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Definitions - Resources 2000/01

Finance Data

Reference dates

Financial data relates to the institutions’ financial year, i.e. 1 August 2000 to 31 July 2001.

Sources of income

Funding council grants

Funding council grants include those from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC), the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland (DELNI).

Grants for HE provision includes recurrent grants and capital grants as defined below in respect of HE provision, except in Scotland where this category also includes grants for further education (FE) provision.

Recurrent grants includes the block grant (or main and associated grants) for teaching (Recurrent - T), research (Recurrent - R) and other recurrent grants (Recurrent - Other including special funding) as shown in the annual grant letter or additional grant letter from the funding councils.

Release of deferred capital grants includes the release of deferred capital grants from the funding councils in respect of estate project funding and minor work grants (building), and equipment grants, for the purchase of assets that have been capitalised.

Grants for FE provision includes all funding council grants for the provision of FE. Grants from HE funding councils and FE funding councils are added together. This category does not apply to SHEFC funded institutions, as they do not receive separately identified grants for non-advanced/FE provision.

Tuition fees and education grants and contracts

This includes all income received in respect of fees for students on courses for which fees are charged. Where fees are waived in whole or in part, the income due though not received is included.

Full-time HE fees – standard rates includes standard fees for full-time and sandwich degree, diploma and similar award-bearing courses for home and European Community (EC) domiciled students.

Full-time HE fees – non-standard rates includes all other fees for full-time and sandwich degree, diploma and similar award-bearing courses for home and EC domiciled students.

Part-time HE fees includes fees for part-time degree, diploma and similar award-bearing courses for home and EC domiciled students.

Overseas (non-EC) domicile fees includes fees for all degree, diploma and similar award-bearing courses for non-home and non-EC domiciled students.

Non-credit-bearing course fees includes all fee income received in respect of non-credit-bearing liberal adult education, continuing education or extra-mural courses.

Other fees & support grants includes FE course fees i.e. fee income received for the provision of FE/non-advanced courses and research training support grants, which includes all grants made by research councils and other bodies in support of the training of research students. This includes bench fees and other body, and Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) awards. It also includes income from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in respect of their Doctoral Training Grants, (or similar postgraduate grants from other research councils), including the tuition fee element.

Research grants and contracts

This includes all income in respect of externally sponsored research carried out by the institution or its subsidiary undertaking for which directly related expenditure has been incurred.

OST research councils include all income from research grants and contracts from research councils covered by the Office of Science and Technology (OST). They are:

  • Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
  • Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
  • Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
  • Economic & Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC)
  • Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)
  • Medical Research Council (MRC)

Research income from the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Board are also included under this heading.

UK based charities includes all research grants and contracts income from all charitable foundations, charitable trusts, etc. based in the UK which are registered with the Charities Commission or those recognised as charities by the Inland Revenue in Scotland.

UK central government bodies, local authorities, health & hospital authorities includes all research grants and contract income from UK central government bodies, UK local authorities and UK health and hospital authorities, except research councils and UK public corporations. This includes government departments, Northern Ireland departments and other organisations financed from central government funds. Also non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) such as the British Council and the Royal Society are included in this section.

UK industry, commerce & public corporations includes all research grants and contracts income from industrial and commercial companies and public corporations (defined as publicly owned trading bodies, usually statutory organisations with a substantial degree of financial independence) operating in the UK.

EU sources includes all research grants and contracts income from all bodies operating in the European Union (EU), which includes the EC (unless shown separately), excluding bodies in the UK.

Other overseas sources includes all research grants and contracts income from overseas bodies operating outside the EU.

Other sources includes all research grants and contracts income not covered above. This includes income from other higher education institutions (HEIs) where the HEI is the original contractor.

Other income - Other services rendered

This includes all income in respect of services rendered to outside bodies, including the supply of goods and consultancies.

Course validation fees includes all validation fees for courses such as those run by other institutions.

Teaching companies includes all income received in respect of the provision of Teacher Company Schemes irrespective of the source of the income.

