Report 98/23

1998-2001 corporate plan

View most recent strategic plan (April 2004)

Our mission

'Working in partnership, we promote and fund high­quality, cost-effective teaching and research, meeting the diverse needs of students, the economy and society.'

Strategic aims

1. To achieve our mission, we aim to:

1. Promote high standards of education and research so as to advance knowledge and scholarship, encourage improvement and innovation, and enhance students' learning experience and employment prospects.
2. Encourage institutions to increase access, secure equal opportunities, support lifelong learning, and maximise achievement for all who can benefit from higher education.
3. Maintain and encourage the development of a wide variety of institutions with a diversity of missions that build upon their local, regional, national and international strengths and are responsive to change, within a financially healthy sector.
4. Develop and sustain effective partnerships with institutions, employers, other funding and professional bodies, and others with a stake in higher education, by providing clear and open information and promoting collaboration between them.
5. Advise Government and other stakeholders on higher education's needs and aspirations, and help make widely known the achievements and opportunities offered by higher education, particularly to students.
6. Use consultation, research and benchmarking to increase knowledge and understanding of higher education, and inform policy development.
7. Contribute to the healthy development of higher education in this country and overseas by learning from international experience and helping to promote the reputation and competitiveness of UK higher education abroad.
8. Promote effective financial management, accountability for the use of public funds, and value for money.
9. Enable our staff to provide a high quality service, within an open and supportive working environment.

Foreword

2. The year since the publication of our last corporate plan has seen fundamental developments which will affect higher education in the future. The Dearing Report and the Government's Green Paper on lifelong learning have set a strategic agenda for the long term development of UK higher education. Working with higher education institutions and our other partners, we aim to ensure that the sector is in the best possible condition to respond to these developments. This plan outlines our strategy for the next three years and beyond. With so much attention on education, the environment is bound to change further during the period. We need to anticipate and respond to those changes. It is intended to provide a firm framework, but we are confident that the plan also remains sufficiently flexible to meet future requirements and opportunities.

3. The central theme of this plan is partnership - working with others to attain common goals. We will look to strengthen our relationships with our stakeholders and partners - the Government, universities and colleges providing higher education, students, employers, the beneficiaries of research, and our sister funding bodies. We are adjusting our internal structure, ways of working and how we relate to those with an interest in higher education to reflect changing priorities and the need to be responsive.

Promote high standards of education and research so as to advance knowledge and scholarship, encourage improvement and innovation, and enhance students' learning experience and employment prospects.

Policy and funding for learning and teaching

4. Our funding of teaching aims to make the best use of public money to enhance the learning experience of students. The funding method allows for a wide range of courses, modes of delivery, and students. It responds to the interests of students, employers and the Government. The underlying principle is that similar activities will be funded at similar rates, with variations from these based on previously determined factors.

5. We aim to reward and promote excellence in learning and teaching through our funding method and through the introduction of new policies. In particular, we will:

• work closely with institutions and independent agencies, such as the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and the proposed Institute for Learning and Teaching, to develop and enhance systems of quality assurance to safeguard quality and standards
• promote explicit learning and teaching strategies in institutions, to support the clear specification of programme content and delivery at subject level
• continue to ensure that public information on the nature and quality of the student learning experience is available at subject level for the provision we fund
• promote quality enhancement through special initiatives, and by disseminating and helping to embed best practice
• co-ordinate and promote the development and implementation of multi-media learning and teaching methods.

6. Our funding method will aim to ensure that all higher education courses achieve at least a threshold standard, and to promote and reward high quality provision.

Policy and funding for research

7. The Research Assessment Exercise will continue to provide our main mechanism for allocating research funds selectively. Selectivity on the basis of quality has demonstrably improved the quality and management of research. We will continue to promote assessment mechanisms that:

• are objective, consistent, transparent and widely understood
• provide incentives to improve the quality of research
• are responsive to developments and innovation, particularly in interdisciplinary and collaborative work
• are cost­effective and minimise administrative burdens.

8. Our research funding method will aim to preserve and enhance centres of international excellence while developing a widespread research capability in higher education institutions across the country.

