The national interest(s)

The UK has four separate national higher education policies. It’s a devolved matter, so the governments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh set the policies in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland independently of policies determined by BIS in London for England. But it is also the case that there’s a single higher education system in the UK – at least when viewed from the perspectives of staff, students and research funders. Staff move freely between the different nations; there’s plenty of student mobility between nations, and research funders look for the best research, which often spans the UK’s internal borders. So there’s two contrary facts on the go at the same time.

Universities Wales, the local franchise of UUK in Wales, has today published a manifesto which speaks to the tension which arises because of this. The manifesto, which aims to help shape party policies in May 2016’s assembly elections, sets out six ‘fundamental commitments’ for universities in Wales. Let’s take a look.

The first of these fundamental commitments addresses access to maintenance funding for students: “Provide means-tested maintenance grants for Welsh students from foundation through to postgraduate level to ensure that everyone in Wales has access to the life changing opportunities provided through higher education.”

There’s two things going on here. Firstly, a recognition that access to money to live on whilst studying is a major factor in widening access and enabling students to succeed. Future fee repayments are much less of an inhibiting factor than cash for food, rent and clothes. Secondly, the range of the funding – undergraduates are not the only students, and with postgraduate loans available in England, Welsh universities and Welsh students are disadvantaged if similar funding is not available.

The second commitment addresses affordability: “Prioritise university funding towards the policies that both provide opportunities to access an internationally competitive, high quality university education and deliver economic and social benefits for individuals, government and businesses in Wales.”

At the moment the Welsh Government provides a direct fee subsidy for all Welsh-domiciled (ie, living in Wales before they went to university) students, no matter where they attend university. So, Welsh government HE money is being spent to pay fees at universities in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (although in practical terms the vast majority of Welsh students who study outside Wales do so in England.) And the plain truth is that this commitment places great pressure on other Welsh HE priorities. The Diamond Commission is currently looking at HE funding issues (and is due to report after the election – where have we heard that before?), and Universities Wales is aiming to help change policy. Welsh Labour has previously made a clear anti-fee commitment, so all policy help will be important. And it’s clearly tied in with the maintenance grants point in the first ‘fundamental commitment’: give something good to students before taking something else away.

The third commitment speaks to a very real concern for the larger universities in Wales: “Maintain in real terms the quality-related (QR) research budget that underpins Wales’ world leading research.” The size of the sector in Wales means that government can be far more selective in research funding, and REF 2014 showed that the quality of research in Wales as measured by GPA was high. What is also important that scale factors aren’t used as a reason for the Welsh government to reduce QR funding as a response to financial pressures.

The fourth commitment speaks to the variety of access to higher education: “Continue investment in part-time provision both to widen access to higher education and develop crucial skills within the Welsh workforce, mindful that part-time provision requires distinct support and investment in order to deliver for Wales.” This is an area where the English funding model has hit universities hard, with significant declines in part-time study.

The fifth ‘fundamental commitment’ relates to HEFCW: “Retain a funding and oversight body for higher education in Wales to manage risk and provide stability to the sector, provide assurance to Government and enable universities to continue delivering for Wales.”

The proposed changes in English HE would see the abolition of HEFCE. English universities value the buffer HEFCE provides between government and any individual university, and a removal of that buffer, with the more explicit possibility of government choosing which subjects and universities to fund, causes concerns. In Wales the issues are magnified: in a small country it’s easier for government to interfere.

And finally, Europe: “Actively support Wales remaining a member of the European Union.” Wales gets a great deal out of Europe – in terms of funding for economic regeneration, for instance – and it’s a matter of concern for Welsh universities that access to research funding, as well as staff and student mobility, should continue. In practical terms, Welsh government commitment to membership of the EU will mean little in the event of a referendum ‘out’ vote, but the ‘fundamental commitment’ helps emphasise the significance of the EU to universities.

So of the six commitments, the first five – maintenance grants, access to funding for all levels of study, research funding, part-time funding, and regulation – seek directly to counter, address, or improve upon, the changes which have or will happen in England. Welsh Universities know that if their part of the HE system isn’t finely tuned with respect to that in England, they’ll suffer the consequences.

Staff costs

I’m looking at the issues around managing costs in higher education at the moment (look out for a post in the next few days about why not all vacant posts can be replaced). My starting point has been to look at the data, and in particular the high level data on staff costs.

