 Good morning and welcome to this, the 11th meeting of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee of 2016. Can I make the usual request that your mobile phones are switched on to airplane mode or on silent? Moving swiftly into agenda item 1 this morning, agenda item 1 is our draft budget scrutiny and the focus of today's evidence is to hear from university equalities services and admission services about the issues faced by disabled people and people who use British Sign Language is their language. We will have BSL interpretation, just the usual caveats about, and this is for me mostly, not to speak too fast, to allow them to sign properly. Can I welcome our panel this morning and we have Dr Jane Bamford, who is a Conservatoire councillor and disability adviser from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Carol Blavistock, who is the head of admissions at the University of Aberdeen. Sheila Williams, the director of student disability services at the University of Edinburgh. Ann Duncan, who is the disability services manager at the University of Strathclyde. And Kirstine Ox, who is the assistant head recruitment admissions and participation services at the University of West Scotland. Welcome all this morning to committee. We're really grateful for your attendance at committee this morning and grateful for any written submissions that you've given us thus far. I'm going to kick straight into questions because we want to hear from you and hear some of your ideas that you have. We've had a huge amount of written evidence from people who have either access to services as students or have been members of staff. So we've got a real varied view of how people feel. We've got some submissions that are very positive and some that are maybe not so positive. So sort of looking at that and where the challenges arise. I wonder if the first opening question could be for you to give me a bit of insight into where you think some of the challenges are and what actions that your organisations have taken. Now I know we have the chairs of the admissions and disability services. So general questions about the whole service we may direct to you but we're also interested in your institutions as well. I mean, I'm happy just for whoever to go first and give me some ideas of where they think the challenges are and what actions they're taking to address those challenges. Sheila. Thank you. Speaking for the University of Edinburgh, you'll be aware that we're one of the largest and oldest universities in Scotland. So there are very specific challenges around our physical estate, the fact that we've got almost 300 buildings, some of which are listed, some of which are very old. And we do recognise that as an institution and we are putting a lot of resource into the estate over the next year and beyond, including bringing in a company to audit all of our buildings and provide guides for access but also egress for buildings because there are some issues around if there's a fire evacuation drill. Excuse me, I've got the cold so bear with me. I'll try not to splutter too much. There are also, I mean, I think for Edinburgh and throughout the sector, one of the issues is around the whole kind of mainstreaming and inclusion agenda and it's certainly something that we've looked at via our accessible and inclusive learning policy which we introduced over three years ago and the intention behind that has been to mainstream support which was previously only recommended for disabled students but now should be in place for all students and I say should be because it's still a work in progress, we still have a lot of work to do within our own institution to convince colleagues to put that support in place. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a constant challenge to get adjustments that certainly the University of Edinburgh student disability service recommends for individual students that we need to get these put in place out in the schools. As I said, it's a very, very large institution, we've got 22 separate schools with different practices and different approaches so we need to look at that and the university actually is currently has a major disability review ongoing which will report in February next year which is looking at all of these issues. I would also say that in addition to the challenges at least at Edinburgh they have recognised that the challenges exist and the spend on student disability services has actually doubled over the last five to six years so that's been a real positive that the institution has recognised that the numbers of students are growing, the numbers of complex issues around student support have grown and the finance has been there to back up that growth. Has that proven itself through more students coming to Edinburgh unless students dropping out because of challenges with a disability? We've certainly seen more and more students. We have almost three and a half thousand students at the latest count for last academic year who disclosed a disability and that's both the sheer numbers and the proportion of the student cohort have just increased year on year on year so it's not just that there are more students coming to the university but the proportion of disabled students has grown as I say year on year and shows no signs of slowing up which is good, yeah. Excellent. The other institutions, a few. Jane? Yeah, well in contrast to Shiloh, we're a very small institution with barely a thousand students but as I put in my submission we have about 28% of the student population have disclosed a disability or a medical condition or specifically in difficulty. We have a very high percentage of students with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties so about 15% of students with dyslexia and dyspraxia. The numbers have grown hugely. Since I started in post in 1998 there were about ten students who disclosed a disability and last year there were 293 so the conservatory has worked very hard at becoming more accessible and to be seen to be accessible for applicants and students with disabilities. I think our challenges are that we're dealing with some very traditional, if I can say, art forms, music, opera and so a bit like Shiloh said sometimes the challenge is making sure that all staff including perhaps the one to one teaching staff are on board, are taking on the adjustments that need to be made so whether you're teaching your student the violin or you're rehearsing them in an opera adjustments need to be made and sometimes just because of the traditional nature of those art forms the idea of adjustments doesn't always come easily. Shiloh. Sorry, I was just going to go round the table and allow everyone to have their seat. At the University of Strathlaid some of our issues do reflect the issues that Shiloh has communicated in relation to Edinburgh. We have a very, very large campus on one of what's professed to be the steepest hills in Glasgow City so we have huge challenges in relation to the physical estate that has been addressed through estate redevelopment all our new buildings we're making sure they're as accessible as is humanly possible so there is the challenges of the physical estate. I think we're also experiencing growing numbers since I've been at Strathlaid in the past six years we have gone from 1,200 students to over 1,600 students with disabilities what we're also finding is the categories of disabilities are changed and there's particularly been an increase in mental health disclosure which reflects I know it's reflective of the sector as a whole and we've also had a significant increase in the number of students presenting with autistic spectrum disorders obviously both of these are wholly and entirely positive and