Access and participation plan data

This section reports on the monitoring of:

• 2017-18 access agreements approved under the Office for Fair Access (OFFA)
• 2017-18 student premium funding provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

It is based on the annual monitoring returns submitted by providers in January 2019.

Progress against targets

All providers with an access agreement set high-level outcomes targets for each stage of the lifecycle:

• 58 per cent of targets were for access
• 29 per cent of targets were for success
• nine per cent of targets were for progression
• four per cent of targets were for multiple stages of the lifecycle
• seven per cent of targets were collaborative.

Most providers set targets relating to both activities and outcomes. Data on the performance against outcomes targets is included in this analysis.

Providers were asked to measure performance against their targets by selecting one of six pre-set summaries of performance.

Based on these measurements, 56 per cent of targets or milestones were met or achieved in 2017-18.

The chart below shows a breakdown of performance against outcomes targets:

The percentage of targets or milestones ‘met’ or ‘achieved’ by lifecycle stage are:

• access - 59 per cent
• success - 51 per cent
• progression - 65 per cent
• multiple (stages of the lifecycle) - 41 per cent.

Target groups

For each target, providers were asked to specify which underrepresented groups were being targeted.

The chart below demonstrates the proportion of targets by lifecycle stage and by underrepresented group:

Investment

In 2017-18, providers invested £949.9 million in total in widening participation, including £302.7 million through student premium funding.

In this year, the disabled students’ premium was increased from £20 million to £40 million and providers reported investing £37.4 million in this area.