central—no one that you could go to and say, “This is what we are looking to do. Can you advise us and help us through that process?” For us, the idea of an office for students in a central place to go and be supported through that process is very helpful.
We got a very different response from different universities. We started our own piece of research into the places that would suit us. We shortlisted five different universities that might work with us on the validation of our BA, and the responses that we received were wildly different. Some people just did not want anything to do with us; with some people we could not even find the information, despite them doing it as part of their business. Finding the partner initially was the biggest challenge. Anything that can address that for alternative providers is very important.
Professor Philip Wilson: We have been through the same process with finding a validation partner. The fees quoted by vice-chancellors for a validation partnership are very different. Because these agreements are often for a four to five-year period, business planning in the long term, particularly around capital expenditure on buildings, staff recruitment and staff planning, is very difficult. It almost encourages a shorter-term view of your business strategy, rather than something longer term. I totally agree about having a centralised place where there could be a list of universities that would be prepared to enter the validation market. That has become more difficult since the student number controls came off, because universities do not necessarily need the income. We have seen a number of institutions pull the ladder up from colleges on validation powers with pretty much no notice, which has caused a number of issues—it filters down to the students and causes disruption.
Neil Bates: Can I pick up on Gordon’s question? We as an organisation provide a whole range of high-level HE provision, but it is all delivered in the workplace context. All of our students on HNCs, HNDs or indeed our new degree apprenticeship in embedded electronics are employed by the businesses we work with. Our relationship with those businesses is extremely close. We support them in all their workforce development. We will be applying to have our own awarding powers because of our concern about the ability and capacity of universities to deliver degree-level programmes in a workplace context.
We spoke to two universities about our degree apprenticeship. One wanted to deliver it over six years and the other wanted to deliver it over four years. All of them wanted the apprentices to spend a whole year at the university, which is not what businesses want. Businesses want a responsive way of training their workforce up to degree level, and universities either have to become much more flexible and much more responsive or they are going to face competition from other organisations that are prepared to do that.
Mark Pawsey
Q Why is this Bill so important to you?
Professor Philip Wilson: It is about a level playing field, absolutely. We want to be considered and judged and monitored the same as everybody else. That then leads through to more informed student choice. I get frustrated at open days talking to parents who spend more time researching their summer holiday on TripAdvisor and look for more information than they will do on their university of choice. We need to educate the parents and the families on how they choose their institutions. It is not just based on longevity—how long an institution has been around.
Angela Jones: For us it is about a change in emphasis away from research and into teaching quality and excellence because that is what we do and do well. We are providing an excellent environment for students to learn in and that is our focus. Higher education has always traditionally been judged on research output. If we are being judged against people based on research output, essentially we have to compete on a different level and the TEF is better.
Professor Philip Wilson: I also think the QAA need to expand and broaden their assessment when they come into an institution. We have had some very successful QAA reviews but when they do not actually go into a classroom it beggars belief—I just do not get it, because that is what the student interaction point is; that is where the customer service interaction is. I really would support the QAA getting into the classroom, sitting at the back of the room and understanding what the teaching quality is like, so that students are not having PhD students doing the majority of their teaching. Institutions must be held to account of qualified people standing at the front of every room.
Mr Marsden
Q Both our colleagues from the FE sector have laid stress on the way that higher degrees can be delivered through very strong local connectivity. To be fair to the Government, the Government have banged on in the Bill all the time about higher skills but there are issues at the moment, I would suggest, around the implications of Brexit for funding. The figure that I had from the Government just before the referendum was in the region of £725 million of ESF funding.
We have heard from colleagues this morning about the support that the Government are giving to the university sector in terms of research. Are you concerned that a lot of that money that fuels the sort of work that you do will go west if there is not a renewed effort on that part by the Government?
Dame Ruth Silver: It is a growing concern certainly in colleges, where European social funds come through local authorities and through universities. A lot of partnership work is funded by that, so it is a great concern. What will be removed would be those new initiatives that seem to have an impact on bringing people in, dealing with individuals but helping employers as well. Diversity of employers in Lewisham has certainly been helped by that. It is the loss of the layer below that will infect and affect progression for those communities. There is a concern that that money will be lost at the same time.
Mr Marsden
Q So you are looking for similar guarantees to the ones that the HE sector and universities have had?
