27 March 2000

To	Heads of HEFCE-funded higher education institutions
	Heads of HEFCE-funded further education colleges
	Heads of universities in Northern Ireland

Direct Line	0117 931 7300
Direct Fax	0117 931 7203

Circular letter number 7/00

For further information contact your HEFCE higher education adviser

Dear Vice-Chancellor or Principal

Mainstream disability funding from 2000-01 onwards

I am writing to provide additional information on your institution's mainstream disability funding allocation, as signalled in paragraph 19 of HEFCE 00/12 'Recurrent grants for 2000-01'. The purpose of the funding is to recognise that institutions incur additional costs in recruiting and supporting students with disabilities.

This letter covers two key areas:

the method for calculating mainstream disability funds
guidance on the use of disability funds, and the associated monitoring process.

Method

In 2000-01 we will allocate £5 million in total as mainstream disability funding. Each institution has been placed into one of four differentially weighted quartiles, based on the proportion of full-time undergraduate students who receive a Disabled Students Allowance (DSA). This proportion is a proxy measure for the total disabled student population in an institution, and funds are intended to support provision for all disabled students not just full-time undergraduates. Each institution's share of the mainstream funding has been calculated pro rata to HEFCE-funded FTEs (as returned to us in the HESES survey), weighted according to the quartile in which the institution has been placed.

1999-2000 was the first year that the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collected DSA data, and as a result we are aware that there has been some under-recording of the number of students receiving a DSA. Within a fixed pot of £5 million we are confident this will not affect allocations to individual institutions, as under-recording will be common to all institutions. Furthermore, the weighted quartile approach will minimise the impact of any problems with data on each institution's allocation.

We are working with HESA to improve the data and, if the evidence suggests that there are more students receiving a DSA than currently appear in the statistics, we would hope to increase the level of mainstream disability funding in future years.

Guidance on use of funds

Mainstream funds for disability are part of your institution's block grant and are not ring-fenced. However, I recommend to you the HEFCE report 'Base-level provision for students with disabilities' (HEFCE 99/04) as a planning tool to help determine how best to use the funds. This report provides important guidance to institutions on the nature and extent of provision they should be aiming to make, as a minimum, to support students with disabilities.

In light of the recent recommendation by the Disability Rights Task Force (DRTF) that all education providers should be subject to new legislation providing equal access for students with disabilities, it is particularly important that all institutions work towards establishing at least a base-level of provision. We will be in contact again later on this year, after the Government's consultation on the nature, extent and timetable of any new legislation. Details of this consultation, which closes on 28 April 2000, are at http://www.dfee.gov.uk/sen/consult.doc

The mainstream funds for disability are an integral part of the Council's package of measures to widen participation in HE. As such we would expect disability activity to be integral to institutions' widening participation work, including institutional strategies. We also expect institutions to include details of how they are developing provision for disabled students in their annual operating statements (returned to the Council in July 2001 and each year thereafter).

Yours sincerely

Sir Brian Fender
Chief Executive

Last updated