DISABLED STUDENTS STAKEHOLDER GROUP (2006-03)
Thursday 2 November, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Scottish Executive, Europa Building, Glasgow
Agenda
Part 1
1. Welcome an apologies HELS
2. Minutes of previous meeting and action points HELS
3. Update: Needs led assessment consultation SFC
4. Update: Disabled Students Premium funding SFC
5. Update: Study of Infrastructure in place in FE & HE for Student Support HELS
6. Sharepoint - DSA Assessors Network HELS
7. Update: Monitoring & Quality Enhancement HELS
8. Any other business
9. Date of next meeting
Part 2
1. An Introduction to the work of Equalities Forward Equalities Forward
2. Review of existing DSA literature and application form SAAS
Minutes
Part 1
1) Minutes of Previous Meeting
1.1 The group reviewed the minutes of the previous meeting, and felt that the last sentence of point 5.1 should be clarified.
1.2 The point referred to was in relation to the update on Non Medical Personal Help.
It has been agreed that this should be clarified to explain that the sub-group were looking at Non Medical Personal Help, with emphasis on this part of the DSA allowance. The minutes were then agreed. AP
2) Action Points of Previous Meeting
2.1 Update on the Toolkit of Quality Indicators for Needs Assessments. 25 institutions are now validated under the pilot scheme, and there are still a few institutions, who are ongoing in the process. An invitation has been circulated for a fourth round of validation, with all applications to be received by 24th November.
2.2 Update on letter to be sent out to all historically validated institutions. An invite has been issued to all historically validated institutions and access centres, inviting them to become validated as part of the toolkit pilot, by end of academic year 2007-08
2.3 Possibility of inviting a Social Work representative to the group. This had not yet been done, and we would welcome recommendations from the group, we were looking at the possibility of inviting a social work representative from with the Scottish Executive, perhaps not to join the group on a full time basis, but to attend as and when the agenda was appropriate. AP
2.4 Update on the funding for learners, Disabled Students Pr®oject.
HELS informed that group that the final paper of the review of provisions for disabled students, was now available on the website, and the new cross cutting disability team, will be taking forward the recommendations from this, early next year. Funding for Disabled Students
3) Update: Needs Led Assessment
3.1 The Scottish Funding Council updated the group on the Needs Led Assessment. It informed the group that the main points were outlined in circular 57/2006, which is available on the Scottish Funding Council Website.
3.2 SFC indicated that there had been a good response to the consultation, with mixed opinions, but many positive responses. Concerns expressed included potential increase in administrative requirements, whether needs assessment is appropriate for assessing the needs of FE students, specifically ones taking part in DPG18 courses, and that the support grid was inappropriate and not wide enough to take account of those students with social inclusion or mental health issues.
3.3 SFC will move forward with a pilot of the policy to ensure it could implemented appropriately to best meet the needs of the students and the institutions. A concern was expressed about how the colleges would be funded differently, SFC explained that they would not be funded differently, but they would be looked at more closely to see how and what the college should be providing for from core funding and additional supplements. HELS indicated that the Executive would be interested in working closely with the funding council on this. AP
4) Update: Disabled Students Premium Funding
4.1 The Scottish Funding Council gave an update to the group on the review of the widening access premia that it had spoke to the group about in part 2 of the previous meeting. SFC informed that group that in the past few months she had been out meeting with other stakeholders, and had spent the summer preparing an update paper to present to the council, taking into account the stakeholders comments.
4.2 The SFC were updated and a draft consultation was published in October, although the main focus was on the Widening Access Premia, there were options being considered for the Disabled Students premia, these consist of:
- Keeping the premia as is, and changing nothing
- Remove the premia altogether, and put the money back into core funding
- Distribute the premia based on student population, as opposed to linking in with application for DSA in previous years.
4.3 The consultation will be published on 10th November, with responses due by 26th January, SFC acknowledged that this was only an 11 week consultation as opposed to 12 weeks, but felt that it was important that the consultation was completed in time in order to feed into the next funding round. The consultation will also give the opportunity for institutions to share information on what use and impact the premia has, and also to pre-empt how it will be spent and be able to measure the impact.
4.4 NUS expressed it's pleasure in seeing a distance from the link with DSA, as, as things stand, more applications made for DSA, from institutions, will encourage a larger premium to that institution, and possibly encourage less compliance with the DDA. SDT, said it would be happy to see the premia have indicators, and was also happy to see the option based on student population as opposed to DSA applications. A member of the group asked for more information on how this option would work. SFC explained that the share of money that each institution receives would be based on the percentage of the student population at each individual institution, the funding council realise that under this method some intuitions may be worse off, but at this stage we would have to see what conclusions were drawn from the consultation. SDT suggested that the funding council may wish to consider following England's lead in this situation, by setting a minimum amount for each institution, and basing the rest of the allowance on the student population.
4.5 HELS offered to use the DSSGs contact list to distribute the consultation to members. AP
5) Study of Infrastructure in Place in FE & HE for Student Support
5.1 HELS explained that since the Toolkit of Quality Indicators for Needs Assessments had been implemented, there were concerns on the impact it would have on other institutions, that had traditionally carried out assessments, and that we were also interested in the process in general across the sector in Further Education.
