Cindy Bradshaw Consulting Ltd.
Analyse - Act - Achieve
Access and Participation Plan (APP)
A provider’s APP states how they “will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education.” (Full OfS guidance).
Providers are expected to analyse potentially over 1800 indicators, depending on a provider's student population, in order to identify, and address, gaps in performance.
A provider must have an approved APP if they are registered with the OfS in the 'Approved (fee cap)' category, and they want to charge above the basic tuition fee cap. APPs are reviewed at a maximum of five years but the OfS may require a new plan if the provider’s progress is not as expected. The OfS provides detailed guidance on preparing an APP, and a dashboard to assist providers in identifying gaps in underrepresented groups.
The APP covers Home domiciled students only, and the data used should be the most recent available to the provider (generally taken from the HESA student return).
The provider is responsible for identifying areas of improvement for its APP, and for setting ambitious and achievable targets for improvement. Providers are expected to analyse the performance of underrepresented groups of students in the following stages of the student life cycle:
Access - the gap between the proportion of new entrants
Continuation - the gap in the continuation rates of new entrants continuing to their second year of study
Completion - the gap in the completion rates of new entrants completing their programme of study
Attainment/Degree outcomes - the gap in the percentage of students achieving a "good" (1st or 2.1) degree classification
Progression - the gap in the proportion of students counted as a positive outcome (home domiciled only) in the Graduate Outcomes survey
Some of the groups the OfS considers underrepresented include students from lower POLAR quintiles and IMD quintiles, some Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students, mature or disabled students, and care leavers. The full range of indicators provided by the OfS can be found in the Description and Methodology guidance provided by the OfS.
APP Dashboard Samples
This section of the dashboard shows the 3 year and 5 year aggregate gaps in Access rates between various groups, with the sector average (SA), and the variance to the SA. For each of the groups being compared, the count is also shown.
For the first group (Age on commencement), the 3 year gap is higher than the sector average, while the 5 year gap is lower. While the gap for Sample university has not changed significantly over time, the sector average has increased.
This section of the dashboard shows the count for each of the groups over the time series (generally five years), with a graphical summary to show the trend over time.
This section of the dashboard shows the indicator (percentage) for each of the groups over the time series (generally five years), with a graphical summary to show the trend over time.
