Supporting College HE Admissions

1 June 2015

Welcome

Jeni Clack, Admissions Support and Development Advisor

Set up in 2006 following the Schwartz Report Fair Admissions to Higher Education: Recommendations for Good Practice 2004

“ The Group recommends the creation of a central source of expertise and advice on admissions issues. Its purpose would be to act as a resource for institutions who wish to maintain and enhance excellence in admissions. Such a centre could lead the continuing development of fair admissions, evaluating and commissioning research, and spreading best practice.”

SPA is an independent and objective programme, funded by DELNI, HEFCE, HEFCW, UCAS and Universities UK

What is SPA?

SPA promotes fair admissions and access to higher education in

the UK by developing and leading on good practice in the

recruitment and selection of students.

Expert shared resource for HE sector on fair admissions

Independent, impartial, evidenced based good practice

Information broker between makers and implementers of policy

Small team, but with practical and relevant experience

We work closely with HEPs and other stakeholders

What do we do?

“Equal opportunity for all individuals, regardless of background, to gain admission to a course suited to their ability and aspirations.”

1. be transparent

2. enable institutions to select students who are able to complete

the course as judged by their achievements and their potential

3. strive to use assessment methods that are reliable and valid

4. seek to minimise barriers to applicants

5. be professional in every respect and underpinned by

appropriate institutional structures and processes

What is fair admissions?

The College HE Admissions Community of Practice

The College HE Admissions Community of Practice works with SPA and AoC to develop and share good practice in College HE admissions, including:

• building an evidence base of current practice• assessing policies and procedures• raising awareness and disseminating relevant information• promoting the professionalism of admissions within FE Colleges

offering HE• and establishing a supportive forum for practitioners within

College HE to network

The Executive group is responsible for overseeing, steering and supporting the continued development of this College HE admissions community. They aim to identify, promote and share good practice, help to solve issues with the community and highlight sources of useful information.

MembershipSPA, AoC, and experienced practitioners whose role includes HE admissions in FE Colleges.

SPA’s roleOrganising, supporting and resourcing the Executive.

The Community Executive

College HE Admissions JISCMail forum• Communications from the Executive, notification of events and updates

on good practice information.• A discussion list for subscribers to ask questions, offer advice and share

their experiences of College HE admissions.

Briefings from the Executive• Provide information on events and other current topics for the community. • The first two issues are available on the SPA website

Community of Practice event, 26 February• Focusing on two themes requested by the community of practice: the

QAA and colleges, managing good university-college partnerships

And today’s event…

2015 so far …

Nick Davy, AoC Mike Lambourne, CMA

DISCUSS SHARE PLAN

Openness, respect and trust

Today’s event …

A year of College HE admissions:issues, solutions and challenges ahead

Nick Davy, HE Policy Manager, AoC

SPA Conference June 1st 2015 Birmingham

Nick Davy, AoC HE Policy Manager

Key Sector Recruitment Trends

Labour Market Trends

College HE Sector shape?

Political Context

Key Issues for Admissions/Recruitment

staff?

Recruitment and Policy Background

Trends in Enrolments

First Year Trends

Labour Market Trends

Managers, directors and senior officials +586kProfessional occupations +1175kAssociate professional and technical +583kAdministrative and secretarial -486kSkilled trades occupations -306kCaring, leisure and other service + 649kSales and customer service -64kProcess, plant and machine operatives -214kElementary occupations -67k

Some towns and cities – experience a ‘low skills equilibrium’ Concentration of low paid jobs Low level skills amongst population Problems with attracting inward

investment Low educational aspirations and poor

results in local schools Reinforcing spiral of decline or status

quo

Low Skills Equilibrium?

• Prescribed HE (08/09 – 12/13): Increase in full time courses and part-time HNC courses;

Trend from part time to full time courses, such as education and business studies;

50% decline in part time ITT and Creative Arts;

Majority in 08/09 – 25+; in 12/13 – under 21

Small increase in part time engineering and construction.

• NPHE: 11% decline over 5 years, 95% - part time;

All regions experienced a decrease except London and South West;

61% of NPHE at level four; 86% of students over 25;

Shape of College HE

Have too many colleges become ‘big schools’ – L1/2 provision?

Have we lost our reputation for technical and professional education? (levels 3/4/5?)

Are there too many small colleges?

__________________________________________________________________

How can England create a technical education strand in further and higher education?

