Event: HE Provider Consultation Workshop
Date: 3 May 10.30-15.30
Location: central Birmingham

Both of these workshops are now fully booked. Keep an eye out for details of the outcomes.

The Steering Group commended the extent of engagement and progress to date and agreed that these topics should form the basis of the next rounds of engagement with the sector.

The final meeting of the Steering Group will take place on 11 June in order to approve the report to be presented to the Interim Regulatory Partnership Group on 15 June.

Following interviews with HEFCW and DELNI (and a session with the Welsh Planners Group) the team is heading north next week for interviews with the Scottish Funding Council, the Student Awards Agency for Scotland and Universities Scotland (as well as the Glasgow based Student Loans Company).

• the nature of the data ‘burden’
• potential ‘quick wins’ to reduce the burden

Various examples were cited where data used for statutory purposes does not sit well with the academic model. Many of the examples relate to what is still termed ‘non standard’ types of provision even though the concept of school leavers taking a three year undergraduate degree is far from the norm in many institutions. There are particular issues around the definition of completion/non completion. In many cases the most problematic areas consume resources disproportionate to the level of funding (e.g. continuing education).

The biggest set of issues was around duplication and overlap between data sets collected by different bodies (with the lack of consistency in definitions being a particular cause for concern).

There were calls for much more standardisation of definitions etc across the various statutory bodies and widespread support for the idea of some form of ‘broker’ who could vet requests for data (across the full spectrum of data collectors including PSRBs) to ensure consistency of definitions and re-use of existing data.

See the website for the full report on SROC workshop outcomes.

JISC/UCISA/HESA Supplier workshop via the events page on our website.

The key trends are shown below.

Participants characterised the possible scenarios as:

• 10,000 Flowers
• One size fits all
• Data Bucket

Find out more about these scenarios and other outcomes of the event in our write-up of
the Principles and Scenarios workshop on our website.

• The landscape is designed around a holistic and learnercentred view of higher education.
• Data collection relates specifically to the core activities of delivering higher education.
• The costs associated with collecting and maintaining the information are proportionate to the benefits from having this information.
• Regulatory bodies work together to apply consistent definitions and standards in order to streamline the amount of information collected.
• Data used for regulatory purposes is stored once and secure access is available to those with a legitimate right to access the information.
• Data used for regulatory purposes is managed via a ‘trusted broker’ to ensure quality and consistency of the information and to limit the possibility for misleading use of the data.
• The cycle of data collection is timed so that data is accurate at the point of need.
• Aggregated data should be openly available unless there is a compelling reason to restrict access.
• Personal data should only be available to those with a legitimate need for the information.

48 institutions responded to the 2010 survey and the data has been compiled into a single dataset. Although some data cleansing took place at the time of the survey, we cannot be sure that it is complete and up to date; there are certainly areas where more detailed information would help.

Follow this link to access a copy of the dataset in Excel format.

If you can add any returns that were missed from the original survey – or provide more details on what any of these returns involve – please let us know by emailing sara.lewis@hesa.ac.uk with the message subject HEBRG survey update.

One of the biggest issues that came out of this work is the extent to which institutions are (or are not) aware of all the data returns they make. If the sector is to achieve a significant reduction in multiple reporting then institutions need to be aware of exactly what data they are supplying to external stakeholders. By referencing this dataset institutions can review and identify exactly which returns they are involved with.

We welcome feedback on institutions’ experiences of comparing their own activity with this list. We are especially interested in the extent to which reporting is (or isn’t) centrally overseen within HEIs.

If you missed the briefing then never mind, you can follow this link to access a recording of the session complete with slides, audio and online Q&A. Please note it can take a couple of minutes for the recording to download.

Hope you can join us in person for the next one.