HJ calculation from HESA data

The chart – which I have calculated using HESA data – shows the proportion of universities’ total income which is spent on staff.  (See my post from October 2014 which explains what this means and why it matters). There is data for the four home nations plus UK-wide data, covering the period from 1994-95 to 2013-14, being the most recent HESA data set available.

The chart tells a story of good financial times in the early years of the Labour government in the late 90’s; and closer management of spend following the introduction of top-up fees in 2006.

Of the four national patterns, England accounts for by far the largest share of the overall income, so it’s no surprise that the total UK and the England lines follow each other closely. In turn, Scotland appears over time to track England more closely. The data for Northern Ireland looks peaky, but don’t forget that it’s a very small sector (only four institutions, of which two are very small), so individual institutional strategy will have a disproportionate impact. Wales looks to be going against the grain – increasing the proportion of income spent on staff compared to the other nations.

With devolved funding this can happen – this may reflect differences in funding for capital, for instance, rather than deliberate policy by Welsh universities to grow staff spend. But HEFCW in Llanishen might be interested to find out why, before the Assembly Finance Committee in Cardiff Bay asks the same question.

Inseparable

Two weeks into the election campaign and it seems that despite university and student funding being a matter for the devolved administrations, it’s becoming an election issue where Westminster policies will drive devolved decisions.

The headline issue is Labour’s £6k tuition fee policy. I’ve blogged on this before, and noted that, in my view, this will need an Act of Parliament if there aren’t to be quite significant unintended consequences. Looking at the impact of this on other administrations makes me doubly sure.

Take, for instance. English and Welsh fees policy. They are the two most similar in the four UK nations; universities are allowed to charge up to £9k per year Home/EU undergraduate fee, subject to a test around fair access. The difference is that the Welsh Government pays some of the fees for Welsh domiciled students (that is, students who come from Wales, wherever in the UK they study).

Suppose there’s a Labour Government, and it caps English universities at £6k fees. This creates four different scenarios.

For an English university, there’s two policy worries. Firstly, will HEFCE actually make up the £3k difference? Maybe in the first year, for forms sake, but it would be a brave bet that said it would carry on as a ring-fenced spending item in perpetuity. And secondly, will they be allowed to charge £9k for a student from Wales?

For a Welsh university, slightly different worries: will the Welsh Government continue to fund undergraduate education for Welsh domiciled students at a rate about £9k, regardless of where the funds come from? That’s a question for the Diamond review, but a dramatic change in English arrangements would be bound to have an impact. And secondly, would they be allowed to charge English students £9k? And, perhaps more pertinently, if they did, would any come?

The market for higher education and UK politics intrude inexorably on the devolved administrations. There’ll be similar dilemmas for universities and governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Even when we’ve understood, as a political culture, how to do devolution, there’s still the unavoidable reality that England is by far the largest of the four home nations, in population and economic terms. That reality won’t be changing any time soon.

Most of the answers to the questions above require both political consensus and amendments to Acts of Parliament. If there’s a government with a small majority HE funding might become a touchstone issue. Again.

QAA? Armageddon outta here!

Yesterday’s announcement – on the HEFCE webpages but on behalf of HEFCW and DELNI and in parallel with the Scottish Funding Council – has caused more than a few ripples of excitement.

What’s the news? A request for feedback from the sector, to inform the specification of a tender for quality assurance for higher education. If that doesn’t sound significant, let me tell you that it is. First, some background.

The 1992 Further and Higher Education Act provides (para 70) that the Funding Councils “shall … secure that provision is made for assessing the quality of education provided in institutions for whose activities they provide, or are considering providing, financial support …”. Each Funding Council has a Quality Assurance Committee, comprising people with sector experience, to advise on how to undertake this work.

If my memory serves me right*, in the early stages HEFCE did some assessment of standards work in-house (the Academic Audit Unit), and a sector body – the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) – developed methodology for assessing and assuring quality at a subject level. And in 1997 the QAA was established to bring it all together.

An opportunity for a new logo?

And so the consultation and tender exercise is giving notice that the status quo is up for renegotiation. No doubt with pressure from some such as the Russell Group for a ‘risk-based’ approach (‘leave us alone, the metrics show that we’re fine!’) and, with an equal lack of doubt political pressure from different quarters to address perceived issues such as contact hours and value for money

And so this is a fight about university autonomy and about marketization. Part of the rationale for establishing HEQC and QAA (both bodies owned by the HE sector, like UCAS and HESA) was that if the sector didn’t do something, government would impose an OFSTED style inspectorate. And since one of the crowning glories of UK higher education is that our academic standards are high, this would be a problem. Universities need autonomy to set and maintain these standards, so the argument goes.