Greater autonomy/Awarding Powers at 3/4/5

National Accreditation Council

Improved LMI/Stronger employer links

Decrease intermediaries such as LEPs; regulate providers/buyers

Some difficult questions?

Political Context

Apprenticeships Higher apprenticeships Degree apprenticeships Full-time three year General

and Academic/Professional Higher Education

Regulation of the HE sector – entry/ongoing review

Lifting of Student Number Controls – what happened in Australia?

Competition and Markets Authority/Consumer Law

Subscription to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) – external complaints

Apprenticeships/Higher Apprenticeships

Internal progression/Guarantees-Compacts?

Key Issues

Thanks

Any Questions?

Nick_davy@aoc.co.uk

Competition and Markets Authorityadvice on consumer protection in HE admissions

Mike Lambourne, Assistant Director, CMA

Consumer Protection Law and the Higher Education sector

Mike Lambourne – Assistant Director, CMA

1 June 201523

About the CMA

● Formed on 1 April 2014

● Unified competition and consumer authority

● Mission is to make markets work well for consumers, businesses and the economy

● Uses its consumer powers to tackle market wide consumer problems or issues which affect consumers’ ability to make choices (powers include providing guidance to businesses on legal obligations, and enforcement of consumer protection law)

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CMA’s enforcement powers

● CMA has civil & criminal powers to enforce a range of consumer protection laws e.g. to tackle unfair business practices

● Enforcement action by CMA may be appropriate where:

- breaches point to systemic failures in a market

- changing behaviour of one business sets a precedent or has other market-wide implications

- an important legal precedent can be set

- there is a strong need for deterrence

● Range of compliance options available alongside enforcement, including education, advice and warnings

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CMA’s work in HE sector

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● HE providers play a crucial role in the UK economy

● Our work followed Office of Fair Trading’s Call for Information (CfI) into the higher education undergraduate sector in England - this found no evidence of pervasive bad practices, but identified some potential consumer protection issues

● We took forward OFT recommendation to clarify universities responsibilities under consumer law

● We consulted on compliance advice for UK HE providers (publicly funded universities, Further Education colleges offering HE courses, and alternative providers), focussing on undergraduate courses.

● Final compliance advice published on 12 March 2015

● We also published materials for undergraduate students about their rights under consumer law

How does consumer law applyto UK HE sector?

● Consumer law is applicable throughout the whole of the UK

● Consumer law will generally apply to the relationship between HE providers and prospective and current undergraduate students:

- HE providers will be a ‘trader’ or ‘seller’ for purposes of consumer law (even if operating on a non-profit basis e.g. having charitable status)

- undergraduate students will generally be acting for purposes outside their trade, business or profession and will therefore be ‘consumers’ - in general this is likely to be the case even when studying a particular subject may lead a person to a related career in the future. Payment arrangements are not determinative

● Consumer law may also be relevant to other types of courses and students

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How does consumer law fit with HE sector requirements?

● Consumer law sets out minimum standards that apply to various aspects of an HE provider’s dealings with students

● It sits alongside sector-specific requirements and guidelines that are relevant to many HE providers, e.g. the Quality Assurance Agency’s UK Quality Code, Office of Independent Adjudicator’s Good Practice Framework for handling complaints

● We closely engaged with HE sector bodies about our compliance advice and understand that it does not conflict with sector regulation and guidance

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Why is consumer law important for students?

● Choosing the right course and HE provider is an important decision - students are investing a lot of time and money and it can be difficult to change course or provider if they are dissatisfied

● Consumer law helps ensure that students:

- get the information they need to make informed choices about what and where to study

- are treated fairly during their studies

- are equipped to resolve problems if things go wrong

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Why is consumer law important for HE providers?

● Compliance with consumer law is not only important in giving students the protection required by the law, but in helping to maintain student confidence and the standards and reputation of the UK HE sector

● Consumer law is an important aspect of an HE provider’s relationship with students (alongside a supportive learning and pastoral environment within an academic community). It can help you compete for and retain students by providing student-focused services, meeting student expectations & enhancing the student experience

● HE providers who do not meet their obligations may be in breach of consumer law and risk enforcement action as well as action by students

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HE providers’ obligations to undergraduate students under consumer law

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Consumer law can apply at any stage of an HE provider’s interaction with prospective and current students

HE providers must: ● give prospective students the clear, accurate and timely information

that they need so they can make an informed decision about what and where to study