9. The Dearing Report supported the central role of the dual support system in the funding of research, while drawing attention to the imbalance between project and infrastructure funding following the growth in charity project funding. We will continue to provide funding through the dual support system to help meet the costs of the staff, premises and central computing required for research projects.

10. We will also provide infrastructure support through the block grant and through special funding initiatives, including funding for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Joint Academic Network (JANET). Our special funding initiatives will reflect the knowledge we derive from our unique position in the sector. They will have a clear purpose and will be based upon supporting excellence, collaboration, and good management.

Evaluating our policies

11. We will regularly evaluate our policies and initiatives to ensure that our strategic aims are achieved, and to deal with any unintended effects. We will accomplish this through a range of mechanisms, including data collection and analysis, regular contact with institutions, and systematic monitoring of special initiatives.

Encourage institutions to increase access, secure equal opportunities, support lifelong learning, and maximise achievement for all who can benefit from higher education.

12. Higher education should offer opportunities for lifelong learning to all with the willingness and ability to benefit from it. We will encourage institutions to promote wider participation and to maintain and improve the higher level skill base of the workforce by:

• introducing funding policies to reward institutions which successfully reach out to disadvantaged and under-represented groups, particularly students from poorer backgrounds and those with disabilities
• seeking ways to promote equal opportunities, especially for ethnic minorities and in subject areas where one gender is under-represented
• adopting policies to support lifelong learning which encourage part-time provision, flexible delivery, the development of higher education in further education colleges, and the expansion of professional and personal development
• expanding opportunities for students who do not have local access to higher education
• collaborating with the FEFC and other partners to devise programmes which build on existing experience.

13. We will monitor the pattern of student participation as new financial arrangements for students are introduced over the planning period.

Maintain and encourage the development of a wide variety of institutions with a diversity of missions that build upon their local, regional, national and international strengths and are responsive to change, within a financially healthy sector.

14. The higher education sector in England includes over 130 institutions ranging from world class research universities, through a number of specialist colleges, to institutions whose main focus is on serving their region or locality. We are committed to maintaining excellent institutions, and to ensuring that a wide range of opportunity is offered to an increasingly diverse student population. During the planning period we intend to develop a clearer statement of this commitment to diversity, and to develop policies which:

• support different mechanisms for achieving excellence
• ensure that minority subjects continue to be offered
• enable institutions to build on their distinctive strengths.

15. We will help institutions to build upon their local, regional, national and international strengths. In particular, we aim:

• to contribute to discussions about the local and regional role of institutions and support their involvement in regional development
• where appropriate, to act as a broker to enable institutions to take advantage of opportunities for partnerships at a local and regional level
• to encourage institutions to collaborate in their research, and their use of large scale, expensive equipment and resources.

This will allow our national policies to be informed by a range of regional considerations and help ensure that the opportunities offered by higher education are more fully exploited within the region.

16. We will encourage and support collaboration between higher education institutions. Our aim is to identify scope for collaboration, based on the synergies and strengths of the partners. We will work on ways to reward collaboration between institutions through our funding methods.

Financial health

17. To satisfy ourselves that the sector remains financially healthy, we will undertake regular monitoring and selective interventions. We aim to identify problems as soon as possible, and to ensure that institutions recognise them and take action to resolve them. Where there are serious difficulties, we recognise the need to work with institutions in looking at a range of options.

Develop and sustain effective partnerships with institutions, employers, other funding and professional bodies, and others with a stake in higher education, by providing clear and open information and promoting collaboration between them.

18. To achieve our strategic aims, we must work in partnership with an increasing range of bodies. We will promote collaboration and effective working relations between institutions, and between institutions and other stakeholders. We wish to establish mutually beneficial partnerships to improve the range and quality of teaching and research, and the responsiveness of higher education to national needs.

19. We will strengthen our relations with other bodies funding higher education - government departments, the research councils, research charities and others. Working within the dual support system for research, we will increase our collaboration with the research councils in particular, building on our joint initiative to fund major purchases of research equipment.

20. We wish to forge new partnerships with those who have an interest in the human skills and transferable knowledge created by higher education. They include employers and those who commission research and services from universities and colleges. Through these contacts, we will seek to generate wider understanding of the potential contribution from higher education.

