Top PDF House of Commons Library : Briefing paper : Number 7393, 1 July 2019 : Higher education funding in England

Loans therefore are treated very differently in the fiscal deficit and national debt. The difference is really one of timing with the costs being recorded upfront in the debt and only after they are written off (after 30 years for most) in the deficit. Overall costs for a cohort of loans will eventually be the same under each method. In July 2018 the Office for Budget Responsibility published a paper that looked at the ‘fiscal illusions’ resulting from the different accounting treatment of loans in government accounts and made suggestions for alternative

The Secretary of State writes to HEFCE around the turn of each year to set out funding, priorities, student numbers and related matters for the following financial year. Occasionally these letters cover more than one year and sometimes revised versions are published. The most recent full funding letter was published at the end of February 2017. It covered funding in 2017-18 and gave indicative allocations for the following year. All these funding letters from the mid-1990s onwards can be found at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/Archive/ The following table summarises HEFCE funding

‘protected characteristics’ such as age, sex, disability and ethnicity. The Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 made some headline announcements about funding paid through the funding council, the extension of maintenance loans to part-time students and new loans for Master’s degrees. It also announced that the discount rate applied to loans would be reduced to 0.7% and set the spending totals for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which will eventually feedthrough to annual funding allocations for higher education.

The level of tuition fees in England is the subject of much debate. In July 2017 the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published a briefing Higher Education funding in England: past, present and options for the future, which stated that English graduates have the “highest student debts in the developed world” due to the combination of high fees and large maintenance loans. Much of the recent debate around the cost of higher education has been on whether students are receiving value for money and on whether the reforms have achieved a market in higher education.

There are three main elements of public spending on higher education – direct funding through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) which covers both teaching and research, student maintenance grants and student loans. Higher fees from 2012 meant much less spending went on direct support and much more on publicly supported student loans. This mirrors the change in institution income shown earlier. Maintenance grants were abolished for new students from 2016 and, again, replaced with publicly supported loans. This section looks in brief at the shifting balance of public funding in recent years. More background and earlier figures can be found in the briefing papers HE in England from 2012: Funding and finance and Higher education funding in England.

2. To counteract this risk, respondents suggested that some form of tuition fee cap be imposed and/or that institutional fee changes should be subject to greater scrutiny or be made more transparent to mitigate this risk. Recognising the Government does not intend to introduce new or additional regulation, there could be a monitoring role for Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and/or the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). 35

'It is good to see signs of pay restraint at some universities, with some vice-chancellors refusing a salary increase. A number of governing bodies have reduced the basic pay of their vice- chancellor, though we acknowledge that it can be difficult to revisit contractual obligations while a vice-chancellor is in post. We expect to see further progress next year.

In 2013/14 advanced learner loans were introduced, and individuals aged 24 and over were required to take these loans to pay half of the cost of advanced level apprenticeships. This was the first time that apprentices were expected to contribute to the costs of their learning, and led to an 88% fall in the number of people aged 25+ starting an advanced or higher apprenticeship. In February 2014 the Skills Funding

A number of factors may be leading to the increase in the number of students reporting a mental health condition. One contributory factor is the rise in the number of young undergraduates - adults aged 16–24 today are more likely than previous generations of young adults to experience common mental health conditions. The 2017 IPPR report commented that “a large and growing proportion of people are choosing to enrol in undergraduate courses in the UK, with a majority falling within the age range in which there is an added risk of

The 2010-2015 Coalition Government committed to improving mental health for children and young people, as part of its commitment to achieving “parity of esteem” between physical and mental health. The 2011 mental health strategy, No Health without Mental Health, pledged to provide early support for mental health problems, and the former Deputy Prime Minister’s 2014 strategy, Closing the Gap: priorities for essential change in mental health, included actions such as improving access to psychological therapies for children and young people. The Department of Health and NHS England established a Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce which reported in March 2015 (Future in Mind) and set out ambitions for improving care over the next five years.

