Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-01-22
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this marks a particular moment in this House. Following Royal Assent of the Higher Education and Research Act in 2017, the regulations to be discussed here today will bring forward the Government’s historic reforms to the higher education sector I start by thanking the noble Lords of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for their scrutiny of the HERA regulations laid before this House in December and detailed in the 14th report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee My purpose here today is to speak to the draft access and participation regulations that require approval. They support our aim that anyone with the talent and potential to benefit from higher education should be able to do so. We have made good progress on this. The latest UCAS data shows that in 2017 disadvantaged 18 year-olds were 50% more likely to enter full-time higher education than in 2009. In addition, 18 year-olds were more likely to enter full-time higher education than ever before. We know, however, that there is more to do. For example, the number of mature students entering higher education has declined and certain ethnic groups are not achieving the outcomes that we would expect given levels of prior attainment. Government will shortly be setting out its priorities for access and participation through guidance to the Office for Students Through the implementation of the HERA, we want to make further progress on access and participation. The Office for Students was established on 1 January as the new regulator for higher education. The OfS brings together the previous responsibilities of the Director of Fair Access and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which everyone knows as HEFCE. This will enable a strategic focus on access and participation activities. It will, for example, allow greater co-ordination of government funding to widen participation with the money that providers spend through their access and participation plans. This should ensure a greater impact on the ground The access and participation plan framework set out in HERA builds on existing arrangements for access agreements. These arrangements acknowledge institutional autonomy—one of the hallmarks of our world-class higher education system. Under HERA, the OfS has a duty to protect academic freedom, including with regard to admissions. This is the same arrangement as the Director of Fair Access had under the 2004 Act In addition, HERA will mean that all providers that want to charge fees and access student finance above the basic amount must have an access and participation plan approved by the OfS. Under the new system, newer providers of higher education will, for the first time, be able to charge and access student finance for higher-level fees. However, to do so, they must publicly set out and comply with their commitments to improve access and participation to higher education and have these regulated by the OfS The legislation places responsibility for access to and participation in higher education on the OfS, and this will be a key part of its remit. The OfS will have a champion for this focus—a Director for Fair Access and Participation. Chris Millward has been appointed to this role Noble Lords may remember that during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Bill there was some debate about this role and whether it was sufficiently clear in the legislation. Through amendments debated in this House, and with cross-party support, the expectations for this role were reinforced in the legislation. The Director for Fair Access and Participation, shorted to DfAP, will oversee the OfS’s functions on access and participation and will report on performance in this area to the other members of the OfS board. In practice, we expect the DfAP to approve access and participation plans with higher education providers. The access and participation plans will replace access agreements under the 2004 Act and are an important mechanism for ensuring that students from disadvantaged backgrounds and underrepresented groups can access and succeed in higher education. In these published plans, providers set out what they are intending to do to widen access and to support students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups to participate and succeed in higher education Any provider that is subject to a fee cap and wishes to charge tuition fees above the basic amount must, in line with current practice, have an access and participation plan approved by the OfS. Providers are expected to spend an approved proportion of the higher-level fees on activities to support students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups to access and succeed in higher education Access agreements were introduced in 2004 and they have supported and encouraged improvements in widening participation. In 2018-19, universities and further education colleges plan to spend, through their agreements, over £860 million to widen participation. These regulations are important in ensuring that the full legal framework is in place to enable the OfS to approve access and participation plans developed by providers. They do not represent a major change in current arrangements regarding the approval of plans. As I indicated, they largely carry forward an existing way of working The regulations provide the detail on the content and arrangements for approving and varying access and participation plans. The regulations provide a framework for the process by which the OfS, through the DfAP, may approve access and participation plans with providers. They also provide for a system of review of approval decisions such as where the OfS is minded not to approve a plan. The arrangements for the approval of access and participation plans are essentially the same as those that have been in place and set out in regulations since 2004. They have worked well over that period and the intention is to retain the process largely as it is However, it is always good to review policy and we have taken that opportunity here. Key changes we have made in these regulations which should lead to improvements in access and participation plans include the following areas. Plans will now be required to consider participation, success and preparedness for progression from higher education, as well as access. This support across the so-called student life cycle is important as access is meaningful only if entrants go on to complete their courses and achieve good outcomes. That could include studying for a masters or a graduate-level job. The regulations require the OfS to take account of whether a provider has given its students an opportunity to comment and considered their views when developing its plan. This change was included following representations made during the passage of the Act. We have listened and taken steps to ensure that the views of students will formally be taken into account. The regulations also require that providers evaluate their plans as well as monitoring progress. It is right that providers invest their efforts in identifying the most effective ways of supporting students. While we have not made dramatic changes to the existing system regarding access and participation plans, the new legal framework for OfS regulation should improve its efficacy. Where there are serious concerns that a provider has not complied with commitments in its access and participation plan, or other conditions of registration, the OfS will have access to a wide and more flexible set of sanctions and intervention measures to tackle these issues with the individual provider than were available to the Director of Fair Access previously. This could include further monitoring, monetary penalties, suspension from the OfS register or deregistering providers in extreme cases Let me take a moment to reinforce the benefits the other regulations noted here today will bring. As part of the implementation of HERA they will underpin some of the mechanisms that will allow the Office for Students to operate. Through the January transitional regulations, and further regulations to follow, we will also ensure a smooth passage to the new regulatory framework. The mandatory fee limit condition regulations and the register regulations will provide some of the practical and legal framework underpinning the OfS. They will allow the OfS to begin registering providers from April 2018 and this will allow the full regulatory framework to come into effect from academic year 2019-20. The register regulations will underpin the OfS register as a vital transparency tool, providing standardised headline information about each provider. The fee limit condition regulations will deliver the detailed framework for the capping of student fees for qualifying students and courses at providers registering in the approved fee cap part of the OfS register. The level of those fees will need to be approved through affirmative regulations by both Houses in due course It is within this environment, created by HERA powers, that policy objectives such as those on access and participation will be delivered and allowed to flourish. I assure all noble Lords that the instruments noted today do not determine tuition fee limits, nor do they prejudge responses to the extensive consultations undertaken. They are part of the process of bringing the Office for Students into legal existence and enabling it to set up the practical tools, for instance its register of providers, that it needs in order to regulate In summary, these regulations provide important detail that allows providers to develop their access and participation plans in line with government priorities. They ensure that the OfS can approve plans in a fair and transparent fashion and I beg to move that these regulations be approved.