we see it great that people and students are choosing to disclose and it suggests that there is less stigma associated with mental health disclosure however what we are finding is some of these conditions are probably conditions that staff across the university feel less equipped to support for our academic colleagues it's not often seen as easy to support some of these students because of the nature of their conditions their conditions can be fluctuating they can be intermittent you could perhaps have a plan to support them and then a student experiences a bad episode of mental health and the plan goes completely out of the window and we need to start from scratch again so that can be a particular challenge and I feel that staff in central support services are, you know, this is their bread and butter they're quite comfortable and confident in supporting these students but obviously students spend the majority of their time in their academic department so it's really trying to work with a very large academic community to try and equip them really to feel proficiently confident in their support of these students I definitely feel that in our experience at Stratlide there is a willingness without a doubt and staff definitely feel that they want to support these students to succeed but sometimes they feel that they are more ill-equipped to support some of these categories of disabilities when it's not perceived as straightforward a student case Is there training available for those staff? Because a key theme that's emerged through the evidence that we've had is some students feeling that they would be much more confident in the lecture room or in, you know, classes when, for instance, we have evidence from a student that uses BSL as a language who felt their university experience would have been much better if the lecturer had had some BSL or, you know, deaf awareness training so the same with mental health the same with other disability training what's available for staff? Yeah, there is, within our institution we have disability awareness training and there is mental health awareness training as well uptake varies and how we would address it particularly for BSL users or students who are deaf is if we have a student who is deaf we will work with the academic department that they will be in to work with that group of academic staff to know, you know, to have a level of deaf awareness that's how it's approached within the institution but I assume that my colleagues across the table would, you know, just definitely scope for doing a lot more Yeah, you said take-ups, you know, varied Varied, yes Is there any moves as far as CPD for academic staff to make some of this training mandatory for their academic, you know, year-on-year CPD? Sorry, Ann, but can I just say that The University of Edinburgh is very conscious of the support that academic colleagues require with regard to mental health so we've instituted in conjunction with one of the senior academics who's driven the project a fortnightly Wednesday afternoon training session for each school within the University for personal tutors and student support officers who are the kind of key admin people in many of the schools However, I also recognise what Ann's highlighted about engagement and attendance certainly there has been a bit of discussion about making that training mandatory it currently is not mandatory but I think I speak for many of my student services colleagues who would agree that we would like it to be so I'm going to open out to questions, Jeremy Good morning and thank you all very much for coming along I've got maybe just three or four questions If that's okay, I'll keep them brief The first one he's picking up about final point by you, Sheila I mean I have no doubt that at Edinburgh University and at the other universities in Corsicotland that what you're seeing is right at the top you know, the principal that the Chancellor of the Court all agree with everything that you have said but if you dig down to a lecturer in a particular school it's just not getting there and there's something missing I think between your department and if I can say the average lecturer at any university and how do we bridge that gap because it's already well having policies and bits of paper but if it's making no difference to the average student experience then frankly we're wasting our time and so how do you see we can bridge the gap between what you want to do and how we do it? That's a very good question and it's one that we've constantly grappled with and we continue to do so we are looking via the disability review that I mentioned earlier at that very issue and I think we recognise that key to the process is further engagement between the student disability service and each of the academic schools I think there are issues around governance and maybe a higher profile for some of the issues that student disability services are concerned with and the support of disabled students I think there can be perhaps a situation arises where many academic colleagues or some academic colleagues I shouldn't generalise see a disabled student as the primary responsibility of the disability service whereas we are very much about saying no the students are the University of Edinburgh students we all have a responsibility here and we all need to do what we need to do whether it's in the legislative context or whether it's just good practice or the right thing to do so I think what we'll be looking at specifically will be ways of further engaging with our individual schools probably starting from next year actually I mean I don't want to suggest that we don't engage with schools we do but we recognise that that has to happen in a much more meaningful way it's a question and it's assumed that whoever wants to jump in and take it we've got a very helpful breakdown of if you listen of the different types of disability that might come to the University and clearly the highest number of people I think across every institution is those that would have dyslexia or EDH and I think that's very good and I think probably universities have by and large pretty well set up for that type of condition but my question is how do you deal with more complex ones so I asked this question last week is there a hierarchy of disability so if I've got dyslexia well we can cope with that but if I've got a multiple disability physical disability whatever well they're more difficult to deal with so in your experience amongst the schools of your universities is there a hierarchy of disability and you were nodded one way or the other I'll jump in with that in terms of and yeah you're absolutely right I think dyslexia and specific learning difficulties is definitely the category of disabilities that most institutions are best equipped to deal with in terms of how we respond to students with more complex disabilities our approach is very much trying to get in there as early as possible so I'll give you an example from a case I worked on a few years ago which illustrates our approach very well we were involved in an open day at Stratlides open day a couple of years ago and we were met with an applicant who had multiple quadriplegic significant complex difficulties he would need personal care support would need a complete package of support so our approach was that open day was probably September, October for application or entry the following year so from that point onwards we engaged with that student to ascertain as early as possible what support that student may require now the approach it was a supportive approach it was in no way to deter or discourage the student or influence the prospect of the student being offered a place the student was offered a place he chose to