Development of the NewDLHE model and financial principles
Much of our work on Graduate Outcomes since the review ended in July 2017, has been to develop a specification for the procurement process. In doing so, some of the thinking which was presented in the NewDLHE model has developed. This mainly relates to the financial model.
What was in the NewDLHE model
The financial model proposed three tiers of a service model, with providers paying for additional services.
- The core tier would involve the NewDLHE core question set, along with a service-level statement which guarantees a fair application of the methodology, an account manager at the survey contractor, opt-in question banks asked online only, and dashboards presenting near real-time feed of survey responses.
- A second tier would allow providers to ask questions from the optional bank via telephone.
- An advanced tier would allow providers to add innovations such as bespoke additional questions and to extend the core service-level statement. This would include additional service-level agreements which would enhance the account management approach and provide the opportunity for value-added services such as referrals to careers services.
Revised thinking for Graduate Outcomes
Based on the feedback received in the last consultation, and good survey practice, we have revised this model.
The model we are implementing proposes the same service level for all providers. This core offering offers providers the ability to:
- Have all core questions asked of all graduates in the population
- Have a fair application of the methodology
- Supply intelligence about the cohort of graduates that may assist the contractor in making successful contact
- Upload a logo for co-branding of the survey
- Add in a link to appear at the end of survey to a relevant area of the providers website e.g. careers service
- View near real-time dashboards of survey data (detailed in role and responsibilities).
Additional services
The only additional costs will be associated with adding questions to the core question set. There are two types of these:
Opt-in question banks
The Graduate Outcomes survey contains opt-in question banks, covering areas such as subjective well-being, net promoter score and question banks aimed at specific groups, such as research students.
There will be a charge associated with selecting an opt-in question bank for inclusion in the survey, depending on the size of the population it is being asked of.
Statutory Customers (such as the funding councils) may select opt-in question banks to be asked. Where this occurs, there will be no additional cost on providers.
A provider portal will be developed within the survey platform to allow you to select opt-in question banks. All questions will be asked on both the telephone and online surveys at a flat rate, in order to avoid skewing the results. Opt-in question banks cannot be asked on postal surveys.
Provider questions
Providers also have the option of creating provider questions, which are bespoke to each provider. These may cover areas such as tracking the success of a careers service initiative.
Providers would write these questions themselves, and once approved for inclusion can be added to the survey in the same way as the optional question banks at an appropriate fee level.
What else is to come
We recognise that further work is required on the financial model principles – particularly around whether the new subscription model is costed based on the total population or contingent on response rates and methodology. We are continuing to progress the financial analysis on this and we will be publishing further information in February 2018 setting out these principles in more detail.
Timetable for further information
January 2018
- Invoice for 2017/18 implementation costs (as set out in July 2017 subscription letter)
February 2018
- More information on principles underpinning core subscription
Summer 2018
- More information on charges for opt-in question banks
- More information on charges for core subscription