Report 99/50 Access Funds for higher education institutions 1999-2000
Annex A(The Department for Education and Employment has supplied the following information.) Conditions relating to residence 1. Unless he holds a LEA discretionary award under section 1(6) of the Education Act 1962 awarded prior to 1994/95, and subject to special rules for European nationals and assistance with fees, the student must fall within a category mentioned in Schedule 1 to the Education (Student Support) Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/211) [or the equivalent categories in the Education (Student Loans) (Scotland) Regulations 1998 or the Education (Student Support) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 1998] in order to be eligible for grant from Access Funds. The following is only a summary of the categories, and the Schedule should be referred to for a definitive list of the categories. 2. Taking first of all the most straightforward type of case, a student will meet the requirements if:
3. In applying these rules, institutions will need to take account of the following:
Students from Channel Islands and Isle of Man 4. Students who move from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, for the purposes of attending the course (or a previous course if they did not take a break - disregarding the intervening vacation - between the two courses) are not eligible for Access Funds. Settled status 5. The requirement for settlement within the UK within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971 is new, and only applies in relation to students starting courses on or after 1 August 1997. (See paragraph 10 below in relation to existing students.) 6. In certain circumstances, outlined below, students can meet the residence requirements even though they do not meet the three year and settled status rules. Further guidance on ordinary residence is given in paragraphs 8 and 9 below. Refugees and those granted exceptional leave to remain 7. The residence conditions do not apply to a student who has been granted refugee status in the UK, or whose parent (including step parent) or spouse has been granted that status. Such a student is eligible to receive Access Funds as soon as refugee status has been granted. However, students who have been granted exceptional leave to remain are not eligible until they have satisfied the three year ordinary residence rule mentioned above, although they are not required to satisfy the requirements of settled status. EEA migrant workers 8. European Economic Area nationals employed in the UK, including UK nationals, their spouses and their children, who do not pass the three year ordinary residence test will meet the residence requirements provided that:
European students 9. There is an additional category of student who will be eligible for grant from Access Funds, where it is for assistance with remission of tuition fees for part-time students. This category comprises any student who is a national of another member state of the European Community, or who is the child of such a national, and who has been ordinarily resident in the EEA throughout the three years preceding his course. His residence in the EEA must not have been wholly or mainly for the purpose of his receiving full time education. Definition of ordinary residence 10. Interpretation of "ordinary residence" is, in the last resort, a matter for the courts. A judgement by the House of Lords in 1982 (Shah v. Barnet London Borough Council, reported in [1983] 2 WLR 16) clarified the law. It held that ordinary residence is habitual and normal residence from choice for a settled purpose apart from temporary or occasional absences. The Department can offer advice in such cases but is not able to provide definitive rulings. 11. Temporary or occasional absences from the British Islands do not break ordinary residence. For example, trips abroad on holiday or for business would not normally break ordinary residence. As the courts have not defined "temporary or occasional", each case must be judged on its own facts. Institutions should not apply universal rules of thumb or specified periods of time to decide what constitutes a temporary or occasional absence. Further, for these purposes, absences abroad because the student, his spouse or his parent was temporarily employed abroad will not be considered to break ordinary residence in the UK even though the absence would not otherwise be regarded as temporary or occasional. Existing students 12. The position of students who began their course before 1 August 1997 will not be affected by the new requirement for settled status. A student who completes his course and embarks immediately on a second course (an "end-on" course) will not need to fulfil the settled status requirement. 13. Institutions should note that an applicant's immigration status may readily be established or verified by reference to the stamp or stamps in his passport or travelling document. If an applicant's case is currently under consideration by the Home Office he should be able to produce documentary evidence of this consideration. 14. If an applicant's immigration status is not clear, institutions can contact the Immigration Status Enquiry Unit (ISEU) at the Home Office which deals with all enquiries about known asylum seekers. Addresses for these are given at the end of this Annex. Further advice 15. The information above is a summary of the principal points likely to be of relevance to institutions. More detailed information is available in the DfEE publication Notes for Guidance which can be obtained from: Student Support Division (Tel: 01325 392822). The Home Office enquiry points given below operate independently and if advice from both is required it will be necessary to write to both separately.