go elsewhere but the early intervention was key because for that support package the student needed like we needed to look at adapting accommodation we needed to look at whether his work package would be transferred because we were in Glasgow the student was Edinburgh based there was engagement with the academic department right from the start because the student was applying for it was a chemistry course it was quite a practical course and the student had no use of his upper limbs and we worked very well with the department and the student were very forthcoming in terms of suggestions to how to mitigate the impact that this condition would have on his participation on the course he was central to all of this the academic department were very very supportive in terms of thinking of different ways of adapting their teaching to make it wholly and entirely accessible for that student we were fully confident that the student in terms of his support it was workable and the student felt quite reassured that if he did choose to come to Strachlide that he would have had the necessary support in place so illustrating that is my point here is that it's the early intervention we are lucky in terms of we have very very good systems where we can, we start looking at our applicant data very very early on like it's March, April for the September intake and we do prioritise based on complexity of difficulties so if you have a mobility impairment a hearing impairment or a visual impairment we will be contacting the students as part and part of the course by April, May time for entry in August, September Can I be devil's advocate for a moment when people are turned up with that condition could you have coped or because it was one that was fine I think it's a very clear question I'm not trying to accuse you of not but I think what is the level that you can cope with I would agree that if 10 students if 10 applicants came with that level of complexity like that was you know students with that kind of we wouldn't be presented with one every year but if we were to be met with that in the multiples of 10 we would really really struggle Just two very quick questions and I will be quite promised can I ask about coursework and when people are actually at the university because obviously people have different disabilities and how they cope with coursework exams will vary are your colleagues open to changing how how students are assessed or is it very much this is how we've always done it we do an exam at the end of the year and that's it always we're in openness to saying this person's got a disability he or she's very capable but we may not be able to cope with that type of assessment Can I open This will be quite interesting as far as the different types of assessments that you would do so we offer a wide range of adjustments to assessments we meet with every student who's disclosed a disability for what we call a learning agreement at the start of the students course and the meeting is between myself the student and the head of department or programme leader and we go through the assessments and the coursework elements of that students course and look at any adjustments that would be required so we are it's fair to say we are very flexible we don't insist on written assignments students can present can present an audio an audio submission or a video submission if that's easier students can specify if there's a particular time of day that suits them better for a performance which is very helpful for students with mental health conditions or medical conditions we and if a student is struggling we can provide a bespoke assessment calendar so we can push assessments out of the the set assessment diets for students so I think we are flexible and open to looking at other ways if a student for example from the performing point of view we have accepted recordings if a student finds it too nerve-wracking or mentally not possible to perform in the hall then we will accept a recording as a performance assessment we are always open to flexible assessments I would say Yes at the University of Edinburgh there are a number of imaginative and flexible approaches which have been implemented in the past I suppose because we operate in a more traditional academic sphere there are different courses there's a variety and perhaps an inconsistency of approach and it may depend on the subject area it may depend on how things have been done for the last 30 years for instance but we can on occasion our academic colleagues will set an essay instead of an exam in some subject areas and slightly different from Jane because it's a different context but we will look at different ways of doing things but it's also true to say that I think we are still fairly wedded to exams and a number of students will get things like extra time or be able to sit their exams in a smaller room or a room on their own so we'll be as supportive as we can and sometimes certain supports are easier to recommend and be put in place than others I suppose my final question is in regard to I think it's all very positive what you're hearing there will be some students that won't be able to presumably accommodate when I was at Edinburgh which was, I appreciate, back in the dark ages the school I was at was just if you're on a wheelchair it just wasn't able to get in by a wheelchair when you assess someone and you find you cannot meet their needs where do you sign posts from on to or how would you deal with an individual for whatever reason because of their disability you simply couldn't accommodate them what support do you give them and what sign post in? To be honest that's never occurred in my time there or not to my knowledge within the disability service it's and that's not to deny that there are challenges particularly for wheelchair users I mean I suppose referring back to your earlier point about the hierarchy of disability I think there's a hierarchy but I think some of the issues that we deal with on a societal level are actually mirrored in higher education and some of them are perhaps more complex because of the subject nature of the issues that are being taught but to get back to the physical access issue what we will do is if a building isn't accessible we'll recommend that the classes are held in a different building so that can be quite a significant disruption on occasion for certain classes or we can look at broadcasting remotely so there's a whole range of things that we would look at I'd hate to think that we would be turning somebody away on that basis whilst also recognising that Edinburgh's physical estate is less than ideal Carol, with your admissions on in your general overview of admissions across the chair is that something from an admissions point of view where Jeremy's issue that he's raised here around access? Certainly I mean obviously I can speak with some experience with regard to the University of Aberdeen and like Edinburgh we do have an estate that's been around for 600 years plus but we also have a lot of facilities that are very modern and accessible and we do have areas of the university that are assigned to particular disciplines for example but that tends to house the academics and the support staff it doesn't necessarily mean that that's where we need to be for lectures or seminars so like Edinburgh we would be looking to ensure that we can have give the student an alternative experience and we would ensure that their physical locality for their seminars and tutorials would be in buildings that are accessible and in fact most of our main spaces for teaching students are in accessible buildings where we've encountered in the past we've had for example some students with mobility issues who are looking for particular