 Undericken today, we have the meeting together with you on the morning of the meeting. I would like to start by welcoming our second panel for the day, Carol Bavr Estock, who is head of admissions at the University of Aberdeen, my alma mater. Anne Duncan, disability service manager at the University of Strathglyde. Kirsty Knox, assistant head of recruitment, admissions and participation service at the University of the west of Scotland. Thank you very much for coming to CIS this morning. I would like to open with a question about how each of your institutions ffosters an atmosphere of inclusion, both around admissions, around provision within lectures and tutorials for students who are either BSL users or have other disabilities, and indeed how you foster that inclusion in the wider student experience. We heard a lot about how sometimes universities get it right in terms of support through lectures, but there is no ffordd i'r ddweudio'r cynllun yn unigol, ond mae'n fawr i'n holl bach i'r unigol. Rhywbeth Caryl yn ddyn nhw'n ei ddiweddol. Felly, mae'r ffordd i'r ddweudio i'r ddweudio'n ei ddweudio, a'r adeiladau i'r ddweudio, nid oedd eich gael o'r ddweudio'n rhanedau oherwydd i ddweudio'r sicr o bach i'r ddweudio. Aberdeen eich mynd i chi ben suddenly at the forefront of what we do. There's more and more work going on to ensure that the student's voice is heard and that the student's needs are met. The most recent appointment that I am aware of is that the university has appointed a mental health advisor have just been in position since September 2017. That is part of an overall strategy and action plan linked to mental health and wellbeing of all our students. That individual is looking to implement and evaluate the current strategies that are in place. Essentially, our students support our staff within registry are linked very much with working with students on a daily basis. We, at the application stage, are obviously looking to get as much information as we can but it is all linked to what we receive through the application process and through UCAS. Ond y Unigledig, dweud ymgyrch amser o'r prosesau a nhw y maes i fynd i chi'n ymwyaf, nad yn cael ei amser a ymwyaf i fynd i fynd y cwestiynau i'w cwestiynau yma. Rydyn ni wedi'u cael ei ddelu yn cysylltu cy lle generatingodd, It is not necessarily moving at the pace, perhaps required, where they have focused on the post-graduate journey ahead of the undergraduate journey. They have started work on that. Of course, you can only get the data that UCAS actually asks of the applicants, ac mae hyn yn ysgolwg. O'r ffordd erbyn ymgyrchu, ac mae hwn yn ddigonol. Rwy'n credu. Cresy? Rwy'n credu'n gael i'r dyma y tŷ i'r eu cas, ond rwy'n gael i'r gael i'r gael i Gwladdau Rwfans. Rwy'n gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r Gwladdau Rwfans, a wnaeth i gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r gael i'r Gwladdau. I will be able to say the are-behind schedule and so any kind of fixes or tweaks that we need to deal with BSL or interactive methods It's it's they're not a quick fix. There's a lot of a lead time next week, and I'll go into the UCAS practitioner's update and the new Chief Executive is to present and give us an update where they are as an organisation in their development Felly, mae'n ffacfwngau fei deimlo i'r meddwl ag ystod, ond mae'n cael rhoi'r amser. Mae'r byw n'MD yn gallu a'r bwysig i'ch gallu i ddefnyddio. Ond mae'n cael ei gwrsiau gyda'r rhyngwnd digwydd, ac mae'n ddefnyddio i'r arrogantau i'r glyfan. Mae'n jael meddwl i'r meddwl i'r gymryd. Dwy cael ei gyrraedd hynny, mae'n cael ei ddefnyddio i'r hynny, ond mae'n trofod o'r myfydliadau'r gan gwybodaeth. from a disability support perspective, so my colleagues in admission reflect similar sentiments as what Caroline Cursey have shared in relation to the challenges with UCAS and potentially has been limited in terms of making progress or getting quick fixes within that area. Some work that has been happening at the University of Strachlid is we have been working with our recruitment and international office, they're one section to look at the information that is being shared and disseminated to applicants at recruitment fairs to try and enhance that and enhance the profile of disability support provision in universities. I know I was involved in an awareness raising day among school guidance teachers generally from the west of Scotland although it was open, it was open up Scotland wide and it was very, very clear from those dialogues that there was limited knowledge among our counterparts within schools about the support available to students with disabilities in universities and equally how students go about access in the support. We do work with a very, very different model of support at universities to the additional support needs model that is in place at schools and colleges. So we're trying to work with schools to make them to increase their awareness of that to get students more ready and prepared for university and the type of support that they will obtain at university. When we get students in, similar to what Carol had mentioned, one of our focuses at the moment is definitely student mental health. We have just recently launched a student mental health action plan within the university which has resulted in a significant investment in resources within that area. It has also involved the amalgamation of disability service with wider support and wellbeing services. So we're all coming under the one umbrella so that we can better respond to the needs of this particular student group in the previous session. There was mention of it being mental health. It's not much, it is wider than disability. There are a huge number of students who are experiencing mental health issues at university but they don't meet the criteria to be recognised as having a disability under the equality act. So we're working as an institution to try to better address the needs of the wider student population. Thank you, thank you all. Can I just press you a little bit further on the issue of the wider student experience in terms of practices your institution has deployed to go beyond lecture theatres and tutorials in terms of integrating people who might otherwise face exclusion in that sort of social context of university? In our universities there's a number of initiatives currently underway. One of the most recent ones I've been involved in is we're working in partnership with the