UK central government bodies, local authorities, health & hospital authorities includes all non-research income from UK central government bodies, non-departmental public bodies, UK local authorities and UK health and hospital authorities, except any included under tuition fees & education grants & contracts, course validation fees or teaching companies.

UK industry, commerce & public corporations includes all non-research income for services rendered to industrial and commercial companies and public corporations operating in the UK.

EU government bodies includes all research grants and contracts income from all government bodies operating in the European Union (EU), which includes the EC, excluding bodies in the UK.

EU other includes all research grants and contracts income from all non-government bodies operating in the EU, excluding bodies in the UK.

Where the heading ‘EU sources’ appears this can be taken to mean ‘EU government bodies’ and ‘EU other’ combined.

Other overseas sources include all non-research income from bodies operating outside the EU.

Other sources includes all non-research income for services rendered not covered above.

Other income - Other

Residences & catering operations includes the gross income from residences, catering and conference operations.

Grants from local authorities includes income from local authorities providing capital or revenue for the purpose to which the grant will be applied.

Income from health & hospital authorities includes income received from UK health or hospital authorities for the funding of any employees of the institution, in both clinical and non-clinical academic departments, except those relating to the provision of a service, and research.

Release of deferred capital grants includes an institution’s capital grant from a source other than a funding council, to finance, or partly finance, the construction or acquisition of a fixed asset.

Income from intellectual property rights includes all income received from intellectual property rights such as licences and patents.

Other operating income includes all other operating income not covered above such as Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies (TEMPUS) and European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERAMUS) grants.

Where the heading ‘Other income’ appears, this may be taken to mean ‘Other Income - Other Services Rendered’ plus ‘Other Income - Other’ as defined above, unless shown separately.

Endowment and investment income

Specific endowments includes the appropriate amount of the income from the investment of specific endowments necessary to match the expenditure incurred on the purpose for which the specific endowment was provided.

General endowments includes the full amount of the income from the investment of general endowments. This includes the income earned from the capital of the endowment whether arising from the interest or dividends on investments, bank interest or rents from real property.

Interest receivable includes interest receivable on, and the net surplus or deficit from the realisation or revaluation of short-term investments, the surplus or deficit on the realisation of investments held as long-term funds and all other interest received or receivable, unless shown separately.

Categories of expenditure

Staff costs

Staff costs cover all, and only, those full-time and part-time staff holding contracts of employment with the institution, and includes any redundancy or restructuring payments made to these staff.

Academic staff costs includes costs in respect of academic staff, defined as staff whose primary function is teaching and/or research, paid from within the budgets of academic departments and allocated to the appropriate cost centre.

Other staff costs includes costs in respect of all other staff paid from within the budgets of academic departments and allocated to the appropriate cost centre.

Other operating costs

Other operating expenses includes costs in respect of payments to non-contracted staff or individuals, all other non-staff costs incurred, except for depreciation and interest payable. Equipment that has not been depreciated, expenditure on maintenance contracts and telephone costs (calls, rental and non-capitalised equipment) if not charged to departments, are also included in this category.

Depreciation includes depreciation costs on equipment capitalised according to where the assets being depreciated are located.

Interest payable includes costs in respect of interest payable on premises, residences and catering operations, and other expenditure.

Expenditure activities

Academic departmental cost centres

This includes all expenditure directly incurred by or on behalf of academic departments (including departments of continuing education) and expenditure incurred in connection with special and short courses, which is not reimbursable by research councils or other bodies in respect of work carried out on their behalf. There are 40 departmental cost centres to which this expenditure can be attributed. They are:

  • 01 Clinical medicine
  • 02 Clinical dentistry
  • 03 Veterinary science
  • 04 Anatomy & physiology
  • 05 Nursing & paramedical studies
  • 06 Health & community studies
  • 07 Psychology & behavioural sciences
  • 08 Pharmacy
  • 09 Pharmacology
  • 10 Biosciences
  • 11 Chemistry
  • 12 Physics
  • 13 Agriculture & forestry
  • 14 Earth, marine & environmental sciences
  • 15 General sciences
  • 16 General engineering
  • 17 Chemical engineering
  • 18 Mineral, metallurgy & materials engineering
  • 19 Civil engineering
  • 20 Electrical, electronic & computer engineering
  • 21 Mechanical, aero & production engineering
  • 22 Other technologies
  • 23 Architecture, built environment & planning
  • 24 Mathematics
  • 25 Information technology & systems sciences
  • 26 Catering & hospitality management
  • 27 Business & management studies
  • 28 Geography
  • 29 Social studies
  • 30 Librarianship, communication & media studies
  • 31 Language based studies
  • 32 Humanities
  • 33 Design & creative arts
  • 34 Education
  • 35 French, Spanish & German modern languages
  • 36 Other modern languages
  • 37 Archaeology
  • 38 Sports science & leisure studies
  • 39 Computer software engineering
  • 41 Continuing education

Academic services

This includes expenditure incurred on centralised academic services such as the library, learning resource centres and central computers, etc.

Central libraries & information services includes expenditure in all libraries and learning resource centres (whether they are under the control of the institution’s librarian or not). This section includes expenditure in binderies, on audio-visual aids, television, slide and tape production, photography and language centres.

Central computer & computer networks includes gross recurrent expenditure (including that from Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) grants) in respect of central non-administrative non-library institutional computers. Maintenance costs, operating costs, materials costs and the pay of staff involved in managing and running the installation(s) are also included in this category.

Other academic services includes expenditure on museums, galleries and observatories except those run by academic departments and expenditure on any other general academic services not covered above, e.g. radiation protection, international liaison office and industrial liaison.

Administration and central services

This includes expenditure incurred on central administration, general educational expenditure and staff and student facilities and amenities.

Central administration & services includes expenditure in respect of central administrative staff and such payments to Heads of Institutions, Professors, Deans, Tutors, Faculty Officers and the like as are made in respect of central (as distinct from departmental) administrative work. This category also includes expenditure associated with the running costs of an administrative computer and the following other costs if not charged to their relevant cost centre; public relations, advertising and recruitment, removal expenses of all staff, publications (excluding educational publications), advisors, contributions to organisation and methods unit, security of wages, bank charges, central postage, superannuation management, expenses of head of organisation, legal and audit fees, general insurance costs not included elsewhere and telephone costs where centrally charged.

General educational expenditure includes expenditure incurred on examinations, fellowships, scholarships, prizes and other expenditure of a general educational nature. It includes the direct costs of examinations for example of external examiners, salaries, printing, etc. Also included in this section are provisions for bad debts in respect of unpaid fees, and the following items that cannot be appropriately charged elsewhere; educational publications, public lectures and exhibitions, subscriptions and contributions to learned societies and representative bodies, works of art, research projects, representation at conferences, explorations and expeditions, administration of non-departmental arts centres, schools liaison and student recruitment costs from home and overseas.

Staff & student facilities includes expenditure incurred on the provision of facilities and amenities for the use of students and/or staff e.g. Careers Advisory Service, all grants to student societies, emoluments to wardens of halls of residence, accommodation office, athletic and sporting facilities (excluding maintenance) and the institution’s health service.

Premises

This includes all expenditure incurred (whether centrally or departmentally) on the maintenance of premises (including academic buildings, central academic services, art centres, institution’s health service premises, pavilions, sports buildings, etc) and on roads and grounds except residences & catering. Staff concerned with building maintenance, including estates administrative staff, are included in this category.

Residences and catering operations

This includes the gross expenditure incurred in providing the residence, catering and any conference operations, including the cost of maintenance of residential and catering premises, salaries and any other identifiable costs relating to these operations. The depreciation costs and financing costs of these operations are included in appropriate categories of expenditure.

