Explainer: the Higher Education White Paper and HE Bill

The Higher Education and Research Bill (HER Bill) is the first higher education-dedicated legislation to be laid before Parliament since the Higher Education Act 2004.

The Bill’s guiding principles and objectives are explained in the government’s Higher Education White Paper, which was published on 16 May 2016.

The White Paper is largely based on the Higher Education Green Paper of November 2015. However, the White Paper also contains some revisions, including a more phased approach to implementing the Teaching Excellence Framework, and a decision not to empower the Director of Fair Access to impose admissions targets on institutions.

The HER Bill requires the consent of both houses of Parliament before it can become statute.

Introduced in the House of Commons, the Bill will be debated in the Commons Chamber in a series of ‘readings’, and also undergo scrutiny in a Public Bill Committee. It will then be considered by the House of Lords. Amendments can be submitted, considered and voted on (accepted or rejected) by both houses.

This summary explains the key provisions of the Bill, with further information from the White Paper.

Office for Students (England-only)

• The Bill provides for the dissolution of HEFCE, with many of its functions assumed by a new Office for Students (OfS)
• As its name suggests, the OfS will have a specific consumer focus and pay regard to “the need to promote quality and greater choice and opportunities for students” in English higher education
• The OfS will be responsible for regulating higher education providers (HEPs). It will maintain a register of providers, make arrangements for the assessment of the quality of HEPs, and allocate the teaching grant
• The OfS will operate a single gateway for new entrants/HEPs and assume the Privy Council’s current powers in relation to conferring (and revoking) Degree Awarding Powers (DAPs) and University Title
• The Bill indicates that the OfS will have a duty to respect academic freedom and institutional autonomy when carrying out its duties. The Secretary of State must also have regard to the need to protect academic freedom when giving guidance to the OfS, and when making grants to the OfS
• The White Paper suggests that the OfS will be operational from April 2018, subject to Parliamentary approval of the HER Bill.

Challenger institutions and new providers

• New “high quality providers” will be able to offer their own degrees on a probationary basis from day one, “subject to strong quality checks and close monitoring”. This will help to establish a “level playing field for all providers”
• A HEP will be able to apply for DAPs on a probationary basis from day one; after three years, the provider will be able to access full degree awarding powers
• University Title can be granted by the OfS once a provider has secured a six-year track record of awarding degrees (inclusive of the probationary period)
• All approved and approved fee cap providers will need to have a student protection plan in place, in case of provider failure and subsequent market exit.

Teaching Excellence Framework: overview

• The Bill will enable the OfS to operate a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to assess HEPs’ teaching quality
• The White Paper stresses that a “measured approach” towards TEF implementation will mean that the roll-out is “slower overall”, with the various iterations of the TEF informed by the results of piloting.

Teaching Excellence Framework: roll-out

• Year 1 of the TEF is already underway and will see providers with a current QA rating of ‘meeting UK expectations’ or higher permitted to raise fees in line with inflation from the start of academic year 2017/18
• Year 2 of the TEF (TEF 2) will run as a pilot. Providers will be assessed according to their own statement/qualitative evidence plus three core metrics: retention; student satisfaction; and proportion in employment and further study
• Fees will not differ according to the TEF rating achieved. Instead, as long as a provider achieves a rating of ‘meeting expectations’ (successful QA award) or above, the provider will be allowed to raise fees by the rate of inflation (from academic year 2018/19)
• TEF 2 will be followed by a ‘lessons learned’ exercise, which will feed into TEF 3
• Year 3 (TEF 3) will assess and rate providers according to the three core metrics and an institutional submission, and fee increases will be pegged to ratings: ‘meeting expectations’ unlocks an increase of 50 per cent of inflation, while ‘excellent’ or ‘outstanding’ means an increase of 100 per cent of inflation, with fee rises taking effect from 2019/20
• TEF 3 will possibly trial metrics such as measurements of contact hours, ‘teaching intensity’ and the Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset. Pilot assessments at disciplinary level (with no financial consequences) are also anticipated
• According to the White Paper, Year 4 of the TEF (assessments taking place in 2019/20) will be the first year in which assessments are made at disciplinary level; this iteration could also see an assessment of taught postgraduate courses. 

Widening participation

• The OfS will have a statutory duty to have regard to “the need to promote equality of opportunity in connection with access to and participation in HE” (in England)
• An approved access and participation plan is to be a condition of registration with the OfS for certain providers. The plan must also include provisions “relating to the promotion of equality of opportunity”
• The Director of Fair Access will become the Director for Fair Access and Participation (DFAP). The Office for Fair Access (OFFA) will be abolished and its functions folded into the Office for Students, where the DFAP will sit as a board member
• The DFAP will oversee the spending of “all funding allocated to widening access”
• The DFAP will not set targets for access and participation; agreements will be negotiated between institutions and the directors as at present
• A mandatory ‘transparency duty’ will require registered providers to publish and provide to the OfS information on the application, acceptance and progression rates of students broken down by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background.

UK research and innovation

• The HER Bill and White Paper sketch out a significant reorganisation of the architecture overseeing research funding and strategy   
• In line with the recommendations of the Nurse Report (Sir Paul Nurse, November 2015), the UK’s seven Research Councils, plus Innovate UK, will be brought together under the umbrella body of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
• These eight constituent ‘Councils’ will be joined by a 9th ‘Council’, Research England, which will take over responsibility for HEFCE’s current functions in relation to the allocation of quality-related research funding and knowledge exchange
• Each Council will be entrusted with delegated authority for decision-making at discipline level, and will have its distinctive focus and remit established in legislation
• UKRI will have control over a multi-disciplinary fund top-sliced from the budgets of the seven Research Councils (equivalent to £100m-150m from 2018 onwards) and will manage the unallocated portion of the Global Challenges Fund
• The White Paper states that dual support will be “enshrined” in legislation “for the first time”. The relevant provision of the HER Bill (Clause 95) obligates the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to “ensure that a reasonable balance is achieved in the allocation of funding” as between the functions of the seven discipline-focused Councils and the functions exercisable by Research England
• The Council for Science and Technology will be strengthened, although it does not appear that the Nurse Report’s proposal for a Ministerial Committee on science will be taken forward in the near future.