Roger,
1) from a regional meeting recently attended it would appear that, in relation to the percentage of LEA Notification of Award letters submitted, the figures are consistent with those so far reported to you.
our experience seems fairly typical: we commenced on 21 sept and approx 50% of new students had letters with them. (this after a massive effort to encourage students to bring them along).
in the intervening 4 weeks we have since been able to match LEA N of A letters to approx 85% of new students.
institutions commencing after ourselves seem to have had a proportionally better return rate.
the activity of matching LEA N of A letters, submitted after enrolment, to student enrolment details, has proved to be a time-consuming and intensive exercise -as expected.
2) I believe we can all identify the LEAs who have been poor performers, though I am sure we would not want to name names, as we accept that we have all had to face these difficult times together!
3) quite a few LEA N of A letters are confusing to say the least -especially to staff who are not constantly exposed to them.
we should be striving for a 'perfect' model, and asking the LEAs to strive to achieve it. they will need as much lead-in time as possible if they are to amend their various computer programmes in time for 1999/2000.
(whether they are informing us or the Student Loans Company next year).
4) a number of LEAs have set the contribution first against grant rather than fees. how are institutions to react?
our view is that we will do what the LEA letter says, even though we know it is wrong. then perhaps the LEA can be 'forced' to process any necessary amendments.
however, should there be a sector-wide response?
5) it would be interesting to know how colleges accounted for the additional amount within the HEFCE budget allocations, which was specifically given to help deal with the new arrangements.
did any institution actually devolve all or part of the budget to admin or finance sections to allow those most affected to plan and action events and activities over and above the norm.
or did most simply keep it against a central, institutional overhead -and allow relevant departments to overspend their normal budget, within limits presumably?
6) we suspect that many institutions, like ourselves, have pondered the dilemma regarding when to invoice new students.
the longer we hold-off, the less amendments we will subsequently have to make (a considerable saving in staff time). however, the institutions cash flow position may be adversely affected.
7) the lack of a sector-wide regulation or agreement on how to deal with students who wish to transfer to another college will soon be causing problems and possible adverse publicity.
we know how the LEA contribution will be allocated to just one institution, but how should the 2 relevant institutions share the student/parent/spouse contribution.
do we really want to follow the crude LEA contribution model. an institution losing a student on the 30 November will receive no re-imbursement at all for all the admissions and enrolment work as well as two months tuition.
if we all set our own rules regarding how much of the student contribution we wish to keep, and that does not match with the receiving institution's request for all or a greater part of the contribution, then the student will be facing a bill for more than their LEA-assessed contribution.
we are aware, of course, that the net effect of transfers in and out is negligible to many colleges, and that this could suggest that we might use the LEA model (ie wherever s/he is on 1st dec gets the contribution).
some colleges will no doubt disagree, claiming that they would be significant net losers.
8) what are we doing with regard to liaising with the SLC next year.
we are aware that planning is ongoing at the higher levels; but it would be nice to think that staff who deal with issues at an operational level could give an input to, for example, the design of forms -something which I personally think is a problem the SLC need to address.
and what about IT developments?
apologies regarding the length of this message. I thought I'd better be thorough!!
good luck.
T.Silvester
Admin Co-ordinator
Non-academic Student Administration
University of Derby
(01332) 622222 x 1879
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