Student Unions to launch a Student Minds peer support programme that's targeted specifically at students' experience in mental health issues in our own operational practices within the university's disability service when we are looking at the support requirements of students with disabilities. We are looking at their support requirements. It's not simply as you know attending lecturers, what support do they need to enable them to access the Student Union, to access clubs and societies, what barriers is that going to present them with and how can we work with them to alleviate those barriers. So we do take a much holistic approach, it's not just about the easy part in general, that's the most easiest thing to resolve is you know putting adjustments in for students to enable them to accommodate, to attend lectures and participate and succeed in the academic environment but that's only one aspect of university, we have students living in halls and we want to make sure that they're integrated and they have the same or comparable experience to all their other first year undergraduate or graduate colleagues irrespective of what additional needs they have. That's great. Can I ask Mary to come in now? Thank you. Can I just ask our panel about the application process because we heard from them we're taking evidence that quite often the first barrier to access to higher university education is the application process because it's in one format. We heard evidence from one university that said that alternative formats would be considered where it was appropriate and suggested that it should be UCAS that makes changes to the application process so it's made at that level not at individual university level and I'd just be interested in your views on how open as institutions you are to allow students to apply in different methods and whether you agree that it should be UCAS that does that? We have and there's two application methods within the university predominantly it is UCAS but also we work with agents and partners that are overseas we have European partners as well who may come to study for one trimester rather than for a full year so they can apply directly to the university and again that is an online application form but we do have more flexibility in how we can tweak and amend it till turn to formats it's not something we've got available at the moment but we are exploring it we've got a new vice principal who's looking at the customer journey the customer experience so he has come in the last nine months so I'm expecting some element of change but yeah there's far more structure under UCAS and what we can and cannot do but more flexibility in our own application systems and it's something that we are looking at just now helpful I mean I would just build on what Kirsty has said I mean essentially as a member organization with UCAS you are under contract to ensure that your undergraduate applications are managed through UCAS so the applicant is not applying directly to each of the institutions their application is submitted to UCAS and then the information is passed on but obviously the world is changing we are looking at lots of different delivery types of education it's not just about the on-campus experience we have campuses overseas we have distance learning arrangements we have online learning and yes our undergraduate population apply through UCAS our postgraduate population will generally apply online we have a lot more flexibility in terms of the questions that we can ask of those types of applicants interestingly we have developed a significant online profile mainly postgraduate level for September 2017 entry and there has been extensive discussion within Aberdeen about that journey for the applicant and the need to ask the level of questioning that perhaps is asked through the traditional undergraduate and postgraduate trying to recognise that the online learner has different needs different requirements that the steps that and essentially the steps that they have to go through in order to become a registered student don't have to be exactly the same as it is for an undergraduate and through UCAS and trying to kind of streamline it and make it much easier and less questioning in terms of the of the questions that are asked or the procedure they have to go through because an online learner is probably never going to be on campus and did you want to add anything my response would be very similar to curses these in the sense that um there are restrictions in terms of UCAS but um when we're accepting you know the standard the localised application form for direct court direct applicants to the institution there is more flexibility um in how those applications are received um and there wouldn't be an issue with them being um considered in an alternative format thank you but obviously custody given the comments that you made previously about um the length of time it takes UCAS to change any change won't happen in the immediate future um the last year at UCAS they've got a new chief executive she came in just in july um so at the first time we'll meet her on Tuesday um they've had their marketing director leave they've had their policy and stats person leave as well so there's a lot of staff have extended UCAS in the last I would say six months so at the meeting I was at they had one of the directors and don't worry it's not a sinking ship all is still well everything's moving forward um so there's some kind of element of frustration um I attend that meeting with university of Edinburgh and you know we've been given a wish list of from all Scottish universities of what we would like them to focus on and prioritise and we're still unclear actually what they have focused and prioritised on um so we're hoping we'll get more of a sense in Tuesday actually this is the direction of where they're going and have a clear understanding what the timescale is because we I had an understanding that by next year we'd have this simply and I'm really not quite sure it may be 2019 and this is a slippage that's happened I think I would just ask um that of course UCAS um they have been criticised in the past before by universities when they've tried to bring about change without due notice because when it's a technology based change each university and how they receive the data from UCAS will be managed differently with different systems so there is there is justification for um you know a long lead-in time um the other aspect