courses that might involve a field trip for example and that has presented in the past and therefore students are obviously currently studying a degree programme of which courses make up that degree on a year by year basis and those courses some of them are compulsory and some of them the students self select so we are looking to ensure that if a student whether it's compulsory or self selecting to do something like a field course and there's physical restrictions then there would be an alternative experience so the university would expect that that alternative experience would be worked through and that would be through our disability advisers working with the relevant school within the university working with the student themselves and looking how that alternative experience can be achieved because at the end of the day we're looking to ensure that they can have the experience so that the necessary outcomes for that course are achieved and there are numerous ways of achieving the outcome from an application perspective just touching Jeremy on one of your comments your questions earlier I think one of the challenges that probably presents to all institutions is very much a keenness at the application stage feel comfortable and able to declare their disability and for students who are presenting perhaps with complex disabilities or multiple disabilities there's a general understanding that they are normally presented in the application process so we are encouraging early disclosure because we are looking to work with the applicant at an early stage to ensure that we can make the required adjustments and give support and engage with the applicant and their wider family as appropriate but we do find that some disabilities and obviously dyslexia was mentioned as being one that universities are fairly adapted being able to accommodate are not being disclosed at the application stage and they are being realised when the student arrives and registers at the university now obviously the universities work to ensure that the adjustments, appropriate adjustments are made but perhaps the applicant has not had the best experience that he might have had in the lead up to university entry because we've not been able to give them the support that we could have given one clear element from the evidence we took last week was about the UCAS system being much more responsive for us and go to bring in Alex thank you convener, good morning everybody thank you for coming to see us today my question, well I've got two questions the first of which really stems from your comments just now Carol it's great to have you here because Aberdeen is my alma mater and I was president of the SRC I sat on the university court and there was a big discussion at that time about not so much about access but about retention and attrition and I just wondered if you could offer some comments about what mechanisms if any you employ to keep students in post once particularly if they're affected by disability so that everybody every university has people who drop out and that's just part of university life but what efforts do you make to retain those students particularly those with more complex needs yes retention is a keen topic amongst all universities there's a lot of involvement and effort goes on to ensure that retention arrives and registers and you want that experience to be a very positive one for the students we're certainly have quite an initiative and drive within the university from our university principle across all of our schools in the university to look at retention there is no one particular aspect of relating to students that links or is the cause of not being able to keep students at the university and we are looking very much at bringing together lots of different aspects of the university looking to what is given to students before they arrive and register at the university because yes we give lots of information we have websites we have perspectives and they will come along to visit days and applicant days but it's very much a different landscape university we speak a different language the terminology we use and what students have to navigate so we're looking at lots of different initiatives I can't give specifics but I'm aware the university is looking at lots of different initiatives to ensure that students feel that they are able to stay with their studies and also to ensure that if they have queries and questions issues problems that they have the relevant signposts to ensure that they can access those services so it's about giving multiple pieces of information at multiple points and not just a single well this is your handbook you can find all the answers available we have developed a personal tutor scheme which has moved away from what you might have experienced was the advisor of study scheme and that's very much linked as a designated academic member of staff who is there for that particular student not simply from an academic perspective but is there to support a student in any aspect of university a named person almost just kidding sorry just to say to follow on from what Carol was saying I think for us early intervention is key we track students absences and if a student has more than a certain number of absences then they are asked to come along for what's called an investigatory meeting just to see if there are things that are not going well if more support needs to be put in place support that's been provided isn't working we also the learning agreements that I described earlier I contact all students with disabilities who have a learning agreement in January to ask if those are working well if they would like to review the learning agreement and the support and then in February we have progress committee which I sit on where all students the progress of all students through their course is looked at and any student who is not doing well the learning agreement that's checked that's noted the student will then be contacted and invited to a review of the learning agreement and support and then at the end of the year we have our special circumstances board which happens just before the exam board and again all students with disabilities are looked at and any student support is checked and any issues are noted so we do and because of the numbers because the numbers are small I realise that this is perhaps a luxury that we have but we are able to personally track every student thank you my second question speaks to the student experience we were reminded last week very eloquently that actually lectures only fulfil in my case if you're an arts graduate sometimes only nine hours a week are devoted to lectures and whilst the university may be very good at providing adaptations interpreters if it's a BSL situation or any other mitigating support to students with disabilities those nine hours really are very much a small part of that student experience a wider university life including societies club nights and the range and myriad of opportunities and experiences for students to have that it's at that point which many students are left out and in fact the reflection was quite stark from the panel last week that Scotland doesn't have an institution within it that really ticks all those boxes there are institutions in the rest of the UK which manage to bridge that gap but actually it's in that wider student experience element that we are potentially failing and I just wondered if the panel could give us their reflections on that view Kersti, do you want to come in at this point just admissions and having a university that's spread across a few different campuses was different types of accommodation as well? Yeah, thank you. We certainly do have a number of challenges given we've