Research grants and contracts

This includes the total of the direct costs attributed to research grants and contracts as detailed for research grants and contracts income.

Other expenditure

This includes a total of the direct costs attributed to other services rendered, and all other expenditure not covered above.

Staff data

Coverage

The Staff Individualised Record provides data in respect of the characteristics of members of academic staff employed under a contract of employment by a HEI in the UK. Academic staff are defined as those whose primary employment function is teaching only, teaching & research or research only. Staff data relate to individual academic appointments (of at least 25% of a full-time equivalent member of staff) active during the academic year, 1 August 2000 to 31 July 2001. The HESA staff population excludes those members of staff who left their employment (but not necessarily the institution) before 1 August 2000.

Rounding strategy

Due to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, HESA now implements a strategy in published and released tabulations designed to prevent the disclosure of personal information about any individual. These tabulations are derived from the HESA non-statutory populations and may differ slightly from those published by related statutory bodies. This strategy involves rounding all numbers to the nearest 5. A summary of this strategy is as follows:

  1. 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0
  2. All other numbers are rounded to the nearest 5.

So for example 3 is represented as 5, 22 is represented as 20, 3286 is represented as 3285 while 0, 20, 55, 3510 remain unchanged.

Total figures are also subject to this rounding methodology; the consequence of which is that the sum of numbers in each row or column will rarely match the total shown precisely.

Average values, proportions and FTE values prepared by HESA are not subject to the above strategy, and will be calculated on precise raw numbers. However, percentages calculated on populations which contain less than 50 individuals will be suppressed and represented as ‘..’ as will averages based on populations of 7 or less.

Data on financial affairs of higher education institutions does not fall within the definition of ‘personal data’ under the Data Protection Act 1998, and is therefore exempt from the above provisions.

Mode of employment

Full-time staff are those whose contracts state that their mode of employment is full-time. This includes staff who work full-time for part of a year and term-time only staff who work full-time during the term.

Part-time staff are those staff that work anything less than full-time. This category includes casual staff, those paid hourly and any staff whose mode of employment could not be assigned as full-time.

Principal source of salary

Wholly institutionally financed staff are those who are paid wholly from general institution funds.

All other sources of finance staff are paid mainly or partly from sources other than general institutional funds. These other sources include OST research councils, UK based charities, UK government bodies, local authorities, health & hospital authorities, UK industry commerce & public corporations, EU sources, other overseas sources and other sources not listed.

Clinical status

Clinical staff are those paid on clinical rates, e.g. doctors, dentists. These staff may or may not hold honorary contracts with the NHS.

Non-clinical staff are those not paid on clinical rates. These staff may or may not be medically qualified.

Primary employment function

The primary employment function of a member of staff relates to the contract of employment and not the actual work undertaken.

Teaching only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed only to undertake teaching.

Teaching & research staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed to undertake both teaching and research.

Research only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed only to undertake research.

Where ‘Teaching/Teaching & Research’ appears with ‘Research only’, the ‘Teaching only’ and ‘Teaching & Research’ categories have been aggregated.

Grade

The grade structure indicates a staff member’s grade for their present employment. Groups of grades have been devised with regard to the different grading scales used within different institutions. Grades have not, however, been linked to salary information.

Professors includes heads of departments, professors, former UAP scale researchers (grade IV), clinical professors and those appointed professors on a locally determined scale.

Senior lecturers & researchers includes principal lecturers, senior lecturers (former UAP/CSCFC scales), former UAP scale researchers (grade III), clinical senior lecturers and those appointed senior or principal lecturers on a locally determined scale.

Lecturers includes lecturers, senior lecturers (former PCEF scale), clinical lecturers and those appointed lecturers on a locally determined scale.

Researchers includes all research grades not listed above and those researchers appointed on a locally determined scale.

Other grades includes other grades of academic staff not listed above.

