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IMPACT OF CHILDCARE SUPPORT FOR LONE PARENT STUDENTS

8 MONITORING FRAMEWORK

8.1 INTRODUCTION

This study is concerned with two of the three elements of the new package of initiatives announced in July 2001 to assist lone parents into further and higher education through supporting additional childcare costs and childcare supply. They are the 1,000 grant to lone parents in full time higher education and the widening of childcare support through further education colleges.

8.1.2 The research team was asked to develop a monitoring framework and to collect and analyse monitoring data in order to provide an assessment of how the two elements of the package are working in their first year of operation. This section of the report looks at the results of the work to develop a monitoring framework.

8.2 APPROACH

8.2.1 The research team met with the Operational Policy Officer for the Student Awards Agency for Scotland to discuss the data held on lone parent students that might be relevant to the study. The team also met with the FE Student Support Officer at the Scottish Further Education Funding Council to understand the monitoring arrangements that the Council has put in place.

8.2.2 Discussions were also held with Student Services staff in a sample of FE colleges and with the Student Records Section in an HEI.

8.3 HIGHER EDUCATION LONE PARENT CHILDCARE GRANT

8.3.1 Data on HE students, and lone parent HE students, is collected by SAAS through the Application for Student Support form SAS3. SAAS currently collects the majority of data that is required for monitoring the HE LPCG. SAAS is not, however, required to analyse this information and there would be data protection issues if the individual student records were passed to another organisation.

8.3.2 The last complete data set available at the time of the fieldwork is based on session 2000-2001. Data is collected throughout the academic year and processed after the end of the academic year in July. The data for 2001-2002 was scheduled to be complete in August 2002.

8.3.3 Table 22 refers to data available on the SAAS database and what would need to be collected manually from student application forms:

Table 22: Data Collected by SAAS

8.3.4 The data from the Application Forms is collected for decisions over eligibility, and is analysed accordingly. It could provide some useful information for monitoring purposes.

8.3.5 The data does track the number of lone parents entering HE, the number of lone parents as a percentage of HE students, and the number claiming the LPCG. It would also be possible to track the progression of lone parent students across academic years.

8.3.6 In future, it may be possible to analyse information on the number and ages of dependent children. This is the subject of internal discussions in SAAS.

8.3.7 Not all HEIs currently collect information as to which students are lone parents within their Student Record System. One of the standard IT packages used in the sector does not provide a field to collect such information. Even if it were thought to be desirable to ask HEIs to start to collect monitoring information, it would not be possible to put a system in place prior to academic year 2003-2004 and there would be additional administrative costs for HEIs.

8.3.8 The research team recommends that negotiations be entered into with SAAS with a view to that organisation carrying out the required analysis of the information it already collects. We understand that it may be possible for SAAS to produce more sophisticated analyses and cross-tabulation of the information gathered from 2002-2003.

8.3.9 The following framework for data collection, populated with the data available from SAAS in respect of 2001-02, is recommended for future years:

Table 23: HE Monitoring Data Collection Framework

8.3.10 The data shown as not available for 2001 - 02 has been collected through the Application for Childcare Support 2002 - 03 (SAS 3), and will be available when this is analysed at the end of the academic year.

8.3.11 Information on the percentages of lone parent students studying for the different types of qualification, and childcare costs per week was gathered during the quantitative survey. As this data is based on a self-selecting sample of respondents, it is not directly comparable with the SAAS data.

8.3.12 It is recommended that consideration be given to conducting another large scale, quantitative survey of lone parent students, similar to that carried out within this project, after the LPCG has been available for a period of years, e.g. in academic year 2003-04 or 2004-05.

8.4 FURTHER EDUCATION CHILDCARE FUNDS

8.4.1 The Scottish Executive had previously announced that SFEFC would be responsible for administering a 3m per year Childcare Fund for academic years 2000-2001 and 2001-2002. When the additional funds of 3m for each of academic years 2001-2002 and 2002-2003, and 1.5m for 2003-2004 were announced in July 2001, SFEFC added these to the existing Childcare Fund. SFEFC has made it a condition of grant that colleges use the Childcare Fund to provide or purchase additional childcare provision.

8.4.2 For 2000-2001, SFEFC required colleges to submit information about how they had responded to childcare needs within their 2001 Operational Plan. Colleges were also asked to set out in future Strategic Plans how they intend to develop childcare provision in future years, as a strategic issue. SFEFC produced an internal report as at 25 April 2002 entitled, "Operational Plan 2001 - Childcare Reports." 28 colleges, from the 45 funded, referred to childcare facilities within their Operational or Strategic Plans. Of these, only nine go into the detail requested by Circular Letter FE/26/2000, which set out how colleges should report to the Council. Ten colleges made no reference to the childcare funds and the remaining plans were not available.

8.4.3 For 2001-2002, SFEFC has required colleges to produce a "Statement of Use of Funds" if this information is not included in the college's Operational Plan. A copy of the required Childcare Fund Statement covering academic year 1 August 2001 to 31 July 2002 is included in Appendix 2. These statements were not due for return until 30 September 2002 and, therefore, data was not available during the period of fieldwork for this project.

8.4.4 In the FE sector, the amounts of money allocated to individual colleges are relatively immaterial within the context of overall budgets, and colleges make the point that the administrative effort to separately monitor the funds is disproportionate to the amount received. It is understood, however, that the majority of colleges have now implemented system changes, paid for from college budgets, to enable the information requested by SFEFC to be reported. The research team believes that this will provide the required level of monitoring information.

8.4.5 The following framework for FE data collection is recommended:

Table 24: FE Monitoring Data Collection Framework

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