now got five campus locations and obviously four based in Scotland and we try and make sure and we do endeavour at the moment to make sure the approaches as consistent as possible what we've certainly had in the last few years is invested a huge amount into the structure within the schools and support for students not just students with disabilities we did a pilot a few years ago we had a school enhancement developer for students we felt as though the touching points for students were quite minimal engagement point throughout the academic cycle in terms of attending classes, assessment workshops etc and that pilot was very successful now we have a school enhancement development within every single school and within each school we also have an education guidance advisor and they all work very closely together that for any students that need to have guidance and counselling they're the members of staff available a student that's got a disability advisors and we try to make sure there's a triangulation of everyone joining together with things and not saying we're perfect at doing it but that is the approach we are striving towards we've also introduced in terms of the university the ultimate student experience that all universities try to strive towards we've introduced a students welcome festival and we run that at each campus and it's very much, the senior members of staff are very much present at it and we try and have every single aspect from student services we have funding available, we have a disability team available student association, everyone is there and it's our societies, it's our clubs to promote to every single student that there's so much more than just the academic side of things within recently we've had a brand new year campus development so in terms of accessibility that's taken to none Pays of campus we've gone through a massive amount of development with our new principal coming into post and very much we have a student hub that's on the ground floor it's right next to funding advice disability services so we're very much focusing on the student experience it's the heart of the centre of the university and that is replicated at Dumfries campus also at the air campus and obviously now we are looking forward to the Lanarkshire campus which in 2018 we're striving towards that and again that'll have the same approach that we've gone through in the last few years in focusing on the university experience for all of our students putting the student at the heart of everything that we do we're recently taking on the international student barometer for all of our students the first year we'll go into that and we'll do the student satisfaction survey so we always analyse our information that we get from that but from an admissions application perspective I do lose with our disability team and I certainly find that we contact our students or our potential students at the point that they have a confirmation decision and we've certainly found similar to Carol is that a lot of the students don't believe they have a disability if they have dyslexia they don't declare it, they don't disclose it so we find it induction enrolment then they come up to talk to the team and the support is put into place and again they're given a named contact from that but what we certainly find is that it's making it ourselves known at that point and sometimes the students don't want to be identified same as care leavers, they don't want the stigma of being identified for any that does go forward to disability advisors we then have a six month review with them to find is there anything else we need to put into place and it's having that continual review but from a UWS perspective we recently have reviewed everything from the start to the end and there's so much more we can still bring into place but we're moving very much in the right direction and it's a positive thing for UWS On the back of Alex's question about the whole university experience we had some evidence last week we've had written evidence as well from BSL users who can access the freshers week or the festivals or things like that because there's not an interpretation service available for them at that point and therefore when they get into class they've all bonded and they feel left out so that was a very clear element of the oral evidence we had last week and is there any work being done to ensure that that very first stage of making friends, of building relationships and you know he was told in the first class pair off and everybody paired off when he was left in his own we certainly have a one on one off process policy for a deaf student that has to have an interpreter and so that they always have someone with them it's been never to work towards that what the disability team have noticed or identified to me is that there's a lack of interpreters, there's a shortage and the team leader is actually going through sign language training herself but she's doing that independently of the university so it's quite interesting the discussion about training and development I also asked how many members of staff within the university, within student services had disability and we have one member of staff just now that is blind but we don't have any deaf members of staff but yes we try to make sure that the student experience is replicated I'm not saying it's perfect but we do try to make sure that the situation is put into place that they are engaging with the rest of the student body I think just if I could come in as a bookend on that one of the things I was really struck by was that when I asked if there was an example of an institution in the British Isles or further a field which got this right the one that came back to us was Preston and part of that was because they reached a critical mass where because students with hearing loss recognised that it was a good university to go to in terms of wider provision more and more deaf students gravitated towards Preston which added to a virtuous cycle of investment in resources for it so that it almost sort of built itself as it were I think my role has expanded in the last few months to take on all of recruitment missions and participation not all of it who got ahead of department but for me and my asking questions in terms of applicant information sessions open days what extra support do we need to put into place to highlight the support services that we have for these students that are coming on to the university and not just to pay the campus but every single campus that we have in the university so it's for me it's a really exciting time to take things forward at the university I want to move on, Mary Thank you and good morning everyone a lot of what I wanted to ask has already been covered but can I ask the panel about the application process itself because I was quite struck by the submission and I think it's from Edinburgh University when you say that you're not aware of any issues that should be drawn to our attention and then you go on to talk about reasonable adjustments and I have to say I was quite disturbed by the use of the word permitted someone was permitted to submit an application but can I ask the panel in general what work has been done to ensure that the application process is easy and accessible to everyone is there any equality proofing done is there any testing is there any checking that regardless of your disability you will be able to complete the application so that you're not in a position where you have to ask for help I think it would be fair she'll let you come back in that one Apologies for the use of the word permitted that's a very good point I think what all institutions continue to grapple with is the fact that under the equality act we have an