● ensure that their terms and conditions are fair, for example, so they cannot make surprising changes to the course or costs

● ensure that their complaint handling processes are accessible, clear and fair

Partnership arrangements & consumer law compliance

● There are various kinds of partnerships which involve more than one provider in the delivery of an HE course and award of a qualification e.g. validation, franchise and joint course arrangements

● It is very important that providers and their students are clear where responsibilities lie e.g. clarity about responsibility for admissions, course delivery & complaint handling, and who the student is contracting with

● All providers in a partnership arrangement should ensure they are complying with consumer law in their dealings with undergraduate students – review practices and rules & regulations that apply or have the potential to affect students

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Information Provision

● HE providers must give prospective students the ‘material information’ they need to make an informed decision before they apply. This information includes:

- the course content and structure and how it will be delivered

- the total course costs (including tuition fees and any extra costs associated with the course that students are likely to incur, such as field trips, lab equipment, bench fees or studio hire)

- any information that is likely to affect a prospective student’s decision

● Information must be clear, accurate and easily accessible

● Consumer law applies to information given in writing, verbally or visually

Will you have to pay extra for lab fees?

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Not providing 'material’ information and/or not providing it at the right time

Giving false or misleading information that impacts on a student’s decision

● information is difficult for students to find and access e.g. it is on a website that is hard to navigate or held in a number of different places

● failing to provide information about extra course costs up front

● failing to make clear that certain modules must be completed for the award to be accredited

● only making important information available to prospective students after they have applied, for example via an applicant portal

● failing to make prospective students aware at the earliest opportunity of changes to the information contained in a prospectus – on which their choice of provider may or will be based.

● leading students to believe at an open day that a particular and eminent individual will be involved in the teaching of the course - when this is not the case

● presenting information that could suggest the course provides a particular qualification by a professional body - when this is not the case and further study would be required to obtain the relevant award

● through wording or images creating the impression that the campus is based in central London - when in fact it is based elsewhere (particularly relevant for international students)

Examples of possible information provision breaches

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Information Provision – pre-contract information● Before, or at the latest when, offering a place to a prospective student,

an HE provider must tell them of any changes since they applied and give ‘pre-contract information’ which includes:

- course information and costs

- arrangements for making payments to the provider

- information on complaints handling

- any right to cancel should the student change their mind (for distance contracts e.g. via UCAS)

● When an offer is accepted, the HE provider and prospective student will enter into a contract for admission to a course

● Requirement to give confirmation of a distance contract and pre contract information using a ‘durable medium’, within a reasonable time after the contract is entered into (unless it was already provided on a durable medium) e.g. email with documents attached (but not a website link)

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Terms and Conditions

● Likely to include all contracts, rules and regulations and other documents that students are bound by, which together form the contract terms between the student and provider.

● Under unfair terms legislation:- Terms should be easily located and accessible to prospective students

- Important or surprising terms should be specifically brought to prospective students attention before they accept an offer

- Terms should be written in plain and intelligible language (they must be clear, transparent and legible)

- Terms should strike a fair balance between the rights and obligations of the provider and student – for example they should not allow a wide discretion to change important aspects of the course or fees

● Providers will not be able to enforce terms and conditions which are found to be unfair

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Terms and Conditions:Terms allowing changes to courses

● Terms allowing changes to be made to a course will not be automatically unfair as there needs to be a reasonable amount of flexibility, e.g. to allow adjustments for recent theories and practice in an area

● But a term that allows a provider too much discretion to make sweeping changes to a course – such as to the course content, location of study, method of assessment or the final qualification to be awarded – is likely to be considered unfair unless it describes the circumstances when and reasons why this might happen (so that students know in advance when and how changes might be made)

● A term will not be made fair just because a provider says that any changes it makes says that any changes it makes will be reasonable

‘”The University may alter the timetable, location,

campus, amount of contact time, how the course is

delivered, the course content and assessment of any

course, provided such alterations are reasonable’”

Have you had unexpected changes to

your course?

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Terms and Conditions:Terms allowing fee increases

● It is important that prospective students know how much their course is likely to cost in total to allow them to fully assess their options and to better financially plan

● Before prospective students apply, they should be able to foresee how much the total fees will be for the course

● Terms allowing HE providers a wide discretion to increase fees during a course may be unfair e.g.