And marketization? Well, applicants to universities, almost by definition, don’t know much about the content or value of the programme they’re seeking to join. In the OFT’s view, they are much less sophisticated as consumers than the universities with which they are making a contract. So an assurance regime which is more like consumer protection – guarding against rogue traders – might be considered appropriate. There’s a lot of public money and private individual debt at stake, so these aren’t concerns which can be dismissed flippantly.

There’ll be a lot of debate and discussion. The Wonkhe post by Mark Leach is a good resource with links to various statements and also in the comments. Which is where, by the way, the Armageddon word came from: #QAmageddon being the hashtag of choice …

It pays to read the legislation carefully: “assess the quality of education.” Who defines quality and its indicators, that’s the question. And the outcomes will matter for the sector.

*Edit 9 October. My memory didn't serve me right! Academic Audit Unit became HEQC; HEFCE continued with TQA until QAA took over. Thanks to Mike Ratcliffe @Mike_Rat for the correction. We need the equivalent of rock family trees ...

Squaring up

The Higher Education (Wales) Bill 2014 has now been published and introduced at the Senedd, and it seemed like the pre-fight press conference for a heavyweight title fight. Well, maybe that’s bigging it up a little too much, but there was certainly some drawing of lines. Possibly in the sand.

The Bill and an Explanatory Memorandum were published on 19 May. They are both substantial documents: the Bill is 37 pages; the explanatory memorandum 148 pages. So there’ll be more to write and say about these as they make their passage through the Senedd. (A note for English readers: the Senedd is the Welsh parliament. The ‘dd’ in Senedd is pronounced like the ‘th’ in there. Now try saying Senedd – I suspect it’s the same root as Senate.) For now I want to concentrate on an apparent spat between universities and the government.

The Bill seeks to set out a new regulatory framework for higher education in Wales, following the tuition fee reforms introduced following the Browne review. Put simply, HEFCW previously controlled much of the resource for universities in Wales, and so had an effective means to influence universities’ actions. When most of the state funding flows via students instead, through tuition fees, HEFCW has no real means of influencing. And so the Bill seeks to give the government, via HEFCW, some powers which work in the context of fees, rather than those which used to work in the context of the block grant.

To quote from the explanatory memorandum:

35. In summary, as a consequence of the new tuition fee and student support arrangements, the financial relationship between HEFCW and institutions has weakened. Whilst the overall quantum of funding available to HEFCW has decreased the Welsh Government continues to make a significant contribution towards the cost of higher education provision in Wales through the provision of government backed tuition fee grants and loans. This shift in funding means that the current regulatory framework based on HEFCW’s conditions of funding will no longer function in the manner originally intended. The continued regulation of education delivered by or on behalf of institutions providing higher education in Wales is in the public interest. 

It’s important to note a particular difference between Wales and England. OFFA in England is autonomous from HEFCE. English universities’ access agreements were connected to block grant by a more attenuated mechanism than in Wales, where universities submit fee plans to HEFCW; approval of these by HEFCW is a condition of funding.

The Bill allows for automatic designation of providers with charitable status; reserves the most generous student support arrangements for automatically designated providers; requires automatically designated providers to have a fee and access plan agreed by HEFCW; and gives HEFCW powers to not agree such plans. Specific changes to the arrangements are the limitation to charities; making student retention a priority; and providing for monitoring of the proportion of tuition fee income spent on access arrangements (as it has been in England since the word go.)

So what’s the fuss about? Higher Education Wales (HEW) issued a statement which highlighted the need for institutional autonomy; identified a worry that the regime gave HEFCW disproportionate power compared to that exercised by students; and highlighted the use of subsequent regulation (the ‘negative resolution’ procedure) to set out much of the detail of the new system, making a response difficult.

The ‘negative resolution’ procedure is a variety of government regulation, deriving from the so-called Henry VIII clauses, which allow legislation without parliamentary approval. Essentially, they mean that the Bill identified areas where ministers make the regulations, which are valid unless the Senedd votes them down. HEW argued that the regulations should be subject to an affirmative procedure – that is, voted on at the Senedd before implementation.