um which is perhaps a delicate one in that you know Scotland as a voice in terms of the number of institutions in Scotland we are kind of of about 16 in number um there are over there are nearly 400 institutions who are members of UCAS and through the groups that the Scottish universities are part of on the admissions you know we are very vocal in our views um and our wishes and um you know we're we don't like to be forgotten but um we are a small voice um when UCAS are listening to the rest of their customer base and that includes applicants and schools as well as all the institutions south of the border okay thank you can I just interrogate that revelation that we've had a massive change in senior management at UCAS so it strikes me that UCAS is part of the jigsaw here in terms of improving access and widening access is that a problem is is this an organisation in distress and is that going to be a barrier to our efforts here we were at the meeting I was at we were um comforted with the fact that um Claire wants to halt where we are right now and doesn't want to rush um she wants to get a sense of where we are of where they are as an organisation and then identify the key things they now want to work on so they might be behind schedule but she wants to halt where they are and get real sense and involve all the petitioners and all the HEPs rather than sort of ignoring our voice she wants to work in partnership with yourself a bit of a change I would sort of say yes um so yes and I think to you I think to UCAS um you know they have brought about a lot of change already um they have focused on different groups um of of their customers so they have um to some extent improved the the way in which the information is available to potential applicants they've improved the systems that allow universities to promote the degrees and the information relating to the degrees so um there is a huge investment going on behind the scenes in terms of their technology and their developments I think they've just hit a little bit of a a stall at the moment and it's a pause but I think they're looking to progress with renewed vigor but I think they have to get a mandate from the members and that will be through the annual update which is next week and further development at the conference there our annual conference in March okay thank you how'd you bring in gail ross now thank you convener good morning panel thank you for coming along Mary Fee touched on the applications process and when the committee took evidence on this topic there was a certain number of people that said there needed to be greater transparency in how applications are processed and Carl you touched on the the UCAS side of it there that included how contextual applications operate could you maybe tell us a little bit about those okay so in terms of you know the contextual information I mean obviously through universities outcome agreements and our discussions with the funding council these are constantly evolving so there are additional fields of information information that we're analysing within the the application so yes universities will present their minimum entry requirements that's looking to give an indication of kind of what you need to have in order to be considered but there are other factors and I think universities are doing more and more to kind of explain what those other factors are and how they are used or measured and assessed within the process it's a journey that's that's not complete by any means there's probably whether it will be more and more that can be said to give you know our audience more information but obviously we're looking to get a sense of the the experiences that an applicant has had today through their schooling through wider issues it is difficult because the information that is presented in the application is what we've got to go on and telling the story can be problematic because some of that information is very very sensitive and of course they're putting it into kind of a great big UCAS system in terms of a personal statement or a reference so I know that universities do a lot to engage with and do outreach work so that we're working with the schools directly through a lot of different environments sort of aim for uni at Aberdeen for the reach project to give applicants the confidence to kind of talk to us or communicate with us off record so that we can marry that information with the application and we're trying to do more and more in our outreach works to get that message across with the extensive work that we're doing with schools so that we have all of that information and to encourage applicants to declare and answer the questions as best they can in the UCAS application and as honestly as they can so we can then enter into that into that dialogue I think admissions is much more now about a kind of continued dialogue it's not just a case of taking an application and making a decision yes or no there's engagement with applicants and schools and their advisors a greater a greater way than it once was it's not straight well it was never straightforward and it's even less straightforward forward now so okay just really to add to that and it's probably one of the things just to emphasise is there we do a lot of work as well with the academic with the selectors and when the applications come in and it's you know and particularly to do consider in detail students personal statements and we know now that there is increased ever-increasing pressures on you know applicants to to illustrate this really really broad range of external experiences but you know a lot of people you know it's luck favourably for students that have had work experience or voluntary experience which for students with disabilities or applicants with disabilities that may not be tangible in particular some applicants with more significant disabilities so for them to get their two a's and three b's or to get their five a's or whatever that's the only thing they could do is to focus on their academic work so we've been working with them academic selectors you know to take that into consideration that it's not just about personal statements and sometimes it's okay just to look at entry requirements you know and to things do it the contextualised approach is great and it is by considering things in context but um I do think there's it's not just on applicants as when students get in and you know students go on into employment there's so so much