Annex B(The Department for Education and Employment has supplied the following information.) Guidance notes for institutions 1. The purpose of Access Funds is to provide financial help to students who may not otherwise have access to further or higher education because of financial concerns, or who, for whatever reason, including physical or other disabilities, have difficulties in meeting their living costs. Access Funds may not be given for the purpose of assistance in meeting tuition fees, except in the special case of part-time undergraduate students who lose their jobs during their course of study, or who are in receipt of benefits, or whose family income is below the threshold for receiving income support. 2. The Secretary of State expects institutions to use Access Funds more proactively to prevent students falling into hardship, rather than waiting for students to run into real difficulties before applying for help. One way in which institutions might do this is to trawl vulnerable groups, particularly mature students with dependants, at the start of the academic year, to see whether they have any foreseeable financial needs for which Access Funds could appropriately provide assistance. Payment could be made in instalments throughout the academic year. Payment can also be made in kind, such as paying directly for childcare. 3. Institutions may consider combining hardship loans and Access Funds together as a package in order to help meet students’ needs. Adopting this approach, an institution would consider what help, overall, a student should receive, and to provide a combination of both a hardship loan and Access Funds to cover that amount. The balance between the two would be a matter for the institution, although it should bear in mind the need for a sensible proportion between the hardship loan and Access Fund payment, dependant on the circumstances of the individual student. The Department for Education and Employment will be issuing guidance on hardship loans, including their interface with Access Funds, in the summer. 4. For 2000/2001 institutions are encouraged to discuss with individual students who have particular needs, such as mature students and lone parents, and those from low income families, how Access Funds and hardship loans might be used to provide additional financial help before they enrol on a course of higher education. 5. Institutions should note that resources have been identified for Access Funds until the end of the financial year 2001-2002 at broadly current levels. They should also note that Access Funds, along with hardship loans, will be the subject of a Review by the Department to determine how the available funding can best be used to increase access to higher education from particular groups (e.g. mature students) and to support students in financial hardship. The Review aims to report by Christmas 1999, incorporating changes in good time for implementation in 2000/2001. As part of the Review, the Department will be consulting institutions on how Access Funds are currently used and how they might be used in the future. 6. Access Funds may be used for emergency payments in the case of students who have not received their loan cheque at the beginning of term. Eligibility for Access Funds 7. Access Funds can be used only to help students from one of the following three groups: Postgraduate students: all home students following full-time or part-time courses of higher education studying at a level above first degree. Higher education students: all home students, following full-time (including sandwich, but excluding a year out) or part-time courses of higher education, other than postgraduates. Further education students: all home students following full-time (including sandwich, but excluding year out) or part-time courses of further education, who are aged 16 or over. 8. Students on part-time courses are those working to a minimum of 60 credit points in an academic year, where the full-time equivalent (fte) is 120 credit points in a year, or those studying at least 50% of a full-time course. 9. In each case, "home students" means people who satisfy certain conditions of eligibility for a student loan. These conditions are explained in the Annex. However, in the context of assistance with tuition fees for part-time students who lose their jobs during their course of study, or who are in receipt of benefit, students who are nationals of another member state of the European Community, and who meet the residence criteria referred to in the Annex, should also be eligible for assistance. 10. Access Funds cannot be used to help students who either:
Priority for Access Funds 11. In addition to mature students, especially lone parents, institutions are also asked to give priority consideration to:
(Institutions should be aware that from autumn 2000, both new and existing part-time students on low incomes will be entitled to loans to help with their course expenses, such as books and equipment. Such students should not be deterred from entering higher education in 1999/2000. The details of the part-time loans scheme are not yet finalised. Institutions should be careful to advise part-time students that they may not qualify for a loan from the scheme. Details will be available in the autumn term.) 12. While we ask institutions to give priority consideration to these groups, institutions must assess individual need, and Access Funds must always be given at the institution’s discretion. Bursaries through the Access Funds 13. In order to widen access to further and higher education, institutions may wish to consider using the Funds to provide scholarships or bursaries to contribute towards the living costs, but not the tuition fees, of students who would otherwise be deterred from entering further or higher education because of their financial circumstances. This scheme is no longer restricted to full-time undergraduates, but can also be used to assist further education and postgraduate students (particularly those wanting to obtain professional or other vocational qualifications), both full-time and part-time. We would expect mature students and students from low-income families to be given priority consideration for these bursaries. Institutions are asked to bear in mind that Local Education Authorities will no longer be funded to make new discretionary awards from 1999/2000. These awards previously covered further education, undergraduate and postgraduate courses, both full-time and part-time, at the LEA’s discretion. Such students included those who were unable to receive a mandatory award because of previous study, or who were on an ineligible course, such as a foundation, postgraduate or part-time course. 