It’s easy also to see why HEW might be suspicious. The Bill gives those inspecting quality (which will still be the QAA) or adherence to the financial code the right of entry to premises, and the right to inspect documents; and also provides that they should show identification on coming to the premises. (See paragraphs 117 and 150 of the Explanatory Memorandum.) If it looks like the police it’s easy to see why people think that it might be the police.

So what the other side of the argument? Simply put, higher education matters more in Wales than in England, in two senses. Firstly, Wales needs a more skilled population to create economic well-being. The guts of the Welsh economy were ripped out when mining, steel and manufacturing went in the 1980’s. A new economy can be found, but it’ll need a population with more skills than at present. Welsh universities have a job to do for Wales. And secondly, higher education represents a higher proportion of the Welsh Government’s spending and powers than for the Westminster government. Because the Welsh Government has a narrower remit than that of Westminster, then the areas it does control – and HE is a big one – represent a higher proportion of its spend. The RAB charge takes a bigger share of the Welsh cake than it does in Westminster.

And the fighting? Here’s an extract from the Senedd discussion (you can see the whole exchange at 1600 in the report):

Leighton Andrews (the former minister): I do not know whether the Minister has yet had the opportunity to read the very weak and conservative response from the vice-chancellors’ lobby today. To my mind, it borders on the hysterical. If he has not read it, I would urge him not to waste too much time on it. ... So, I would urge him not to pay too much attention to the murmurings of the vice-chancellors.

Huw Lewis (the current minister): I thank the Member for the Rhondda for those insights and comments. Yes, I have read the response of Higher Education Wales, which followed rapidly upon its receipt of today’s news, and I have to say that I was—well, it is almost a euphemism to say that I was disappointed in terms of the tone and the content, especially when you consider that, since the White Paper was published back in 2012, numerous conversations have been held between officials, Ministers and the sector itself. This response today is not worthy of the subject matter, and I would appeal to it to rapidly raise its game in terms of the level of input that we would expect, and that the public would expect. We really need constructive dialogue and engagement in order to get these issues progressed. In many points that HEW made today, it almost seemed to have disregarded all conversations that had gone before, and has suddenly woken up to the situation as it is. We know that it has had a great deal of time to think about this, and we need it, as an active and intelligent partner in the development of this legislation. Let us hope that this particular press release today does not signal the level of engagement that we might be able to expect from HEW.

That’s fighting talk! I’ll keep you posted as the bout begins.

Masterful guidance

The four UK higher education funding bodies have been working together on guidance for PGT recruitment teams on information for prospective applicants. Published so far by HEFCE and HEFCW; no doubt coming to Scotland and Northern Ireland soon. PGT, by the way, is Post-Graduate Taught – Master’s degrees by any other name.

The guidance looks very sensible, and is grounded in comprehensive research into the views of current prospective taught postgraduate students. What surprised me is how very basic some of the guidance is. For example, “Prospective PGT students are often balancing a broad range of commitments so information regarding expected attendance and assessment periods, if any, will help them assess whether study is possible for them”. Although obvious, this is a really important point, and I know that it needs making.

It also, I think, makes us ask a question about the role of PGT programmes in universities. (The guidance, that is, not the specific point about teaching times).  And that is, what are PGT programmes for? To a student, they can be the natural extension of an undergraduate degree, either for interest or as a stepping stone to research study. Or they can be a means to learn specific skills and knowledge for career development – either immediately after a first degree or later into a career.

And universities of course cater for both types. Sometimes both at once. But there are definite splits, with some university departments or research groups seeing a Master’s programme as a long and self-financing (sometimes!) interview process for a PhD, or as a means of creating acolytes for the professor’s research topics. To my mind the published guidance is giving a clear steer away from this type of approach – coaxing universities into more uniform ways of presenting PGT programmes, and thereby normalising and regularising the market.

Is this just the funding councils seeking something to do, now that undergraduate programmes are far more obviously subject to market rigours? That sounds a trifle paranoid, I agree. But there is a worry that, come September 2015, debt-laden new graduates will seek employment rather than further study, and a UK student on a full-time PGT programme may become a rarity. And if the sector is to try to seek government funding to support PGT provision at that or a later point, it won’t hurt to have got our house in order.

So there’s a bigger picture to the guidance: if the sector does all it can to make PGT provision readily available, then there’s a stronger case to government for supporting an important part of the UK offer.