Dame Ruth Silver: Absolutely.
Neil Bates: I would like to link this back to the previous question on why we are interested in offering degrees in our own right. Part of the answer to that is that we are not much interested in providing a traditional degree like the universities. We are not trying to compete with universities like that. We are trying to create a legitimate pathway for young people who do not want to go down the A-level, university and degree route, but who want to get their professional development, high-level skills and degree through a work-based route. Frankly, we are better positioned to be able to provide that kind of experience, through the College of Advanced Technology, than many universities are.
In our experience, the universities’ default position has been to go back to the traditional model and to offer that as the diet for people who want to do a degree. We are looking to do this in a different way. There is a mile of difference between the funding of a university compared with the funding available in FE. One of the real challenges for us is levelling that a bit so that we can actually provide the quality of experience that they would expect.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Q We have heard quite a lot already about a level playing field. For the independent sector, it is generally about regulation. Do you think that we should look at a level playing field in other ways? If a student goes to university, they have access to a whole range of cultural and sporting activities, they have intensive student support and they can exchange with other universities. Should not that be a set of demands that we also place on the independent sector?
Angela Jones: I think they are getting something different, and that is the point. We do not do what big universities do. They come to us because they do not want to go to a big university. We can give them other experiences and arrange for other things for them to do that our small numbers allow, but our small numbers do not allow us, for example, to have whole departments to support student activities such as sports clubs and things like that. We do everything that we can to provide access to those things or point our students in the right direction. We have a really particular set of students and that is not why they come to us. They do not want those things from us. They have a different set of expectations and demands.
Mr Marsden
With respect, the point is that that is the classic definition of the freedom to dine at the Ritz.
The Chair
I am afraid that is going to have to be the last answer.
Dame Ruth Silver: May I make a point? I think that the non-traditional sector needs to be represented at the Office for Students and the quality assurance committee. The Education Committee must scrutinise the student experience—not just the culture, but learning support for learners who may struggle in a different flexibility.
Mr Marsden
Q Yes, if I may. We have heard this morning some spirited conversation from witnesses about the extent to which this is a Bill for students, the issue of representation and the office for students, for example, as part of that process. I wonder whether I could ask the witnesses to look more broadly than simply the issues in terms of students, and to look at all the people who make HE institutions tick. Obviously, that includes students, and it also includes big issues around the extent to which, for example, the director of fair access at OFFA is empowered more in this Bill than he or she is at present. To start us off, does the Bill do enough to put students more in the driving seat? Does it do enough for the people who work in our HE institutions?
Sally Hunt: I will start, and please tell me if I have not got the volume right, because I agree—I was finding it very difficult to hear at the back. Does this put students in the driving seat? I think that what it actually does is turn the whole debate on where students sit within the university system and the degree awarding system—be that within universities, further education or others—into a debate on the level of fees and on the relationship being one of customer and provider. Rather than empowering them, that actually gives them quite a strange set of tests—if I may put it that way—by which they are meant to judge the whole system, which, I acknowledge up front, is complex, can be intimidating and can sometimes be quite opaque.
What I think would be helpful, in response to the more general point you are making, Gordon, is that, if we are looking through this Bill to improve student experience, employability and quality—all of which I would tick the box on for the people I represent, in very strong terms—what we have to say is, how does the Bill actually do that? Does it actually make it a better experience for students, or is it simply a case of fulfilling a manifesto commitment? Is this a case of reinventing the wheel in terms of how we justify and explain increased fees for students? Is this a way by which we are going to open the door for different providers to come in to a sector that is already under great strain? That is the question that has to be answered straightaway, because unless you can actually show that the student is going to come away better as a result of the Bill—and I really question that—I do not know why we are at this point anyway. I think we ought to ask that question before we get into anything else.
Professor Les Ebdon: In a sense, I have a role not only to protect the interests of current students but to protect the interests of potential students and the opportunity for those with talent, wherever they come from, to get to university. I welcome the Bill, in the sense that fair access and participation will have the possibility of permeating all the activity of the office for students. I am fond of saying that universities that are successful at fair access have embodied that in the totality of their strategy. There is the opportunity in this legislation to do that for potential students to make a significant stride in social mobility and towards a fairer society.
