Report 00/28

Hardship Funds for higher education institutions 2000-01

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Annex F (Monitoring proformas are in a separate Excel spreadsheet):
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Contents

• Executive summary
• Appendix 1: Allocation of Hardship Funds 2000-01
• Appendix 2: Hardship Fund and updated Access Bursary Fund guidance
  • Essential information for administrators for 2000-01
  • Main guidance:
    • Section 1 Purpose and scope
    • Section 2 Funding arrangements
    • Section 3 Updated guidance on Access Bursaries for mature students
  • Annexes
  • A: Conditions relating to residence
  • B: Dance and Drama Awards: connected institutions
  • C: Advice on issuing short-term loans from the Hardship Fund
  • D: Form of words for students to give to their Benefits Office
  • E: Report on the use of Access Funds for 1998-99
  • F: 2000-01 monitoring requirements (Access Bursary and Hardship Fund)
• Appendix 3: HEFCE allocation method

Executive summary

Purpose

1. HEFCE Circular Letter 9/00, ‘Funding for mature student bursaries’ (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Pubs/Circlets/2000/cl09_00.htm) explained that, in 2000-01, the Council would administer the former Access Funds as three discrete funds:

• an Access Bursary Fund for mature students
• a Hardship Fund
• a Fee Waiver Fund for part-time students.

2. This publication primarily sets out the guidance, terms and conditions issued by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) for the Hardship Fund. However, it also contains an updated version of the DfEE’s guidance on the allocation of Mature Student Bursaries, including additional details of monitoring arrangements (see Appendix 2).

3. Full details of the fee-waiver scheme for part-time students are not yet available. We will announce these later in the year following receipt of guidance from the DfEE.

Key points

4. This publication supersedes all previous guidance on this subject. It contains:

1. Confirmation that the DfEE has allocated £56.9 million in Hardship Funds to English higher education institutions (HEIs).
2. Funding allocations for individual HEIs (Appendix 1).
3. DfEE’s main guidance on Hardship Funds, including a summary of essential information for administrators of Hardship Funds in 2000-01(Appendix 2).
4. A report on the allocation of Access Funds by institutions for 1998-99 (Appendix 2, Annex E).
5. Monitoring information required from institutions for 1999-2000 funds including changes to data requested in HEFCE 99/50 (Appendix 2, Annex F).
6. An explanation of how we calculate allocations, including the introduction of a capping mechanism (Appendix 3).

Action required

Monitoring Access Funds for 1999-2000

5. Since the publication of HEFCE 99/50 last year, we have made arrangements for institutions to provide their monitoring information electronically. We shall issue a disk for this purpose in August 2000. Institutions should be aware that we will examine monitoring returns to verify the data. We may make additional enquiries to clarify the information presented on the monitoring returns.

6. We are making some minor changes to the information we requested on the initial monitoring forms published in Annex D of HEFCE 99/50. These include:

1. Asking institutions to say on Table 8 how much of the interest earned during the year was used to defray audit costs.
2. Requiring Directors of Finance (or equivalent) to sign a declaration that the monitoring return is consistent with the information held in the institution’s accounting system for the period 1 September 2000 to 31 August 2001. Institutions will need to be able to reconcile this information to that shown in the financial statements prepared for the year ended 31 July 2001.

7. We now require final monitoring information on the use of 1999-2000 Access Funds by 7 November 2000. This extends the deadline of 30 September 2000 stated in HEFCE 99/50.

Monitoring Mature Student Bursaries 2000-01

8. We shall collect early monitoring information about the 2000-01 Mature Student Bursaries on the same disk as the 1999-2000 Access Funds monitoring information. (Further details are at Section three of Appendix 2.) This will show expenditure up to a census date of 31 October 2000 and will inform:

1. The allocation of the remaining 20 per cent of the fund, which is intended for institutions which have spent, or earmarked, their initial allocation.
2. The DfEE’s and Council’s consideration of the position of HEIs with any significant underspend of their initial allocation.

9. Institutions must return this information to the Council by 7 November 2000. We will assume, however, that an institution that fails to make a return by this date has opted to relinquish its share of any redistributed Mature Students Bursary funds.

Monitoring Hardship Funds 2000-01

10. Details are given at Annex F of Appendix 2. As this will be a disk-based exercise, the forms are for illustration only. Disks will be issued in August 2001, with a return date of 7 November 2001. If an institution fails to make a return by the due date, we will deduct from current grant any expenses incurred by the Council in order to obtain a return. An institution failing to make a return for 2000-01 by the due date will also lose entitlement to a share of any unused funds to be recycled.

11. There will be no early monitoring of Hardship Funds in December 2000.

Changes to carry-forward arrangements

12. The Council and the DfEE wish to encourage good management of the funds and improved targeting of students. Consequently, we will not require institutions to repay unspent 1999-2000 Access Funds, provided they foresee a use for them in 2000-01. Examples are given in Appendix 2, Section 2, ‘Carry forward of unspent funds’.

13. However, we strongly encourage institutions to surrender any funds from 1999-2000 that they already know they will not use. The monitoring disk that we are issuing in August 2000 will give institutions the opportunity to indicate whether they intend to surrender any funds. In such a case, we would deduct funds from their January 2001 payment. These funds would then become available for redistribution.

14. Section 2 of the DfEE’s guidance describes the new arrangements, and proposals for restricting carry-forward in subsequent years. We intend to keep the situation under review and to take action where appropriate. For example, we may consider that an institution which regularly carries forward a large proportion of its funds from one year to the next, is not making good use of this facility.

Audit requirements

15. Audit requirements are set out in the DfEE guidance. We intend to audit the management of the funds at a sample of institutions, beginning in 2000. This is because the level of the funds has increased greatly over the past few years, and we wish to be sure that institutions’ management arrangements are sufficiently robust and accountable to help them, for example, minimise the risk of receiving fraudulent claims.

Appendix 1 Allocation of Hardship Funds 2000-01 in £s

£75,774 has been allocated from the Hardship Fund to the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) for school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) students.