21. We aim to conduct our business openly and to operate within the seven principles of public life outlined by the Nolan Committee: namely, selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. We will continue to consult widely on our policies and how we implement them. We will look for opportunities to develop wider understanding of the way we work.

Advise Government and other stakeholders on higher education's needs and aspirations, and help make widely known the achievements and opportunities offered by higher education, particularly to students.

22. An important role is to provide advice to the Secretary of State on the financial needs of the sector. Our input to public expenditure planning allows us to set out what has been achieved with funding in previous years, and the continuing contribution of higher education to the economy. The information required for this is part of the wider body of knowledge we need to fulfil our own functions and help develop new roles.

23. As a knowledge­based organisation, we strive continually to improve and update our knowledge and understanding of higher education and to make information freely available to other stakeholders. Our aims are:

• to inform ourselves and others about national and international trends and developments in higher education
• to use our improved knowledge and understanding to underpin the development of Council policy
• through monitoring and evaluation, to improve our understanding of the impact of our policies and initiatives in practice.

24. By identifying and meeting our knowledge requirements and those of our stakeholders, we will develop a strategy:

• to improve the quality of advice we offer to Government, and our contribution to the wider debates on the future of higher education
• to improve our information for policy development, and to disseminate examples of good practice
• to enable us to develop a knowledge bank, as a reference source for institutions and others with an interest in higher education.

25. We shall make information widely available, through the Internet, publications, discussion groups and responses to external enquiries. We will review and consult on this service, to improve it and to assess our performance in relation to other bodies.

26. We will work with partners - particularly the representative bodies of universities and colleges, and the British Council - to make known the opportunities and achievements of British higher education. In particular, we will look for ways to celebrate higher education in the millennium.

Use consultation, research and benchmarking to increase knowledge and understanding of HE, and inform policy development.

27. We make use of research and development, undertaken in-house or commissioned, to inform our policies. We will place emphasis upon projects that:

• help to widen access, improve student choice and meet demand through innovative and effective teaching methods
• improve understanding of the costs of different activities, especially research, and how these costs are reflected in funding, and their relationship to outputs
• help HEIs to establish more effective financial management systems
• increase understanding of the costs and benefits of different forms of higher education provision and other activities
• improve our understanding of international policies and overseas collaborations.

We will improve the way we disseminate the outcomes of this work, much of which will be of value to higher education institutions and others.

28. Our research projects, policy development, and the refinement of our funding method, sometimes require knowledge and skills that are not available within the Council. We will identify sources of expertise that are relevant to our aims. These may include institutions and organisations in this country and abroad. We will draw upon their advice when it can add value to our activities.

Contribute to the healthy development of higher education in this country and overseas by learning from international experience and helping to promote the reputation and competitiveness of UK higher education abroad.

29. We will increase our understanding of international developments and enhance the reputation and competitiveness of UK higher education abroad by:

• learning from the experience and practice of overseas providers and funders; we will establish international collaborative projects to support this
• providing information overseas on the achievements and qualities of the UK higher education sector
• developing systems to gather and analyse information on international practice, developments and contacts
• influencing the development of international policies and collaboration that could benefit UK higher education.

Promote effective financial management, accountability for the use of public funds, and value for money.

30. Institutions are accountable to Parliament, through the Council and the DfEE, for the proper use of public funds. We will use a Financial Memorandum and an Audit Code of Practice as frameworks within which institutions can operate without recourse to the Council. We intend to refine our accountability requirements and increase the focus on outcomes and the value delivered.

31. We will refine our audit and financial monitoring to reduce the administrative burden on institutions without loss of accountability. In particular we will seek to identify the reasons for poor internal controls, inadequate corporate governance or financial health problems. Our monitoring will increasingly focus on the causes of problems rather than their consequences.

32. We intend to make greater use of benchmarking and to encourage self-assessment by institutions and their governing bodies. This will enable us to reduce the amount of monitoring information we seek from institutions and increase its effectiveness. These new arrangements will be developed in partnership with sector bodies and institutions.

33. At times of continuing pressure on resources it is essential to secure the best value for money. We will develop guidance on good practice to enable institutions to operate more economically, efficiently and effectively. Through collaborative work with other funding bodies, we will identify priority areas for studies and the development of good practice. We will work with institutions on the sector-wide implementation and evaluation of outcomes to ensure that our work is effective.

