09/01 - February

Dear Colleague

2007/08 HESA Destinations of Leavers from HE (DLHE) Data Collection (Ref C07018)

This Circular contains links to documents and further guidance that are required for the C07018 data collection. Institutions are therefore requested to review the information contained in the following documents:

DLHE Methodology 2007/08
Schedule for the collection
Check documentation
Validation kit
HESA data collection system help

Access codes

Access codes will be issued to the record contact (and only the record contact) when the data collection system opens in early March 2009, ready for the submission of 2007/08 DLHE data to HESA. Please note that access codes issued in previous years have now expired.

Key deadlines

The timetable for submission remains as operated in previous years. The data collection system will open at the beginning of March. Institutions are reminded of the need to start interacting with the data collection system early, in order to allow sufficient time for the necessary data quality checking.

Institutions are required to send complete data that has passed first stage validation to HESA by 31 March 2009 and complete data that has passed COMMIT stage validation to HESA by 7 April 2009.

In order to meet obligations for hand-over of data to its statutory customers, HESA needs to receive all data files by 8 May 2009.

Previously announced changes to the DLHE Record for 2007/08

Institutions should ensure that they refer to the most recent version of the C07018 Coding manual. Institutions have previously been advised of all changes to the coding manual and these are also listed in C07018 Revision history and C07018 Release notes.

Response rates

Institutions are further reminded of the target response rates for the DLHE survey, namely:

80% for UK-domiciled (i.e. home) leavers who previously studied full-time;
70% for UK-domiciled leavers who studied part-time;
50% for all other EU students;
80% for Research Council funded students.

All institutions are expected to meet, or exceed, these thresholds for the 2007/08 survey. The funding bodies have indicated that they are very concerned that some institutions are consistently falling significantly below this requirement. The funding bodies are currently considering what actions they will take where response rates are below the target figures for any of the populations; these may include contracting out further follow-up work at the institution's expense, or suppression of publication of data.

Post-collection amendments to HESA return (Fixed database)

The Fixed database process is separate from the main data collection and will only be available to an institution on the explicit instruction of the appropriate statutory customer, e.g. Funding Council. Furthermore, statutory customers will only approve specific changes to the collection and so institutions will need to get approval for every field they wish to change. Institutions should also be aware that onward use of information, for example in HESA publications, or for TQI, will be based on the original data collected and not on any amended data. This is because the availability of the Fixed database necessarily extends well beyond the publication date of information.

The agreements with statutory customers provide for the costs of processing such exceptional amendments through the Fixed database to be recovered from institutions by HESA, with assistance from the appropriate Funding Council. It has been agreed that for the DLHE data stream this charge should be set at 20% of the institution's annual subscription.

Sign-off procedure

This procedure is designed to increase awareness of the importance of the verification stage as an integral part of making the return.

It is required that the sign-off slip for this return be completed by the Head of the reporting institution, or by a person with suitable authority. To assist in this process, once HESA has reviewed submitted data and this data has been deemed credible, an automated email will be sent to the Head of the institution; the sign-off slip will be attached to this email.

The deadline for completion and return of the DLHE record sign-off slip is 8 May 2009.

Who to contact during data collection

If you have any queries on the issues raised in this Circular, please contact the Institutional Liaison team at HESA, or email (liaison@hesa.ac.uk).

Yours sincerely

C. Jane Wild
Director of Operations