Analysis by ‘staff grade’ is only meaningful where institutions have reported their staff within nationally recognised grade structures or within internal grade structures, which facilitate differentiation on a similar basis. Several institutions, including some large post-1992 universities, report their staff on a single grade structure, which does not have an independent category for the professor grade. Hence staff on the professor grade at institutions using the single grade scale cannot be distinguished from the senior lecturer grade, leading to the number of professors being under-counted for these institutions and for the sector as a whole. This under-counting will have a consequential effect on the proportions of professors within particular subject areas, cost centres and by gender. The Agency therefore advises caution in analysis of staff by grade.

Location of institution

The allocation of an institution to a geographical region relates only to the administrative centre of that institution.

There may be staff employed at institutions who are working in regions other than that of the administrative centre of the institution.

The Open University is counted as a wholly English institution. Their administrative centre is located in England, although The Open University teaches throughout the UK.

Academic departmental groups and cost centres

Primary cost centres have been assigned to groups of academic departments which reflect both academic similarities and comparable resource requirements.

Medicine, Dentistry and Health

  • 01 Clinical medicine
  • 02 Clinical dentistry
  • 04 Anatomy & physiology
  • 05 Nursing & paramedical studies
  • 06 Health & community studies
  • 07 Psychology & behavioural sciences
  • 08 Pharmacy
  • 09 Pharmacology

Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Science

  • 03 Veterinary science
  • 13 Agriculture & forestry

Biological, Mathematical and Physical Sciences

  • 10 Biosciences
  • 11 Chemistry
  • 12 Physics
  • 14 Earth, marine & environmental sciences
  • 15 General sciences
  • 24 Mathematics
  • 25 Information technology & systems sciences

Engineering and Technology

  • 16 General engineering
  • 17 Chemical engineering
  • 18 Mineral, metallurgy & materials engineering
  • 19 Civil engineering
  • 20 Electrical, electronic & computer engineering
  • 21 Mechanical, aero & production engineering
  • 22 Other technologies
  • 39 Computer software engineering

Architecture and Planning

  • 23 Architecture, built environment & planning

Administrative, Business and Social Studies

  • 26 Catering & hospitality management
  • 27 Business & management studies
  • 28 Geography
  • 29 Social studies
  • 30 Librarianship, communication & media studies

Language Based Studies

  • 31 Language based studies
  • 35 French, Spanish & German modern languages
  • 36 Other modern languages

Other Arts

  • 32 Humanities
  • 33 Design & creative arts
  • 37 Archaeology

Education

  • 34 Education
  • 38 Sports science & leisure studies
  • 41 Continuing education

Academic services

  • 51 Central libraries & information services
  • 52 Central computers & computer networks
  • 53 Other academic services

Administration and central services

  • 54 Central administration & services
  • 55 Staff & student facilities

Premises

Residences and catering operations

Age

Age of academic staff is as at 31 August 2000. Average age was calculated on actual age (as opposed to age groups) for staff with known age.

Movement of staff

Inflow - information on employment in the previous year is used to identify staff who are new to higher education service, i.e. staff whose employment in the previous year is not the current institution or another higher education institution are deemed to be new to higher education service.

Outflow - information on the destination on leaving is used to identify staff who have left higher education service, i.e. staff whose destination on leaving is not the current institution or another higher education institution are deemed to have left higher education service.

Employment in the previous year and destination include all staff currently working in a UK HEI regardless of whether they are new to higher education service, remaining in higher education or are leaving higher education service.

Ethnicity

The categories are those used in the 1991 Census of Population (Source: Office of Population Censuses and Surveys). It is open to staff members not to reveal their ethnicity. HESA therefore advises that any figures produced are derived from a subset which may not be representative of the total academic staff population.

Disability

Disability categories indicate the type of disability that a member of staff has on the basis of their own self-assessment and are consistent with those used in respect of HE students. Staff are not obliged to report a disability and as a result some institutions have not returned disability data for some of their staff. HESA therefore advises that the figures reported in analyses are derived from a subset, which may not be representative of the total staff population.

HESA cannot accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the data by third parties.