34. Institutions are generating larger proportions of their income from non-public sources, and increasingly using external expertise to procure services. We will maintain our dialogue with investors to promote increased understanding of higher education, of the financial risks involved and how these are managed, and of the Council's role. We will provide opportunities for institutions and investors to increase their knowledge of each other. This will allow investors to assess the risks of investing in higher education and to reflect these in the availability and cost of borrowing.

35. We will encourage institutions to explore partnerships with private sector organisations to deliver services which provide value for money. We will identify and disseminate to institutions examples of good practice in investment decision making, for both projects and services.

Estates management

36. We will improve our understanding of institutions' estates and promote effective management by:

• disseminating information and good practice on estates management
• monitoring the impact of changes such as developments in IT, new legislation and regulations, and new methods of learning and teaching
• undertaking research and specific funding initiatives to examine issues such as the cost of listed buildings, space reconfiguration, disabled access and the impact on the student experience of poor quality estates.

37. We will also place emphasis on enhancing the quality and range of higher education's infrastructure by building upon our initiatives to improve poor estates and refurbish research laboratories.

Enable our staff to provide a high quality service, within an open and supportive working environment

38. We currently employ about 160 people, nearly all of whom are based at Northavon House, Bristol. We also have a small base in London, at Centre Point.

39. We are committed to continually improving the value for money obtained from our running costs, which represent about 0.3 per cent of the total funds for higher education. This means not only achieving efficiency savings but also improving the effectiveness of the £3 billion annual investment in higher education.

40. We aim to provide a co-operative working environment for our staff which supports learning focused on the Council's business. In particular, we intend to develop individuals' expertise in areas linked to their responsibilities, and to encourage the transfer of such expertise through formal and informal networks across the organisation. We will value people who show initiative and reward them for their contribution more than for their position in the Council. In this way, we aim to build a flexible, intelligent organisation, able to use its human resources in the best way to respond to the changing needs of our many stakeholders.

Appendix A

Key performance targets for 1998-99 and beyond

We agree key performance targets with the DfEE each year. Our targets for 1998-99 and beyond are linked to the strategic aims outlined in paragraph 1 of our corporate plan.

Key performance targets

• To announce main funding allocations by March 1999 and deliver all funding to institutions correctly and on time.
• Student numbers in 1998-99 to be within 2 per cent of the Secretary of State's target.
• By 1999-2000, to enhance the quality of teaching and learning through at least two funding incentives.
• To have secured an increase in the volume of high quality research which is reflected by a 10 per cent increase in the number of research active staff in departments assessed as 3a through to 5* at the next Research Assessment Exercise.

Key performance target

• By 1999-2000, to have developed mechanisms to reward good practice in securing equal opportunities and widening participation.

Key performance targets

• By 1999-2000, to determine the principles which will underpin the funding of a diverse range of institutions.
• By 1999-2000, to have determined the principles and priorities for the Council's contribution to local and regional needs.
• Within eight weeks of an institution being identified as in immediate financial difficulties, to secure the necessary action by the institution.

Key performance targets

• To develop effective dialogues with stakeholders through holding two national and 14 regional conferences, as well as workshops and other events.
• With external partners, to allocate up to £15 million in funding for research equipment by April 1999, which generates funds from private sources of at least £11 million.

Key performance target

• To create a wider understanding of higher education and the work of the Council through clearer publications, explanatory guides, the development of electronic communications, and establishing a helpdesk service.

Key performance target

• By 1999, to have agreed a set of management statistics from which performance indicators and benchmarks can be drawn for families of institutions with similar characteristics and aspirations.

Key performance target

• To develop and implement a strategy to learn from international experience and help to promote the reputation and competitiveness of UK higher education abroad.

Key performance targets

• To ensure the effectiveness of governance, management and audit arrangements in HEIs by undertaking audits of one­third of institutions in each operational year.
• To promote best practice in governance and management by issuing three guides on specific areas, tailored to the needs of the sector.
• To provide an efficient, effective service to deliver the Council's operating plan within the resources provided by the Secretary of State.

Key performance targets

• To continue to improve management practices within the Council, consistent with the Investors in People standard.