1.31 Sexual orientation and what is taught in schools is an area of concern for some parents. Schools that liaise closely with parents when developing their sex and relationship education policy and programme should be able to reassure parents of the content of the programme and the context in which it will be presented. 1.32 Schools need to be able to deal with homophobic bullying. Guidance issued by the Department (Social Inclusion: Pupil Support Circular 10/99) dealt with the unacceptability of and emotional distress and harm caused by bullying in whatever form – be it racial, as a result of a pupil’s appearance, related to sexual orientation or for any other reason. […]

Nick Gibb: The Department for Education is currently in discussion with awarding organisations, Ofqual and others, including foreign embassies, to consider how best to maintain as wide a range of languages as possible at GCSE and A level. We are continuing to develop proposals to achieve this and will hold a more formal, public consultation in due course. I announced on 22 July 2015 that to avoid any gap in provision in certain languages we will, where necessary, extend the timetable for awarding organisations to continue with existing qualifications until September 2018. 46

Similarly, in a letter on 15 October 2018, Robert Halfon, Chair of the Education Committee, asked the Chancellor to “look very carefully at the core level of funding for students in FE” as he prepared the 2018 Budget and the forthcoming Spending Review. The letter argued that “it cannot be right that a funding ‘dip’ exists for students between the ages of 16 and 18, only to rise again in higher education”, and that “successive governments have failed to give further education the recognition it deserves for the role it pays in our national productivity puzzle.” The letter also highlighted particular issues with regards to 16- 19 funding, including underspends, VAT, and the English and maths condition of funding rules (further information on these issues is below). 50

Also, through Sport England, we are investing £1 billion over the next five years in the youth sport strategy to encourage everyone, but particularly young people to take up sport and develop a sporting habit for life. This strategy will provide lottery and exchequer funding to: enable the sports’ governing bodies to create more opportunities for everyone to participate in sport at least once a week; help local authorities improve sport provision; support local organisations, well-run clubs, voluntary groups and other partners such as the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust and Street Games; enhance sport provision at further education colleges and Universities; upgrade community sports facilities and invest in new facilities; enable schools to open up their sporting facilities for use by local communities; rolled out at least 6,000 partnerships between schools and local sports clubs by 2017. School Games

The budget for Advanced Learner Loans is planned to increase from a 2015-16 baseline of £0.20 billion to £0.48 billion in 2019-20. The 2015-16 baseline is based on an estimate of the likely value of loans paid put in the year, which is £298 million less than the initial budget allocation set out in the skills funding letter. Whether the forecast increase in loan budgets result in an increase in loan funding provided to students depends in part, of course, on the future demand for loans (see box three above).

discretionary learner support) is set to be held constant in cash terms at £1.5 billion up to 2019-20. Funding for apprenticeships and loans is set to increase by 92% and 140% respectively between the 2015-16 baseline and 2019-20. From 2017-18 onwards, apprenticeship funding has, in part, been provided via the apprenticeship levy. The Government has announced a review of post-18 education funding, including further education. The review will be supported by an independent panel, led by Philip Augar, and is expected to conclude in early 2019.

From 2013-14, grant funding for leaners aged 24 and over studying at levels 3 and 4 (e.g. A-levels) was removed and replaced with Advanced Learner Loans. Initially, loans also replaced grants for apprentices aged 24 and over studying at level 3 and above. However, loans for apprentices were dropped from February 2014 onwards, in part due to low take-up, and higher level apprenticeships were instead made eligible for grant funding from the ASB. 15 Following an announcement at the Spending Review

The overriding challenge for the 16–18 sector concerns the long- run stagnation in the level of resources available. By the end of the current Spending Review period in 2019–20, we expect that spending per student in further education will only be just above the level seen 30 years ago at the end of the 1980s. To date, school sixth forms have probably been better able to manage real- terms cuts in funding given that school funding per pupil was protected in real terms between 2010–11 and 2015–16. This clearly will not be possible indefinitely, especially as school

As a result of the Education and Adoption Act 2016, regardless of the terms in an academy’s funding agreement, the RSC (on behalf of the Secretary of State) can terminate the funding agreement of an academy that has been judged inadequate. This is a power rather than a duty, meaning the RSC may decide to implement other measures to improve the school rather than terminate to bring about a change of trust, for example, where a change of academy trust would prevent the consolidation of improvements in a school […]

The Healthy Child Programme was introduced in 2009 and thus may not reflect the most up-to-date developments in evidence, commissioning and integrated delivery, national policy priorities or expectations from the public on accessing information through digital channels. We are therefore working with Public Health England (PHE) on modernisation for the Programme, with an initial focus on the first 1,000 days and early years, to improve a range of childhood outcomes including early development and school readiness. There is also an ambition to ensure a stronger link with pregnancy and preconceptual care, while the refresh of the Healthy Child Programme also provides an opportunity to link with the refresh of the health visitor and school nurse service model (4-5-6) which PHE are undertaking. 47