14. It is nevertheless for the institution to determine who should receive help from the bursary scheme, depending on the students’ individual circumstances, and the fact that a student’s LEA had previously given discretionary awards for the same course should not be a determining factor. Assistance under the bursary scheme is subject to the maximum recommended amount of £3,500, and the total which can be spent by institutions on new bursaries in the academic year should not exceed 10% of the institutions’ total Access Funds budget. This bursary scheme should not be used to top-up an existing studentship or postgraduate bursary received from the Arts and Humanities Research Board or other Research Councils. 15. The Review of Access Funds and hardship loans will recognise that institutions may have made a commitment to students for future years through this scheme, and will take account of that in any recommendation put forward. Help for students without their loan cheques 16. Students who have difficulty in meeting their living costs include those who have not received the Government financial support by the beginning of term. 17. The student support arrangements for 1999/2000 are designed to ensure that all eligible students receive some support at the beginning of term. For late applicants, this would be a cheque for the non-means-tested element of the student loan as an interim payment while any application for means-tested support was being processed. But there will be a small number students for whom there has not been enough time to process any part of their application, perhaps because they took a very late decision to enter HE or did not have confirmation of their course or institution until late. Ministers at the Department for Education and Employment would like institutions to use their Access Funds in a flexible and sympathetic way to help students in these circumstances who are in need of support. This should normally be in the form of a short-term loan, to be repaid to the institution when the student loan is received. 18 The Department will be monitoring the number of students likely to be in this position and will keep institutions informed during August and September through its regular communications. If it becomes clear that a large number of students are likely to need these payments, the Department will ensure that institutions have sufficient funds to meet demand. 19. Institutions will only need to pay for students’ immediate needs over a few weeks, and only if the student has no other means of support. Some institutions already have schemes in place, either through Access Funds, or through alternative funds, which will achieve this aim, and there is no need to change their arrangements if that is the case. Other institutions, such as Manchester University, are designing a simple scheme which will enable them to pay students quickly. Institutions may want to check the following before giving help in these cases:
20. Institutions are recommended to ask the student to sign a declaration that they will repay the loan once they receive the first instalment of their student loan. Fee remission for part-time students who have lost their jobs or who receive state benefit 21. Part-time undergraduate students who lose their job after beginning their courses, or who are in receipt of certain benefits, or whose family income is below the threshold for receiving income support, are eligible to have their fees waived, through assistance with the Access Funds. Institutions should note that the usual criterion for part-time students for Access Funds assistance (ie. 50% fte or 60 credit points where the fte is 120 credit points) applies also to this scheme. The maximum payment should be the appropriate pro-rata share of the undergraduate fee. Part-time students who lose their jobs 22. In order to be eligible for consideration for fee remission, the student should be able to show that he was employed for at least 20 hours a week, or working as a self-employed person for at least 20 hours a week, when he entered higher education, and that he has been so working for a minimum of six months before losing the job, or ceasing to be self-employed through no fault of his own. A student is eligible for consideration at any stage in the academic year. If a student finds another job after losing his job, and benefiting from the fee remission scheme, he should not be asked to repay any of his tuition fee. Part-time students in receipt of benefit, or with low family income 23. Those in receipt of Income Support, income-related Job Seeker’s Allowance, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit will be eligible for the fee waiver, as will those whose family income is below the threshold for receiving income support. Tax credit recipients with net incomes of less than £11,250 a year (or £14,300 gross), will be eligible for fee waivers whilst those with net incomes above that point will not. The student should be able to show that he is in receipt of at least one of these benefits, or provide evidence of family income. Students may not be considered for fee remission from Access Funds within this category if they are undertaking a second degree. Payment of Access Funds 24. Access Funds should be targeted at students in particular need. Very small payments are inconsistent with this. The minimum payment should be £100, other than in exceptional circumstances. Very large individual payments to a few students disproportionately reduce the amount of Funds available for other cases of hardship. Normally, individuals should not receive payments totalling more than £3,500 from the Access Funds towards living costs in any one academic year. Disbursing Access Funds 25. Institutions will be given separate amounts for the Postgraduate, Undergraduate and Further Education Funds, and also a separate amount for Fee Remission. These are indicative amounts only, and institutions are free to determine the balance of support from their funds to meet the needs of their students. Institutions must ensure that sufficient funds are available to provide fee remission for all part-time students who qualify for this support under the fee remission scheme. Institutions may also determine the balance of support from their funds between full-time and part-time students. It is for each institution to decide individual applications for payments from its Access Funds within the criteria laid down by the Secretary of State and the Funding Council. Institutions are asked to ensure that the need for payments is in each case properly supported by evidence of a gap between income and expenditure, and in the special case of part-time fee remission, additional evidence of employment history, or receipt of benefits or family income. 26. Institutions should take account of the following factors when considering applications:
27. Assistance from Access Funds may be given in the form of a cash payment to the student or to a third party, or through the provision of items or services for the student on an individual basis or in the form of a short-term repayable loan. Large items of equipment bought for the use of individual students should remain the property of the institution. 28. Access Funds should not be used for any of the following:
(For more guidance on good practice, please see paragraphs 34 to 38 of this Annex.) Temporary suspension of study 29. In considering requests for support from the Access Funds from students who have temporarily suspended their studies, e.g. through illness, or who may be experiencing difficulty in finding a placement in industry as an essential part of their course, institutions should first check whether the student continues to be registered as a student and take into account:
Provision for summer term and the long vacation 30. Some students find that they need financial assistance late in the academic year, perhaps because they have not been able to find temporary employment for the long vacation. Institutions should ensure that they can consider late applications. They are strongly recommended to hold back some of their Access Funds for this purpose. NHS students 31. Students who are in receipt of a non means-tested NHS bursary or who are salaried NHS employees are not eligible. Appeals 32. It is for individual institutions to consider and resolve appeals by students in respect of applications for Access Funds payments and to establish a procedure for this purpose if they consider that appropriate. Appeals should not be referred to the Funding Council or the Secretary of State. Advice to students 33. Applicants for help should be advised that payments from the Access Funds may have implications for their entitlement to Social Security benefits, particularly Income Support, Housing Benefit, Family Credit and certain payments from the Social Fund. Good practice 34. Access Funds can, and should, be used proactively (see paragraph 2) and can be combined with hardship loans to provide a package of help to students (see paragraph 3). 35. Institutions must check that the need is genuine in each case. They should also keep a sensible amount in the budget for unforeseen circumstances and for students not in specifically targeted groups. 36. Publicity should be directed as much as possible towards students likely to need the most assistance, although care should be taken not to suggest that all applicants will necessarily be successful. It may be helpful to consult welfare or counselling staff, personal tutors and student representatives on ways of achieving well directed publicity. 37. Counselling on money management, including group workshops, will help students to budget and ensure that Access Funds are spent on the most genuine cases of need. 38 Institutions need to consider what evidence they require of a student’s financial position. For example, a single bank balance does not indicate the long-term position, but monthly bank/building society statements are more likely to do so. Where students are eligible for loans, institutions should check that the student has applied for the full loan entitlement (except in the case of emergency payments at the very beginning of term). The student should be asked to provide a copy, if he has one, of his Financial Assessment for Higher Education Student Support 1999/2000 Form (also known as the Student Notification Form) and his Loan Request Form. A bank statement will show whether the assessed amount has been paid to the student. Institutions may find it helpful to know that the minimum student loan payment students will receive is the first instalment of the non-means-tested element of the loan. This will be:
Annex CAllocation of Access Funds 1999-2000 in £sAnnex DMonitoringThe DfEE asks the Council to provide the Secretary of State with a commentary on the use of Access Funds, consulting institutions as necessary. This information will help in evaluating the performance of the funds, and inform future decisions on their purpose. We are also asked to collect detailed information for each year from individual institutions, and submit this in summary form to the DfEE. Please provide the following monitoring information, using the forms provided, and return it to us by 30 September 2000. Table 1 The number of students applying for assistance from the Access Funds and the number to whom assistance was given with the total amounts disbursed for
Within these categories, provide details under the following sub-groups
Table 2 The total amount of Access Funds disbursed during the academic year, and the range of payments made, including the number of grants and loans made in each range group. Table 3 The number of students whose application for assistance from the Access Funds was refused, and reasons for refusal. Table 4 Information on arrangements made for improving targeting of the Access Funds to students in real need. Table 5 If known, information on how much has been spent from Access Funds on the following categories:
Table 6 The amount of funds disbursed to students in the form of loans for repayment, and whether this was paid as an emergency short-term loan for students with no other support at the beginning of term who did not have a loan cheque, or for other reasons. Also to record the funds received as repayments for both these categories. Table 7 Details of amounts allocated by institutions, actual amounts disbursed and interest accrued by them over the three terms. The tables are not available in the electronic version of this document but are given in the printed publication. In-Year monitoring for 1999-2000As noted in paragraph 37 of the main publication, the Council is also asked to provide the Secretary of State with some information on the use of Funds during the academic year 1999-2000. This will include information on the total spend to date and committed expenditure by institutions, and other information as requested by the Secretary of State and agreed by the Council. We will request this information separately. The return date will be in early December 1999. Annex ESummary of allocation method for 1999-2000 Access Funds
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