Institution profile record 2012/13
Institution profile record 2012/13Background to the collection |
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Version 1.0 Produced 2012-06-29
To enable the collection of data by HESA with regard to the students, staff, and finances of higher education institutions, there has always existed a need to collect information on the campuses of those institutions. From 2012/13 onwards, for institutions in England, there is an additional need to collect information on the organisational structures of these same institutions, and how these relate to cost centres. The Campus Information System has been expanded to accomodate this need, and renamed 'Institution profile record' to more accurately reflect the data collected.
Cost centres
The HESA Student, Staff and Finance records all contain a cost centre dimension which, in theory, allows meaningful comparisons between different types of data at a more granular level than the total institution. Historically, the definition of a cost centre was driven by the notion of grouping together of activities with a similar cost.
A revised scheme of cost centres was developed following a sector-wide consultation exercise in early 2011. The previous set of cost centres had remained unchanged since 2004 and it was recognised that they were no longer entirely fit for purpose. This new scheme is being implemented across the HESA Student, Staff and Finance records for 2012/13.
Analysis of the responses to the consultation revealed that there was general support for the routine collection and publication of the academic department/cost centres mapping. Colleagues recognised that this exercise would assist with analysis and benchmarking benefit, give greater transparency to HESA data, and assist with internal checking between various HESA returns. The message recieved was that the added value of the collection and publication of the department/cost centres mapping would be greater than the cost of collecting the information.
As part of the outcome of the consultation, HESA committed to collect contextual data on each institution's allocation of departments to the revised cost centres. In order to establish a way forward to enable the collection of this data, HESA and JISC commissioned a report, 'Enabling Benchmarking Excellence', and this has informed the collection structure of the cost centre information within the Institution profile record.
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