Key performance measure 1

One of our strategic goals is that students receive a high quality academic experience that improves their knowledge and skills. Our strategy says that one way in which we will achieve this is by ensuring that all providers satisfy our minimum requirements for student outcomes. We set numerical thresholds for student outcomes that we use when making judgements about whether an individual provider has met these minimum requirements.

If our approach to regulating student outcomes is working, we anticipate that the proportion of students on courses with continuation, completion and progression outcomes below our numerical thresholds will decrease over time.

The proportion of students at providers where the relevant continuation indicator is below our numerical threshold (at 95.0 per cent statistical confidence) is 7.2 per cent for the most recent year. This has increased from 4.7 per cent in the previous year and there has been some fluctuation year on year.

The proportion of students at providers where the relevant completion indicator is below our numerical threshold (at 95.0 per cent statistical confidence) is 3.5 per cent for the most recent year. This decreased from 9.4 per cent over the previous five years.

The proportion of students at providers where the relevant progression indicator is below our numerical threshold (at 95.0 per cent statistical confidence) is much smaller. It has remained at 1.0 per cent for the most recent year, a rise from 0.7 per cent four years ago.

The continuation, completion and progression indicators used in KPM 1 are the same as those used in our regulation of student outcomes. The indicators are calculated from individualised student data from the Designated Data Body (DDB) Student Record and the Individualised Learner Record from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). OfS-registered providers submit data as required to the relevant data body. A subset of providers not registered with the OfS also submit data to these data bodies. The progression measure also links this individualised student data to survey responses from the Graduate Outcomes survey.

Table 1 shows the version of data used for the KPM calculations. Previously published KPM values remain unchanged by recent data amendments affecting earlier years of data.

Providers were required to submit 2022-23 DDB student data using a new data model and a new data platform, and the data collection encountered a number of delays. Consequently, additional risks for the quality of data were tolerated in some areas of the 2022-23 data returns and we are assessing the impacts of those additional risks for each OfS data output on a case-by-case basis. For this data output, our data quality assessment has indicated that the additional risks have not impacted on the reliability of the data in a material way.

Continuation outcomes are measured by identifying a cohort of entrants to higher education qualifications and following them through the early stages of their course to track how many continue in active study or qualify one year and 15 days after they started (two years and 15 days for part-time students).

Completion outcomes are measured by identifying a cohort of entrants to higher education qualifications and following them through subsequent years of their course to track how many continue in active study or qualify four years and 15 days after they started (six years and 15 days for part-time students).

Progression outcomes are measured as the proportion of Graduate Outcomes survey respondents who reported they have progressed to professional or managerial employment, further study or other positive outcomes, 15 months after gaining their qualification. The data is restricted to UK-domiciled qualifiers.

Further information about the indicator definitions can be found in the document ‘Description of student outcome and experience indicators used in OfS regulation’.

KPM 1 calculates the proportion of students taught at OfS-registered providers with student outcome indicators that are below our numerical thresholds, based on indicators for which at least 95 per cent of the distribution of statistical uncertainty falls below the relevant numerical threshold. The numerical thresholds for each measure, mode and level of study can be found in the document ‘Setting numerical thresholds for condition B3’.

The proportion of students is calculated separately for each student outcome measure, by considering the headcount number of students in the populations of those indicators below the numerical threshold, divided by the total headcount number of students in the population for that measure across all OfS-registered providers. The number of students with outcomes below numerical thresholds is calculated separately for each mode and level of study before being aggregated to give an overall proportion for each measure.

KPM 1 is based on the population of students primarily studying in the UK taught by OfS-registered providers. This encompasses students that are registered with and taught by an OfS-registered provider, or (where data is available) are taught by an OfS-registered provider under a sub-contractual partnership arrangement with a different provider.

KPM 1 does not take account of judgements we may make about whether an individual provider has met our minimum requirements for student outcomes. Our approach to making such judgements is set out in regulatory advice 20.

The first four years of data (three years for progression) shown for this KPM include providers that were registered with the OfS as of 30 September 2022. Later years of the time series include providers who were registered with the OfS at the point of publication of the summer release of student outcomes data. This means the number of providers included in each year will vary.

KPM 1 is subject to potential volatility that can affect year-on-year comparisons. If a provider’s performance is close to the numerical threshold, random statistical variation may mean that its indicator value moves above or below the threshold in different years. In some years we may have 95 per cent statistical confidence that its indicator value is below our numerical threshold and in other years we may not. This might mean that a provider is included in the KPM 1 data in some years and not in others, even where there is not a material change in its performance. This can lead to year-on-year variations, which may be more marked if large providers are included in only some of the years shown in KPM 1. For further information about the effect of statistical uncertainly on the measure please see the ‘assessment of uncertainty’ document (PDF).

Download KPM 1 data as an Excel file

Download KPM 1 technical document on the assessment of uncertainty (PDF)