5.2 Discussions had been held with the Scottish Funding Council, and it has been agreed that a study will be carried out to see what processes are currently in place and where the toolkit sits alongside this. It has been agreed that the Funding Council will fund a study, to be carried out by Equality Forward. Equality Forward confirmed that they were waiting for the funding council to confirm the funding and the remit and will be taking this forward, possibly with the use of a stakeholder group.
5.3 HELS informed the group that it would be kept up to date of any progress made on this in the interim before the next meeting.
6) Sharepoint
6.1 It was discussed at the last meeting if an e mail network could be established for validated institutions. HELS informed the group that the Executive had been looking at this and had created the DSA Assessors Network. This is a web based forum, called Sharepoint, which allows members to ask advice and share examples of good practice. It can also be used as a resource tool, with links to other external sites, and will be used by the executive, as a virtual notice board, to post announcements about relevant up coming events.
6.2 HELS informed the group that the initial uptake had been slow, all validated institution were written to, and invited to join the network, to date there are 20 members from 12 of the 25 validated institutions. We will be using upcoming events to publicise the availability of the forum more widely, as at the moment it is only being ran on a trial basis, and if the interest is not there it will be disbanded.
6.3 A member of the group, asked if the Executive could re issue the invitation to the actual assessors, as opposed to the main contacts for the toolkit application, as she pointed out that she was not aware of the forum, and had received no notification of an invite. AP
7) Update: Monitoring & Quality Enhancement of Validated Institutions
7.1 HELS informed the group that a sub group had met in September to take forward the Monitoring & Quality Enhancement paper, that had been approved by the group. Full minutes of this are available on the FLL pages of the Scottish Executive website, but the main points from this meeting were: that annual confirmation would take place, this would be done by the institution completing a proforma for SAAS, confirming they still wish to carry out assessments, and outlining any major changes that have taken place, such as staffing etc. A full revalidation process will take place every 3 years. Institutional led workshops will be held early next year. It was originally anticipated that institutions would be visited as part of the annual confirmation, it has now been decided that that it will be more helpful for those institutions to submit for review, a complete and anonomised assessment as part of the ongoing monitoring process. We will be writing to the first 11 validated institutions shortly to ask for yearly confirmation.
7.2 Concerns were raised over whether the students will be asked for their consent in this process, Kathie replied by saying that consent would be sought, and we would also be issuing a student survey via SAAS. SAAS also added that consent for disclosure of assessments could be built into the existing DSA application form. NUS raised the point of feedback from the survey, and thought we were less likely to gain feedback from those with complex needs, HELS said we would look to NUS for advice on the survey form, before it was finalised. AP
8) Update: Non Medical Personal Help
8.1 HELS informed the group that the updated version of the booklet, Employing Support Workers in Higher Education had now been published, and was also available on the website. There were some outstanding issues that arose from this sub-group, that still needed to be looked at, HELS will circulate these to the whole group for comments, and possibly reconvene the subgroup.
8.2 A member of the group was concerned at the ceiling of the NMPH allowance, she indicated that she had been under the impression that SAAS, would review cases on an individual basis, to assess whether a student would be able to benefit from extra funding, however she had been informed that the ceiling could be raised on one allowance, if another had been under spent. She asked if anything could be done to change this. HELS replied that this was a large process change, and was something that we would be looking at, along with what is actually eligible under the DSA.
8.3 A point was also raised on whether sick pay was an eligible cost under the NMPH allowance, SAAS indicated that as long as it remained within the total of the allowance then the helper was eligible, SDT, said that he had previously been told that this was not eligible. HELS indicated that we would, with SAAS, look at current guidance more closely and provide clarification. AP
9) Any Other Business
9.1 SKILL informed the group that they have been commissioned by the Disability Rights Commission to produce guidance on the DDA, mainly Part 4. HELS expressed an interest of possibly linking Partnership Matters into this, SKILL thought that as it was a UK wide document that this may not be possible, although it could be used as part of a case study.
10) Date of Next Meeting
10.1 Next meeting will be arranged for April or May of next year.
Action Points
- HELS to Amend point 5.1 of previous meetings minutes
- Invite suggestions and consideration for a social work representative to join the group
- HELS to discuss possibility of linking up with SFC on pilot of needs led assessment
- HELS to Distribute SFC consultation on premium Funding to members of the DSSG
- HELS to reissue Sharepoint invitation to validated assessment centre assessors
- HELS to work with NUS on student survey feedback form for DSA assessments
- HELS and SAAS to look at eligibility for sick pay under NMPH allowance
Part 2
Part 2 of this meeting was split in 2 halves, the fist was held by Equality Forward, the second was held by SAAS
Part 2.1 Equality Forward, gave the group a presentation on it's role, outlining who it's main partners are, and what it's role within the FE and HE sectors would be. It also gave information on the regional launches that Equality Forward were hosting.
Part 2.2 SAAS, hosted the second part of part 2 in order to gain the groups thoughts and comments on the application form and supporting literature available for students who apply for DSA. They gathered some comments from the group, and SAAS also invited any additional thoughts on this to them, by e mail, no later that January of next year, when the literature will be reviewed.