pressure on them to do more than just obtain a degree which in itself is hugely challenging for the bulk of students irrespective of whether or not they have additional needs or disabilities so it's kind of making selectors aware of that and getting that to follow through into employment or can it's another challenge? Okay, of course, do you have anything to add? I mean for the EWS we're quite a different organisation and we've got quite a broad based student population just other day we've got I think over 50% of some SID 40 of our student population so we do have quite a wide widening access agenda we've got an outreach team, a recruitment team who work very closely together um I'm sensing in terms of discussions this morning slightly more that we could be doing in terms of our disability team as well enhancing the information that's certainly given out but we do have a strong sense and outreach across the university and we work closely with our secondary schools and AFE colleges um but yeah so how do you think that um or do you have any evidence of your individual institutions taking forward contextualise um applications as part of the national BSL plan? I can just respond to it in terms of where our institution is with the BSL plan and it is it's we're at the stage where it's up for discussion at our equality and diversity strategy committee meeting in a couple of weeks so this is this kind of we're at the early stages in terms of implementation but the recommendations from this report will be considered in detail when we're implementing the BSL plan. I was also going to ask what challenges that you see arising from the implementation of the plan that might be a I don't know if it's an easier question to answer we're straightforward one to answer. I mean certainly I was given some information by our disability team and I think it was raised last time I was here in the chamber the mention was made the north east of Scotland there is a particular challenge with regards to BSL interpreters there's I think they describe it as a dearth of interpreters in the north east of Scotland and that presents a real challenge for students that would require those services if they're coming to study in and around Aberdeen not just at the University of Aberdeen but Robert Gordon at the college that is of major concern and that will be something that our disability and our student support team will be taking on board I think they have been attending meetings recently there they have been working with our equalities officer within our human resources section they've made mention of a lady called Alison who is going to be working with both the FE college and the HE sector in the north east of Scotland to help kind of take that forward as well but that's one of our particular concerns. We have a member of staff that is training herself to become BSL and she now has a video on the website under student support section and she's been engaging with each of our six schools and having a general welcome for each of the six schools so that has been discussed. We've also been looking at working with a rich media company on our video content on programme information, why come to UWS, virtual tourism, we've got a BSL slant for that as well so we do have lots of plans developing but we do have one video online just now in the website. I think for us in particular coming from our student support perspective I think probably one of the challenges is going to be getting the sector to recognise the BSL plan as something that extends beyond the mere support provision for BSL users within higher education you know what's kind of looking at as a poster because it's been passed and I know from speaking to my counterpart at other institutions it is very much being perceived as something that's a kind of a student support issue whereby the fundamentals of the BSL act is you know to get BSL recognised as you know as a language it's a culture in its own right so practically we'll have the same challenges as everyone else in terms of resources and the availability of sign language interpreters to bring some of this work forward but equally it's the recognition of I've been something much broader. Thank you Gail I'd like to pick up on that last point Anne and I was struck when you said earlier as well that you know the stage at which you are at in your institution in terms of the implementation of the BSL plan is that it's up for a discussion I think that there is clearly a tremendous amount of goodwill around BSL and an understanding that we should be doing more it's important to recognise that it is an official minority language rather than just an equalities agenda this is a culture in and of itself but perhaps also I'm reflecting on Kirsty's remarks about the fact that you have one member of staff who's teaching herself and do institutions need to do more to proactively recruit and train in-house translators to answer the challenge of the BSL plan well that was an easy question okay how and who that's harder yeah I think the member of staff that we have you know she's very keen you know she wants to do more but it seems to you know there's conflicting views I think within the organisation on priority and role and remit and I think unless we have a dedicated person that that is the role I think the kind of confusion of the struggle carry on I'm hoping that's not just a UWS but that's what we certainly have feels as a conflict we'll build it into your continuous professional development of lecturing staff or teaching staff or could you I'm not aware but certainly something we could yes okay invite you to take that okay David Torrance and good morning everybody um I'm going back to go back to brexit and impact it will have on the university sector and applications in the possible loss of some of the european equality laws can I also ask about the loss of european funding and the trickle down effect that will have across the whole university sector how it will affect well certainly um I think we'll be finding when we go to our UCAS meeting next week we'll be getting some statistical information with regards to applications for the 2017 cycle we had an informal UCAS meeting of practitioners on Monday and we got some advanced information which would suggest that acceptancies to the Scottish universities has increased for 2017 entry and that is contrary to what has happened south of the border and that the increase in acceptancies to Scottish