anticipatory duty which again it ties into the whole long term aim of being much more inclusive and mainstreaming as much as possible although that won't ever take away from the need for certain individual support I don't want to go into too much detail about the admissions process because I'm not totally familiar with it other than at Edinburgh the disability information is not taken into account in terms of whether an offer is made that's not really the point I'm trying to contact what work has been done to ensure that someone is completing the application or the admissions process that they will be able to complete it understand it and won't have any problem with it? I don't think I'm best placed to answer that from an Edinburgh perspective it would probably be my admissions colleagues maybe Carol as an admissions person would be able to answer that Yes I can try and answer that I mean obviously students looking to do undergraduate study in the United Kingdom the application process is not directly to each university that they're interested in the application process is through UCAS and UCAS facilitates the delivery of the applications to each of the choices that an applicant has made now they do a lot of user testing not just in terms of the accessibility of the application but also in terms of the terminology that they're using so down at Cheltenham where UCAS are based they bring in testers and users and they monitor every aspect of their experience as they are going through the application so when there's hesitation over perhaps terminology then there's further probing as to why did they not go further forward because obviously again as I've mentioned there's a lot of terminology used that is commonplace in universities in the application procedure which is not necessarily understood by those that are looking to go and have that experience not everybody would appreciate what undergraduate means or what postgraduate means UCAS have developed their services over many many years they've moved away from a paper submission and by and large everything is online they are further enhancing their products moving to more of a digital process and they are engaging as wide as possible with different stakeholders so obviously applicants are key to their business as our schools and colleges as our advisers as our universities and colleges so as they are developing their services at the moment they have finished developing services for postgraduate study and they are currently developing services in terms of being able to find out about information about universities and what the course involves but also their undergraduate application services so that involves engaging with the wider groups and getting feedback so they are building and listening taking feedback adjusting modifying so it's not a case of we've developed a product we think it's great, please use it it's very much engaging for those who are going to be using it both at the front end and at the back end to try and ensure that it's doing its job That's very reassuring Does anyone else want to comment? In terms of the engagement that UCAS has with the universities I am part of the UCAS undergraduate advisory group and I sit on that committee with the head of admissions for Edinburgh and we then feed into the universities what is our group called? The universities admissions practitioners group Thank you You and I then feedback the information to the group to see what the developments are for UCAS UCAS are also having the moment because they are doing so many developments on their products they have webinars each Wednesday morning every fortnight and we can all participate and we can view the sessions afterwards Again, as Carol says, it's not just UCAS devising a product and running with it they do try and engage with us and they bring in student testers So again, as I said, we're very lucky that we do have very much a voice on how the products are moving forward Okay, thanks for that I've just got one very brief question and I can't remember if it was either Sheila or Anne spoke about awareness training and I wonder if you could perhaps give me a bit more information as to how in depth that awareness training is It was myself We've arranged training initiatives for disability awareness within the university and they vary from short to our workshops to there is a more in-depth programme called developing an inclusive curriculum which is an accredited module which academics undertake and they are certificated at the end of it and it involves participation it's four half day sessions and have to complete supporting course work for that so it goes into quite a lot of detail on the development of inclusive teaching practice within the university and it varies from the generic basic to the much more in-depth and I would say as well the mental health awareness training as well it varies from short one-off workshops to more detailed we've had more training facilitated recently the Scottish mental health first aid training that's been delivered within the university as well so there is both kind of light brush and more detailed more content available so there's a range and does it give information on dealing with physical disabilities does it cover every type of disability yes particularly the disability awareness sessions would be focused very much on the different looking at our student population and considering the barriers to participation that the student group would face and what we as an institution need to do as I had mentioned earlier when there is a particular category of disability like for example when an academic department is going to have a British Sign Language user we will work with that academic department on a more informal basis but it will have training and development but it will be very much specific and focused on that individual students needs as well we will do something very similar with working with students who are blind or visually impaired as well we do have a rolling program of training workshops that we deliver three or four times a year but then we will do kind of detailed specific courses and individual academic department when that need has been identified by the identification of a new student and the other institutions do the same type of awareness training absolutely very much similar to what Anne has outlined at Edinburgh we will do tailor made training for individual schools on request and impairment specific the range of training we are just about to update our deaf awareness training as we now have a disability advisor who's a BSL practitioner so that's going to be a real advantage for us but yeah we'll do whatever whatever colleagues would like us to do basically but that's within our remit similarly we have a learning and teaching conference every year and part of that it's open to all staff and part of that conference is given over to disability awareness training so we had the NUS Scotland mental health officer in this year to give mental health training we've had Scottish autism to provide training on ASDs the RNIB so it's again it's a rolling programme also if there are any specific requests from departments then we can organise that as well okay thank you thank you very much thank you very much hello everybody could I go back to this point about students with a disability making application to your institution and do you think there's a common standard let's see that students with a disability can expect I'm raising this because of the point that I quote Hamilton made about specialist institutions down south somehow attracting students with disabilities and therefore students with a disability would reject other institutions on the basis of that is it like that in Scotland