Widening access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds: funding allocation method for 2010-11

Widening access funding is allocated for undergraduates according to weightings based on young higher education (HE) participation rates by ward (for young full-time undergraduates), or the proportion of 16-74 year-olds with a HE qualification by ward (for mature full-time and all part-time undergraduates). The allocation for 2010-11 totals £61.6 million for full-time students and £68.7 million for part-time students.

For the widening access allocation we define a student as young if they are under 21 on entry otherwise the student is defined as mature.

Young HE participation by 2001 census area statistics ward

The young HE participation quintiles come from our work on measuring young participation (see 'Trends in young participation in higher education: core results for England', HEFCE 2010/03). For these calculations we use our POLAR2 area classification which is based on young people who reached 18 between 2000 and 2004 and entered a HE course in the UK aged 18 or 19. Young participation rates are calculated for each 2001 census area statistics ward in the UK and used to rank the wards into five participation quintiles, each containing 20 per cent of the UK young population for this period. The quintiles are numbered 1 (lowest young HE participation rates) to 5 (highest young HE participation rates).

Adult HE qualifications by 2001 census area statistics ward

The adult HE qualfication quintiles are based upon 2001 census area statistics. We use the national equivalents of the 2001 Census Key Statistics table 13 (KS013, 'Qualifications and students') for 2001 Census Output Areas (subsequently aggregated to 2001 census area statistics wards). These tables can be obtained from the Office for National Statistics, the General Register Office for Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. We calculate the proportion of 16-74 year-olds with a HE qualification for UK 2001 census small area statistics wards. These wards are then ranked by this proportion to give the adult HE qualification quintiles, with each quintile covering 20 per cent of the English 16-74 year-old population. The quintiles are numbered 1 (lowest proportion of HE qualified adults) to 5 (highest proportion of HE qualified adults).

National Statistics Postcode Directory

We allocate postcodes to 2001 census area statistics wards using the August 2007 release of the Office for National Statistics National Statistics Postcode Directory. A file containing the allocation of postcode to young participation and adult HE qualification quintiles is available on the POLAR2 section of the HEFCE web-site. This file also identifies postcodes which are excluded from the quintile mapping along with the reason for exclusion (including non-geographic postcodes).

Funding method

Step 1. We map student postcodes from 2008-09 HESA student data and 2008-09 ILR F04 data to quintiles as above.

Step 2. Each new entrant¹ is weighted according to the quintile of their postcode as shown in the table below:

Table 1 Weightings for quintiles

Quintile	Weighting
1	2
2	1
3, 4, 5	0

Quintile 1 = lowest HE participation (for young full-time undergraduates) or lowest proportion of 16-74 year-old with a HE qualification (for part-time and mature full-time undergraduates).

(Part-time and mature students who already hold an HE qualification at the same level as, or higher than, their current qualification aim, or have unknown entry qualifications are given a weighting of zero irrespective of their postcode.)

Step 3. We calculate an average weighting (separately for full-time and part-time students) as follows:

Total weight for all students in the population

Total students in the population

where the population is defined as full-time or part-time (as appropriate) HEFCE-funded UK-domiciled new entrants.

Some students are excluded from this population as follows:

those with a postcode that has been identified in our young participation analysis as being associated with an unfeasible number of young entrants in relation to our population estimates (typically this would be a postcode relating to a boarding school).
those whose postcode is marked as a non-geographic postcode in the National Statistics Postcode Directory
those with a postcode that, although valid, is not mapped to the required census 2001 geography in the National Statistics Postcode Directory.

These excluded students are counted in the FTEs in Step 4 and therefore receive an average weight for the purpose of allocating funds.

Step 4. Each average weighting calculated in Step 3 is London weighted (in general, 8 per cent for institutions in inner London and 5 per cent for institutions in outer London) and applied to the appropriate undergraduate (including foundation degree and additional places awarded outside main teaching grant) FTE for 2010-11 to give the funding allocation as follows:

Full-time students:

Full-time average weighting x London weighting x full-time FTE x Rate

Part-time students:

Part-time average weighting x London weighting x part-time FTE x Rate

Total funding is allocated at a rate of £206 per weighted FTE for full-time students and £1,451 for part-time students.

Further details on the actual fields and algorithms used to calculate the 2010-11 WP funding are published in Appendix 7 of the technical documentation associated with the '2008-09 statistics derived from HESA data for monitoring and allocation of funding' exercise and Appendix 4 of the technical documentation associated with the '2008-09 statistics derived from ILR data for monitoring and allocation of funding' exercise for HEIs and FECs respectively.

Funding allocation method for 2009-10

Widening access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds: funding allocation method for 2009-10

Further information

For further information contact Christine Daniel, tel 0117 931 7373, e-mail c.daniel@hefce.ac.uk.

Notes

1. New entrants are defined in Annex E paragraph 52 of the HESES09 guidance (for HEIs) or Annex E paragraph 43 of the HEIFES09 guidance (for FECs).

Last updated 12 November 2010