“Tuition fees for most courses will increase from year to year. Therefore, if you are on a course of more than one year’s duration you can expect to pay higher tuition fees in subsequent years. It is your responsibility to find out what the tuition fee will be for each year of your course”

Have you had unexpected changes to your tuition fees?

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Complaint handling

● Complaint handling processes must be transparent and easily accessible to students (both in relation to procedures for prospective students and current students)

- prospective students must be provided with information about the complaints process before they accept an offer of a course

- the complaints process must be easily located and accessible to current students e.g. on website or intranet

- students should be provided with clear and accurate information about the complaint handling procedures, including who deals with their complaint if courses are provided in partnership, and details of any external complaint scheme students can access such as the OIA

● Complaint handling processes must be fair e.g. set out clear and reasonable timescales, allow students to escalate the matter if they are unhappy

● Complaints procedures more likely to comply with consumer law where they follow any guidelines published by a third party complaint scheme (of which the HE provider is a member) e.g. OIA’s Good Practice Framework for handling complaints

Is it clear who is responsible for handling your

complaint?

Complaints handling

must be fair.

What we’ve produced

For HE providers:

● 60-second summary

● Longer advice

For students and their advisers

● 60-second summary

● Longer guide

● Visual messages

● Posters

● Press & social media activities

● A mechanism to report concerns40

Monitoring Compliance

● We have set out clear expectations on HE provider compliance – providers need to review practices, policies and terms to make sure they are compliant and if necessary make changes

● We have put in place an online reporting mechanism to report concerns about possible breaches of consumer law

● We are monitoring the sector and will carry out a compliance review commencing in October 2015

● HE providers that fail to comply with consumer law may risk enforcement action - CMA, Trading Standards Services & Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland all have enforcement powers

● Sector bodies such as the Quality Assurance Agency may also be able to act in appropriate circumstances to secure compliance - where appropriate, the CMA may choose to raise concerns about an HE provider with the QAA and ask it to consider an investigation under its Concerns Scheme 20

Some key messages to take away

● Undergraduate students have rights under consumer law

● FE Colleges providing HE courses have obligations under consumer law. Compliance can help to meet student expectations and enhance their experience. If you breach consumer law you could face enforcement action

● Consumer law sits alongside HE sector-specific requirements. CMA will continue to work closely with key sector bodies

● Where providers offer courses through partnership arrangements, it is very important that they and their students are clear where responsibilities lie

42Students have consumer rights.

Group tasks: consumer protection

2. Share good practice

1. Discuss information terms and conditions complaints

3. Identify issues

LUNCH

The College HE Admissions Issue Review Plan

Jeni Clack, Admissions Support and Development Advisor

The College HE Admissions Issue Review Plan

Developed in collaboration with College HE colleagues at our event in June 2014

Identified seven key issues for College HE admissions

Developed plans for reviewing and resolving those issues and improving the applicant experience of College HE

The key issues

To improve the applicant experience into HE:

different avenues of application the dropout rate between application and interview UCAS/HEP interface with college MIS internal progression staff training for HE admissions staff working with multiple HEPs recruiting external students

Issue Review Plan

Starting point for College HE staff to identify and resolve key issues for their admissions to HE.

“Sharing issues with fellow colleges and working out solutions was a great opportunity to review our

own practice.”

Issues, solutions, engagement, review

Issues, solutions, engagement, review

Communicating that colleges aren’t only for 16-18

Schools liaison staff to cover HE in school visits

Schools liaison and feeder schools

Applicant numbers and conversion rates

Group task: part one

“To improve the applicant experience, we will…”

Review at least one of the key issues from the plan to evaluate:

whether the previously identified aspects are still relevant for colleges or resolved

any further solutions to include and any additional aspects to the issue not previously identified

Group task: part two

“To assure consumer protection, we will…”

Add one new issue, specific to the impact of CMA advice identified earlier today

Develop a review plan to help resolve it

All contributions today will be used to update and expand the Issue Review Plan which will be published on the SPA

website after the event.

Group tasks: Issue Review Plan

Blue = relevantRed = resolved

1. Evaluate and updateone existing issue

2. Add a new issue on consumer protectionmore

more

more

more

Supporting the College HE Admissions Community of Practice in 2015-16

Dan Shaffer, Head of Professionalism in Admissions

Thank you

feel free to stay and chat

enquiries@spa.ac.uk 01242 544891

www.spa.ac.uk/support/heinfe

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