or is there a common level of service across all the colleges and universities that students could feel comfortable in applying to each and every one of you I think that falls to you Carol in terms of a publicised common approach there probably isn't one as such however those working in admissions and admissions practitioners and those responsible for making decisions are very much looking to ensure for all applicants that there's fair practice so there's a code of practice to ensure that essentially applications that are received and are received on time via UCAS are all treated equally and are all given the same consideration and I think you'll find most universities yes we are working within constraints but by and large we are looking to see how can we make an offer of admission to the applicant that we're looking at and certainly Aberdeen, our academic admissions selectors work very hard to do that admissions set-ups within each university are not the same so at Aberdeen we have what we would call centralised admissions and we have dedicated academic members of staff who are experienced and qualified to be looking at applications across a broad area so we admit to the degree of MA, the degree of BSE and whilst the applicant is applying for a particular subject within those areas we have consistency applied regardless of whether it's anthropology MA or sociology MA we generally will look to ensure that we can make an offer of admission so if the candidate is presenting through the Scottish education system lots of applicants may well have achieved their university qualifications at the end of S5 but obviously under curriculum for excellence we're looking across the S4 to S6 experience so those who meet what we would present as our minimum entry requirements you would not be asking any more further qualifications from them those that haven't met or haven't quite met the selectors will be the same are looking to see well they're not quite there can they get there and if they can't get there is there an explanation so disability might be one aspect but there's lots of other aspects of contextual data so adjustments may well be made in the offer making so for example the disability and the circumstances of the student and their achievements to date may well be quite significant may well not be quite what we're looking for but in their application their achievement is quite significant and that is demonstrating an ability for further success so adjusted offer making may well go on after that to take account for the information that it is presented generally we'll use the information in the application to allow us to make that decision so we are reliant on the personal statement and we're also reliant on the information that's provided in the reference and you'll find that universities will possibly have different approaches as to how they use that information Thanks for that I wonder what I mean by this supposing I'm a student with a disability or thinking about applying to U5 right how do I get an impression about the support that you each offer me before I even begin the journey of trying I mean all these support services are great but it's kind of after the event it's about making the choice to either go to one of your institutions because for me it seems the best one and there's a great level of support How do you offer that at the outset to a student with a disability One thing I was involved in a meeting yesterday with our transition advisers and they work with our college partners on the move from for HNC and HND students coming into the university and what we're going to arrange next year is having a college awareness session we have a student recruitment team that engage with secondary schools and go out and do school talks but it's more the professional or academic portfolio so again I will be looking at the extra side of things as well but in terms of the transition day we're going to have for me it will have because the college advisers want to know about our admissions processes how we look at the applications they want to know what's available on campus so again it will be student services funding of the disabilities and by having those sessions we're then going to be having that then we're going to have college sessions for students we're looking for October we recently had a set of them last month but we felt they were quite late in the calendar so bring them in for October so we feel we're working with the colleges to let them know what services we have available and we're going to do that next year and look at Paisley and Aire and we invite all of the college partners and then once Lanarkshire is up and running we'll have things at Lanarkshire as well but for me that's a development in the right direction but my opinion is that there's not a lot of integration between the schools, colleges and universities because if a student's at a college just now and has their support in place the expectation might will automatically be at the university when I turn up in day one and I don't think there's a free flow of information that passes forward and I think that would need to be looked at in relation to the DSA in terms of the funding aspects it is quite sometimes late for students to get their funding so I feel as though yes we can engage where they have the information and the information and guidance to look at the websites but I think it's getting out there and speaking and raising the profile of what provision available is for the students Is that generally the position of the others would you say? Certainly Edinburgh, the student disability for open days when students and their families come to see the university as part of their decision whether or not to apply and that would be either people coming to the service and having a chat with one of our advisors or actually having information stands and so on and so forth at various points throughout the university yeah I think it's in addition some of the points that Kirsty made you know it's our widening access people do a lot of work with schools and there's just the usual kind of information on websites, leaflets email inquiries our students association I think there'd probably be a lot of discussion these days on social media about choice of universities not being a user of such I couldn't say with any degree of certainty but I think that would be where a lot of information are certainly anecdotally that would be where a lot of information for students is kind of bandied about if you like Carol Yes certainly we are very much aware that students that are looking to have a university experience are not engaging in gathering information in their final years of school you know the information search goes on much earlier than that and we've certainly at Aberdeen we've invested very recently in trying to make our the information we have on our website more accessible and enable those visiting our website to have multiple ways of communicating and engaging with us so that we'll have real live chats that are available to talk to potential students asking inquiries we're trying to manage and navigate their journey well before that they're applicants and ensure that they have a mechanism to find out the detailed information that they might require so like the other universities we are keen to ensure that when students visit us on campus whether that's an individual personalised visit or through open days, applicant days or articulation arrangements with progression from college that our full range of services are made available to our visitors so that they can access they can access them whilst they visit our campus or they can make appointments to access them when they come and visit but the choice is theirs OK