Judy

Once again I am in agreement with most of what you say. It seems
to me that we need some sort of reassurance from the TTA that for
future returns they will:

1. Reduce changes to the census to the bare minimum and
consider the considerable effort that those institutions with well
developed systems for producing the data are forced to go to in
modifying them.

2. Give far more warning of any likely changes to the return so that
institutions can plan and allocate the necessary time to updating
their systems.

3. Produce more detailed guidance (although I found this years to
be quite helpful). I'm sure in light of the many queries that have
been received by the TTA with respect to this years return there will
be much more information that can be added for next year. It would
also be useful to tie together much of the information on contracted
student numbers, holdback etc that is contained in other circulars.
This is after all a funding return. It would be helpful to have a clear
indication, in one document, of how this information feeds into
statistical and funding calculations.

On the positive side I have found staff at the TTA to be very helpful
when I have spoken with them directly on the telephone.

Mike Calvert
Deputy Registrar - Planning
York St John
On 18 Oct 01, at 10:42, Judy Evans wrote:

Priority:               NORMAL
Date sent:              Thu, 18 Oct 2001 10:42:16 +0100
Send reply to:          Admin-student <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Judy Evans <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                2001 ITT Trainee Numbers Census
To:                     [log in to unmask]

Colleagues,

I have commented previously on this data requirement from the TTA
and the appallingly short amount of notification given in respect
of changes to the information required. I received many
supportive and sympathetic replies.

For those of you completing the return, you will know that we are
asked to specify the length of time taken to complete it. At 4 pm
yesterday afternoon (the return was due by the end of the day) I
and colleagues here had spent 25 hours (and counting) on dealing
with the return. At 4.15, as I finally began to enter the data on
the TTA's extremely sophisticated spreadsheet, I realised we had
failed to extract from our student record system a required data
field to report the numbers of mature students. I hastened to the
TTA's Notes for Guidance to see how I could have possibly missed
it, only to find that the requirement was not specified!

On contacting the TTA I was told that a page was missing from the
Guidance notes, which they were aware of, but they had decided
not to recirculate the Notes on the grounds of cost and assumed
that we would all look at the electronic copy of the Notes
located on the disk. When I asked why they had not at least
emailed providers to alert them to this they stated that they had
insufficient email details to make it worthwhile.

So, our return is now late, and this morning I embarked on
recovering the position. As instructed, I went to the electronic
copy of the Notes for Guidance to clarify the TTA definition of
mature. There was no guidance there!

The TTA now acknowledge that the Guidance notes contain NO
reference to this additional, new, data requirement. The
change itself is not even referred to in section 1.3 "Changes to
format of data requirements". The TTA's final fall-back position
is that the column is visible on the printed version of the
spreadsheet ('visible' is not the description I would necesarily
apply to it) and I should have noticed it. The fact that even if
I had I would have been none the wiser as to the definition of
mature is irrelevant as far as the TTA is concerned, apparently.

I remain 'speechless from North London'.

----------------------
Judy Evans
Head of Management Information
University of North London
166-220 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB

tel : 020 7753 5146
fax : 020 7753 5120

email : [log in to unmask]