“Lightening the Admin Burden” - Mary Curnock Cook, Chief Executive, UCAS
Les Ebdon OFFA
1.
2. About OFFA
Our role:
To promote and safeguard
fair access to higher education
for lower income and other
under-represented groups
following the introduction of
higher tuition fees
3. OFFA policy advisers – regional focus
North and West Midlands Fiona Clark and Ben Spratt
East Midlands and South Richard Shiner and Patrick Winch
London and East Jessica Woodsford and Rachel Wright
Contact details at www.offa.org.uk
4. OFFA’s annual cycle
Spring
Receive access
agreements
Winter Spring
Receive and assess Publish monitoring
monitoring returns outcomes
Continuous dialogue with
universities and colleges
Winter Early summer
Publish access Access agreement
agreement guidance discussions
Autumn Summer
Publish monitoring Approve access
guidance agreements
5. Changes in the 2014-15 guidance
• Increased focus on evidence and evaluation
• Demonstrating a strategic approach
• Greater challenge around outcomes
• Growth in outreach
• Stronger collaboration
• Equality and diversity
• Student voice
• Changes to NSP
6. Increased focus on evidence and evaluation
• As a sector, we need to identify
what impact access agreement
expenditure is having
• Ensure that all activities are
monitored and evaluated
• Demonstrate that access plans
are based on evidence
• Use evidence collected from
past activities to inform and
improve access plans.
7. Evaluation into strategy
What has Institution’s
What has worked for own targets
Sharing measure
of good worked for institution success
practice
others
Own
Institution’s
specific own review of
access where it needs
to improve
aims
Successful access strategy
8. Greater challenge, greater support
•Greater support
–Dissemination of good practice
–Research and Analysis
•Greater Challenge
–Demonstrating progress and
impact
–Interested in the collective
benefit of widening access
across the sector
10. Guidelines on access spend as a percentage of higher fee income
Guideline proportion to spend on access measures Higher fee income
30% 22.50% 15% 10%
Low Average High Postgraduate ITT
Proportion of student body from under-represented groups Any proportion*
*By definition, postgraduate initial teacher training trainees already have experience of higher
education, and many will be entitled to training bursaries, so OFFA and the Teaching Agency have
agreed a lower level of spend for this provision.
12. Student success
• Retention: staying and
completing the course
• Attainment: reaching
full potential
• Employability:
preparing for work
13. Stronger collaboration
• Grow and strengthen collaboration where
possible
• Collaborative evaluation and targets
• Take collaborative efforts into account when
monitoring
14. Equalities and diversity
Equalities Act 2010 ‘protected
characteristics’:
• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation.
15. The next step for equality in access agreements
Our hopes for 2014-15 access agreements:
• A more embedded
approach
• A separate legal
declaration
• More specific
guidance on what
we want to see
• Better support on
setting equality
targets
17. Student voice
• We strongly encourage institutions to:
consult students in the design, implementation
and monitoring of agreements … to involve
students at an early stage when drawing up plans
for outreach, retention and financial support
• Evidence of student consultation
• Innovative/new examples
• What other areas could students influence?
18. National strategy for access and student success
OFFA’s role, working with HEFCE, will be to:
“develop a shared strategy for promoting access and
maximising the impact of the investment made by the
Government, the Council and institutions”
Letter to OFFA and HEFCE from Vince Cable, Secretary of State for
Business, Innovation and Skills, and David Willetts, Minister for Universities and
Science, May 2012