The concern that I would have is around whether it actually gives more power to the director of fair access or not. At the moment, the director of fair access has the sole authority for deciding whether an access plan is sufficient and universities have done what is sufficient to promote and safeguard the interests of students. I know there would be a number of universities that, if they had somebody else—another chief executive above me—to go to, would take my decision to them, because they argue long and hard with me about the decisions I make.
Mr Marsden
Q Are you concerned that the specific and technical nature of the clauses that have been put in regarding where you sit in relation to the OFS and the Secretary of State do not give that clarity at the moment?
Professor Les Ebdon: I am concerned that there should be clarity in those clauses to make it clear that the responsibility, particularly for deciding on an access plan and approving it, should rest with the director for fair access and participation. There should be absolute clarity about the responsibility. The expression used in the Bill at the moment is “report”; I understand from lawyers that a report is a narrative exercise and the report could describe a good or a bad situation. I want to see words like “responsibility” and “accountable for” in there.
When it comes to the delegation of authority, as far as access and participation are concerned, that should be exclusively delegated to the director for access and participation, so that there is clarity about that particular role—and indeed, a greater power there—and the progress that we have made in recent years through OFFA can be sustained and, indeed, we can make further and faster progress.
Alison Goddard: I come to this as an observer, rather than a player in the higher education game. I applaud the aim of the Bill in putting students at the heart of the system; however, I have concerns that it will fail to do so. I have concerns especially about the funding of the office for students. It strikes me as being much more of an office for higher education. At the moment, it is funded almost entirely by universities. There may be some role for Government funding. If the office for students is to regulate properly the university system, it cannot be funded by those universities themselves.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Q I want to pick up on some points that you have made. I have not got the feel of a definitive answer from any of you as to whether the Bill puts students at its heart. Professor Ebdon, you have been doing the job around fair access. My view is that students think they are paying £27,000 net for higher education, and yet they are receiving bills for £45,000, which comes as a great shock to them. Also, I cannot see anything about lifelong learning here—the value of education throughout one’s life. Could you be a bit more definitive about whether you think this is a good, necessary Bill and whether it fulfils the function of putting students at the heart of it?
Professor Les Ebdon: The Bill is not fundamentally about funding the system and that is not my responsibility. Parliament decides on the level of fees and I believe you may soon have a vote on that matter. I am concerned that we continue to make progress in fair access so that people from all parts of the country, all groups, can get to university.
We have seen a 65% increase in the numbers of students from the most disadvantaged communities in our universities since 2006, in the first 10 years of access agreements. The entry rate has gone up by some 65% for the most disadvantaged 20%. I want to see us building on that and increasing that dimension and I think that we can do that. We have found in access agreements a way of doing that. Incidentally, the application rate is up by 76%. If we could turn that increase in application rate into an increase in acceptances, we would be doing even better.
Amanda Milling
Q In the Select Committee, we talked a lot about metrics and the balance between quantitative and qualitative metrics. Does the use of qualitative measures to evaluate performance address some of your concerns?
Sally Hunt: It is hard to answer the question. I do not mean to avoid it. What I am trying to convey is that TEF is not enough as it is constructed at the moment, with the criteria and tests that are being put in place and the links that are being created, for example, with fees. Peer review should be sitting at the core of it. What should also be at the core of it is universities showing students that the teachers in place are well trained, resourced and supported. That is not necessarily something that will be delivered through the criteria put in place at this point in time.
We are concerned about the Bill because it will put in place a system that will increase the complexity that universities have to weave their way through in order to get funding. It will increase the pressure on teachers, who are already under a great deal of strain—the average week is 50-plus hours and the average contract is very insecure—without necessarily asking universities to embed what will make the real difference to teaching, which is making sure they have quality terms and conditions for staff.
That is my central point on this. I recognise that others do not necessarily agree with us, but I think it is our duty and our role to bring it to your attention. There is nothing in the Bill at the moment that talks about the quality of staff, in terms of how they are supported, resourced and employed. At the end of the day, staff members and students in the classroom are critical, rather than everything going on around them.
Mr Marsden
Q The White Paper that gave birth to the Bill talks—in fact, it waxes lyrical—about the trials and potential successes, but also the downside, of the market. It talks about market failure. Particularly in respect of new providers and the proposals to lower the threshold at which they can come in—and, indeed, enjoy a form of university title almost from day one—what do the panel think the pluses and minuses of that process might be, in terms of both the teachers at those institutions and of the students? Obviously in your case, Professor Ebdon, if we have a large number of market failures, there are implications for what you are trying to do with the Office for Fair Access.
