Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take, if any, to increase the number of care leavers at high tariff higher education institutions.

We have published guidance for higher education (HE) providers, setting out areas where care leavers are likely to need additional support, including examples of the types of additional support that have been put in place, drawing on best practice from across the sector. We have also introduced the Care Leaver Covenant, which enables organisations, including HE providers, to make offers of support to care leavers.

The National Network for the Education of Care Leavers has developed the Quality Mark: a developmental accreditation process for universities and colleges to demonstrate their support for the inclusion and success of care experienced students. The Quality Mark has a focus on getting the right information to students on academic and pastoral support available to them, along with tailored mentoring and financial advice.

As autonomous bodies independent from government, HE providers are responsible for their own admissions decisions. However, the department encourages HE providers to put the interests of students at the heart of their decision-making, including providing the appropriate support for care leavers.

All HE providers in the approved (fee cap) category of the Office for Students’ (OfS) register are required to have an access and participation plan (APP) agreed by the Director for Fair Access and Participation at the OfS. In order to be approved, APPs must represent a credible, ambitious strategy to reduce gaps in access, participation and attainment for disadvantaged and under-represented groups.

As care leavers are underrepresented within HE, APPs will often address specific interventions by the provider for improving equality of opportunity for care-experienced individuals. This may take the form of targeted outreach, additional pastoral, accommodation or financial support while studying, or support through mentorship or buddy schemes.

Care leavers attending HE courses are treated as independent students when their entitlement to living costs is assessed. This means that in nearly all cases they will qualify for the maximum loan for living costs. Care leavers undertaking HE also qualify for a £2,000 HE bursary from their local authority. Additional bursaries are offered by some HE providers for care leavers in higher education.

The enclosed attachment contains the department’s analysis of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student record showing the number of care leavers who entered courses at English HE providers in each academic year from 2018/19 to 2020/21. Coverage refers to entrants domiciled in England prior to study and care leavers are defined as codes 01 and 04 in the HESA care leaver collection documentation. Further information can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c20051/a/careleaver.

The summary table below shows the number of care leavers who entered courses at high tariff[1] English HE providers in each year, along with total care leavers entering courses at all HE providers. A full breakdown by institution can be found in the attachment.

We will take account of the recommendations from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which is due to report shortly, when assessing what further support can be provided to increase the number of care leavers who attend university.

[1] The tariff grouping used here is the same as that which the Office for Students defined in Annex A (pg 20) of their technicaly guidance, available here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/6591e671-624a-4ebf-a5fb-1be904a5eb9f/technical-gudiance-to-accompany-provider-modelling-finalforweb.pdf.

They are based on the average UCAS tariff score of their young (aged under 21) UK-domiciled undergraduate entrants in the 2012-13 to 2014-15 academic years. Providers in the top third of the ranking by average tariff score form the ‘High tariff’ group.