universities has predominantly been from Scottish domiciled based students but of course Scotland operates in a different environment to south of the border there is no cap in the south on the south of the border universities are free to take as many students as they want to and that's not the same situation in Scotland there is a control on the overall population within the institutions and that has to be has to be to be factored in but essentially there is an expectation because it's already started to happen that applications from European Union applicants is on the decline so we are we are seeing fewer applications coming into UCAS certainly at undergraduate level and in terms of overall kind of staffing in terms of overall funding you know all universities in Scotland will have that concern about the the links that they have with the european other universities other academic staff the access to the funding that's available through the european union structure will all have an impact and i would suspect all universities are working at looking at at the impact that this will have we have noticed a few lecturers already leaving us european lecturers come back to their home country already and it's not a significant number but you know maybe two or three as a result already you did mention there about the loss of european funding and that impact of and staff are you saying it could be possibly staff jobs made me redundant because of the loss of european funding um you know i wouldn't say that necessary i'm not party to to to that kind of you know sort of information but i think you know universities will be concerned that they will not have full inclusion in terms of the developments and being at the table in terms of research activities because we're not part of the european union thank you thank you david and on a different topic and we are coming up against our time but we certainly have time for any whilst always very much convener good morning panel um i was really encouraged to hear you speaking about mental health and making that more of a a sort of a priority within the universities probably for me it's we know that people with who disclose mental health have the one of the lowest outcomes how do they how are you looking to encourage those to actually disclose a mental health issue and are we looking at staff training as well so that there's the sort of a more the sort of a covers there all the time and not just at the admissions stage or application stage i had mentioned at the start that we have just launched a student mental health action plan and um as part of that very much focuses on students mental health and overall well-being mental well-being um and we recognise that it's fundamental that we flip things on their head because um we know we're encouraged in the fact that the number of students declaring mental health issues is increasing however we do know that it is significantly under reported um we know that many of them as i had said earlier don't equate having a mental health issue to having a disability and rightly so they shouldn't so basically what we're trying to do is implement uh um uh or have a new strategy whereby we're focusing very much on prevention and awareness raising we're working very closely with the students union to implement number of initiatives to try and work with the general student population we know that the number is access and any of the support service not just disability council and health services within universities while demand for these services from the students group is increasing we do know we're we're only getting a very very small proportion of the numbers of students presenting with mental health issues so we're doing a lot of work with the students union we are also working with staff across academic departments we plan to roll out we're we've started a mental health first aid training program which is going to be rolled out across across the whole university and we are working with academic departments in the very early stages but what we're hoping to have is we already have disability contacts within every department and we're considering extending their role to be disability and wellbeing advisors we're at very early stages of discussion um about this but it's to recognise that the bulk of students aren't coming near student support so we need to work with our academic colleagues and again the student population we know that students are more likely to tell their friends about challenges their experience and as opposed to you know speaking to either an academic member, a starter, a staff or a support service so we need to work with that cohort and upskill them to enable them to better support each other as well thank you annie any further questions no that was that was me i'm really encouraged though that mental health has been taken seriously within the sort of a disability framework of the universities thank you annie just a final question from me we are interested as a committee in the review of student support which is expected but we're not cited on when that's likely to be forthcoming can you shed any light on this for us is it in terms of sfc outcome agreements is that yes sfc were actually uws yesterday i wasn't partied to the meeting but i do know from a colleague although we haven't been given outcome agreements we've been given it's a ministerial letter of guidance and within that it talks about dissections on widening axes gender balance stem etc part of the intensification i think john hem talked about earlier on so we haven't been given our full outcome agreement as yet but we are aware that it does give more content to what we've discussed at the committee thank you well i think that draws us to the end of our questioning unless any of my colleagues have any further follow-ups in which case thank you so much for your time this morning again very helpful to our consideration of this issue i'm aware that there were some times questions that you weren't didn't feel comfortable answering for your institutions if they're more than welcome to write to us if they want to provide clarification i'm sorry if for any point you felt put on this spot but similarly if you feel that there's something you would have liked to have said that didn't have the opportunity to then by all means get back in touch and we can continue this as an open dialogue so thank you very much for joining us and i'll suspend the committee to go into private session