it's about personal statements and some of your submissions refer to these this question is a general question and not specifically about disability do each of your institutions use personal statements in the admissions process and how can students and their families be sure that that's being objectively treated and is it accountable and how is it scrutinised so that we know that it's a fair system that you're applying Carol Yes at the University of Aberdeen we are reading the personal statement and we are reading the reference it's really the only opportunity that an applicant has to tell us their story and they may not use other aspects of the application to give give information they may use the personal statement instead of answering other questions and so if you don't pick up the information that has been presented there then you are failing in your responsibilities to give equal consideration to all of the applications that you've received the personal statement we are aware is something that causes quite a lot of anxiety amongst all applicants because they are aware that universities will use them in different ways and most universities will have statements either on their webpages in their prospectus and also on UCAS that will explain how those personal statements are used we do a lot of outreach activity working with schools particular schools through our widening access as well to explain the kind of things in the personal statement and you will not find that all the universities in Scotland are asking for identical personal statements so yes we are looking for an indication of an interest in the subject that a student is applying for but they do have five choices in their application and therefore the personal statement might not fit all of their choices but again there's been wider consultation with UCAS to see well how can we improve that experience for applicants so that throughout their journey if they're not holding any offers for whatever reason can a new personal statement be submitted that better fits the choices that they're making later in the application cycle so we try to give as much as possible as much as we can direction on what we are looking at or looking for in the personal statement and because we have centralised admissions and because we have dedicated members of staff who've been working in admissions for a considerable amount of time and undergo training on a regular basis we have a small group that are looking at each of the applications so that we're hoping that there is commonality allocated across all of the applications that are received At the end of the day they're pretty subjective really in terms of how they're treated I mean how I'm worried about it I'm concerned about how can students who perhaps don't get accepted to one of your institutions and someone who perhaps does with exactly the same qualifications has fairness been applied there Well if they have the same qualifications that's unlikely that two different decisions will be made That's interesting but you can't I mean there's a limited number of places Yes and there may well be other factors that will be taken into account to assess that application so yes you have commonality amongst the profile of qualifications for example for students that are applying for programmes like medicine but there are other factors in the admissions process that are taken into account not just the personal statement and not just the reference so there's other factors taken into account such as the interview process that helps to present the full picture with regards to that in responding to a student who has perhaps been turned down for something like medicine it's simply a letter vaccine sorry you didn't get in there's no detail of the explanation of here's how we looked at your personal statement here's what we scored and put positive it's simply a letter that comes back saying sorry Well it wouldn't be at the University of Aberdeen because they will get applications to medicine if they're not being brought forward for an interview they are given feedback on why they are not being brought forward for an interview there will be a specific explanation that is particular to that applicant and that will be detailed to them in the decision that is communicated to UCAS those who are invited for an interview and are not made an offer after the interview also receive feedback as to why they were not made an offer of admission it doesn't mean that they're not qualified but as you'll be aware medicine is a controlled subject area and we have a limited number of places available absolutely we're just about over time Annie I don't know if you want to get in there's a very quick one on the back of Willys we were saying about the personal statements and you were saying it's written submissions do you do other submissions as well of BSL submissions and video submissions the way that the Royal Conservatives were saying that you would look at various different aspects to sit exams you would take recordings and videos would that be something that we do for personal statements for someone who maybe doesn't write in English but is a first language if they're a BSL user is that something that is common amongst personal statements we certainly had instances of applicants contacting us to see could they put an alternative format and then we would engage with the school and it might have not had a school saying no it's not possible we obviously have interviews and additions for quite creative programmes and there's film reels so they do have access to their alternatives but it's not been mainstream as such but we do have an experience of a few people coming forward do we think it should be something that we should be saying during an interview because we're obviously trying to get people to declare disabilities at the application stage so if they're declaring a disability at the application stage should we be saying if this is something you're declaring please there's other ways for you to do your personal statement because I think that that would maybe make people feel maybe more more likely to apply for courses rather than having to write something especially if it's sort of a dyslexia or something like that they could be very articulate at speaking and it may make their application more success, make them feel a bit more confident and put the application forward It's a really interesting point absolutely and I think something we can take back to UCAS and obviously we all have our own online application systems as well and it's something we can look at for our own institutions too One particular issue on that aspect that had arisen last week from a BSL user who was a witnesser enquiry last week said that if the opportunity to do the application BSL was available but also the issue about what's available on your website for people there's not much on BSL or it's not signposted very well within the website to be found easily by someone who uses BSL so again just that's just feedback that we've had that maybe you can consider in your work going forward we're well over a time for you this morning and you've been very patient because you've you've stayed with us for a long time this morning we're really grateful for your evidence to us this morning you've given us some very clear points that I think we will be following up as part of the committee enquiry and if you go away and you think I should have said that please get back in touch because we're happy to hear from you so thank you so much for your evidence this morning thank you I'm going to move into private sessions we will be starting back sharp at 11am but we've got a bit of work to do in the private session as well so thank you so much and we're going to