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Student 2016/17 - Financial supportFinancialSupport

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Student 2016/17

Fields required from institutions in All fields

Financial support


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Typeentity
Short nameFinancialSupport
Description

To capture financial support received by students

Applicable toEngland
Coverage

Instances at providers in England where (Instance.REDUCEDI = 00 or 01) and Instance.FEEELIG = 1 and (Instance.FUNDCODE = 1 or 7) and (Course.COURSEAIM begins with H, I, J, C or is M22, M26, M28, M71 or M88, excluding H50, H60, H61, H62, H78, H81, I60, I61 or I81) and (Instance.EXCHANGE is not 4, G or Z) and (Instance.MODE is not 51, 63 or 64).

Notes

Must be completed for all instances of Home and EU, HEFCE / NCTL fundable students in receipt of support. Any support given to all students within the coverage should not be included.

Support should be returned in the HESA reporting year when the decision to award was made. If the decision to award was made in a different reporting year to when the award was actually given to a student, it should be returned in the year the decision was made. If a student does not receive any support in the HESA reporting year, this entity should not be returned. Support should not be reported during periods of dormancy, even where it is awarded, as this data is not required.

In principle OFFA require data about support awarded in relation to the student or their programme of study, which is not included in their tuition fee. Therefore, any costs which are defined as being “Fees in respect of, or otherwise in connection with, undertaking the course, including admission, registration, tuition and graduation fees” must not be included in the Financial Support entity – full guidance from HEFCE on what fees should include is available here.

For example, fees not covered by HEFCE's definition of tuition fee are:

  • fees payable to a provider for awarding or accrediting any qualification where the provider does not provide the whole or part of the course and is not a publicly-funded provider,
  • fees payable for board or lodging,
  • fees for field trips (including any tuition element of such fees) – providers may consider these part of the course fee, but whether the trips are optional or mandatory a charge may be made,
  • fees payable for attending any graduation or other ceremony,
  • fees related to goods that become the property of the student,
  • fines and deposits,
  • photocopying and printing, including computer printouts,
  • instrumental tuition for students who are not registered on music programmes,
  • foreign language instruction for students who are not registered on language programmes.

If all students at the provider (or all students on the course on which the student for whom data is being returned is studying) are given the same in-kind award, and there is no differentiation based on individual circumstance, it is considered as a cost that is built into the course fee, and should therefore be excluded. Forms of support that are available to all students (even if not utilised by all) and are not awarded differentially based on individual circumstance should not be included in the Financial Support entity.

For example, all students are able to attend a field trip as part of a geography course. The travel costs for all students on the course are paid for by the provider however only half of the class elect to participate in the field trip. The cost of travel would not be included as support because it is available to all of the students.

To reduce burden on providers, support given to students which is £50 or less per item within each FinancialSupport.FINTYPE category must not be included. Amounts of more than £50 per item should be included.

Examples of support

Include:

  • Merit based bursaries and awards, including prizes,
  • Bursaries and scholarships awarded to assist the student with maintenance costs rather than tuition fees,
  • Costs for subsidised travel or meals (if available only to a subset of students),
  • Amounts awarded through ITT bursaries,
  • Amounts awarded through The National Scholarship Programme (NSP), where these awards are offered as bursaries/scholarships or discounted accommodation,
  • Awards paid through charitable funds secured by providers,
  • Awards for EU students that are equivalent to DSA.

Exclude as collected elsewhere:

  • Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) awards – collected by SLA,
  • Fee waivers, free foundation years offered to the students, or any other reduction of student fees – taken into consideration for Instance.NETFEE.

Exclude as not required by OFFA:

  • Refunds or compensation issued to students in relation to the course or accommodation – this is not considered to be support,
  • Support given in relation to student societies or additional courses taken by the student, e.g. language courses,
  • Free membership of a provider's sports centre – for instance if this is offered to all students who reside in Universities Halls, then it would be considered as part of the student's accommodation costs and so not required,
  • Costs for course materials provided or available to all students on the course – these are considered to be part of the course fee, for example if all students studying Chemistry are issued with a lab pack,
  • Welcome packs provided to all students on enrolment of the course,
  • The cost of inoculations, CRB checks or other costs covered by the provider in relation to the course if available to all students,
  • Incentives given to students to encourage participation in surveys and focus groups,

Any data that cannot be easily recorded in the Financial Support entity should be included in aggregate form in the OFFA monitoring return, such as:

  • Support from a student's union,
  • Any support that cannot be directly attributed to specific students,
  • Loans of equipment such as musical instruments – due to the complexities surrounding the capture of this information.

Each FinancialSupport.FINTYPE and FinancialSupport.FINAMOUNT pair should be returned once per applicable FinancialSupport.FINTYPE. Where the student is in receipt of multiple forms of a FinancialSupport.FINTYPE (e.,g., two forms of a cash support) these amounts should be summed and returned under a single occurrence of the appropriate FinancialSupport.FINTYPE.

If a particular FinancialSupport.FINTYPE is not received by the student, the FinancialSupport.FINTYPE and associated FinancialSupport.FINAMOUNT need not be returned, i.e. there is no need to return a null or zero FinancialSupport.FINAMOUNT for FinancialSupport.FINTYPEs the student is not in receipt of. The schema will prevent this.

If a student has two instances at the same provider within the HESA reporting year, where it is not clear which instance the support should be attached to, align the Financial Support entity with the instance with the largest FTE of study

Quality rules
Quality rules to follow
Reason required

To capture additional financial or in-kind support (not covered by the fee or otherwise offered on an open basis to all students) received by any student within the coverages, hereinafter referred to as 'support'.

This field is required by OFFA for discharging their responsibilities. OFFA, along with the Student Opportunity team at HEFCE, have been charged by Government to develop a shared strategy built on evidence from the sector. This field is necessary to provide an evidence base for this strategy and is crucial to OFFA's operation.

These data will be used to understand the role that bursaries and other in-kind support play in the student experience and on the likelihood of continuing studies. OFFA needs to understand the nature of additional support given to all students, including both advantaged and disadvantaged. This will allow OFFA to robustly monitor providers' commitments in Access agreements with regard to the amount of financial support set out in their Access agreements.

These data will also allow OFFA to undertake more powerful analysis, the results of which will be fed back to providers to help better understand the use of funds and where these may be more effectively targeted. Collecting these data will allow OFFA to monitor continuously and evaluate the role that this financial support plays throughout the sector.

Part of
Minimum occurrences0
Maximum occurrences4
Schema components
Has parts
OwnerOFFA
Version1.0

Contact Liaison by email or on +44 (0)1242 388 531.