The Chair
Time is running out, so perhaps a crisp answer and then we will move on to a couple more questions.
Professor Les Ebdon: Students are weak consumers, which is why it is important to have a regulator to ensure that their interests are protected. University education is expensive and it is a one-off investment that students make, and therefore it is very important to protect students. I do recognise particularly that some of the newer entrants have been quite active in recruiting students from disadvantaged areas. I welcome the opportunity now for proper regulation across the sector.
Mr Marsden
Q What if they go bust?
Professor Les Ebdon: The interests of those students must be protected. If they have paid their fees, they need to be protected. I would always hope that the sector would be able to come up with something on that, but I assume that the regulations underpinning the Bill will ensure that they are protected. I would certainly think it a national scandal if students had invested their money—aided and abetted, as it were, by the state, through the Student Loans Company—and not received the education for which they had paid.
Ben Howlett
Q Going back to some of the points raised earlier by Professor Ebdon in relation to the independence of OFFA, how does the Bill deliver true independence and actually enhance independence?
Professor Les Ebdon: I am not arguing for independence in the sense that we have independence now. I quite value the coherence that bringing the Office for Fair Access activity into the office for students brings. I am concerned about the authority of the director for access and participation. Based on my experience, you need to have the authority to sign off or not to sign off on an access agreement and for that to be untrammelled, other than the usual opportunity to appeal against a totally unreasonable decision. That does not guarantee it.
I also think that it is important, if you are going to get a high-profile director for access and participation, that that authority is enshrined. The responsibility lies with the director. One of the reasons I can be successful is that I am a former vice-chancellor. I know most of the tricks; in fact, I invented one or two. Therefore, that gives me greater authority in dealing with universities. That is my concern.
The Chair
Okay, let him answer.
Dr John Kemp: I accept that point. However, we are not talking about tweaks here. The Government in Scotland have set fairly radical targets for improving widening access, which will be backed up by outcome agreements with the universities and a programme of work, some of which might begin to be announced this afternoon. It is far more than tweaks to the system in Scotland to widen access. We recognise that meeting the targets set by the government in Scotland will require substantial work by the sector, by the funding council and by other sectors, including schools and colleges in Scotland too. It is something that sees a whole-system approach rather than tweaks.
Mr Marsden
Q I have a fairly quick question to Mr Kingman. You have talked eloquently about where you want to take UKRI. I am sure that your senior roles in the Treasury will equip you in many ways for that task, but you are going to be doing it at a time when there is going to be a flux between the development of HEFCE and QAA and finally the OFS. As someone said earlier, that may mirror the time it takes us to operate Brexit. How are you going to promote the UK brand, which you need to do, when you have the OFS coming up, which may in decades come to be a sufficient substitute for the Privy Council brand internationally but certainly will not be initially?
Dr John Kingman: I think it is a very fair point, but I would argue that the creation of UKRI means that, for the very first time, there is an organisation whose job is partly to put the case internationally for the extraordinary strength of the UK science and research base. I am in the process of recruiting a chief executive of this organisation, and I believe we will be able to hire an outstanding one, part of whose role will be absolutely focused on that. That is a new role that has never existed historically. This whole architecture was designed in a pre-Brexit world, but as it happens, I think it is very opportune.
Mr Marsden
Q Okay. You are optimistic about this, but I have a supplementary. There is a great queasiness—I put it no more strongly than that—in the representations that I and others have had from the research community about the powers that this new Bill will give the OFS, and by implication the Secretary of State, in relation to research councils. Are you queasy about the fact that research councils could be abolished under this Bill, without it having to come to the Floor of the House?
Dr John Kingman: I would certainly say that I cannot imagine it. The Bill provides for circumstances in which Ministers could change the structure of the research councils.
Mr Marsden
Q But is that the same as abolishing them?
Dr John Kingman: I cannot imagine circumstances in which Ministers would choose to exercise that power without consulting widely.
Roger Mullin
Q Can you confirm, Dr Kemp, in terms of access in Scotland, that over 20% of students entering HE do so through the college sector?
Dr John Kemp: Yes, and the students entering HE in the college sector more or less exactly match the population, in terms of social background.