 Welcome to 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 equality services and admission services about the issues faced by disabled people and people who use British sign language as their language, pretending Scottish universities. We will have BSL interpretation, so just the usual caveats about, and this is for me mostly not to speak too fast, to allow them to sign properly. 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. Harold Bavrstock, 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. Kirstyn Ox, who is the assistant head recruitment admissions and participation services at the University of West Scotland. Welcome all this morning to committee. We are really grateful for your attendance at committee this morning and grateful for any written submissions that you have given us thus far. We are going to kick straight into questions because we want to hear from you and hear some of your ideas that you have. We have had a huge amount of written evidence from people who have access to services as students or have been members of staff. We have got a real varied view of how people feel. We have 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 insight into where you think some of the challenges are and what actions that your organisations have taken. I know that we have the chairs of admissions and disability services, so general questions about the whole service that we may direct to you, but we are also interested in your institutions as well. I am happy just for whoever to go first and give me some ideas of where they think the challenges are and what actions they are taking to address those challenges. Speaking for the University of Edinburgh, you will be aware that we are one of the largest and oldest universities in Scotland, so there are very specific challenges around our physical estate, the fact that we have almost 300 buildings, some of which are listed, some of which are very old. We 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 is a fire evacuation drill. I have not got the code, so bear with me. I will try not to splutter too much. I think that for Edinburgh and throughout the sector, one of the issues is around the whole mainstreaming and inclusion agenda. It is certainly something that we have looked at via our accessible and inclusive learning policy, which we introduced over three years ago. 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. I say should be because it is 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 that it was not a constant challenge to get adjustments that the University of Edinburgh student disability service recommends for individual students that we need to get those put in place out in the schools. As I said, it is a very, very large institution. We have got 22 separate schools with different practices and different approaches, so we need to look at that. The university currently has a major disability review on-going, 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 the student disability service has doubled over the past five to six years. That has 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 and less students dropping out because of challenges with a disability? We have certainly seen more and more students. We have almost three and a half thousand students at the latest count for our last academic year, who disclosed a disability. Both the sheer numbers and the proportion of the student cohort have just increased year on year on year, so it is not just that there are more students coming to the university but that the proportion of disabled students has grown year on year and shows no signs of slowing up, which is good. Excellent. Some of the other institutions, a few. Jane? In contrast to Shiloh, we are a very small institution with barely a thousand students. As I put in my submission, we have about 28 per cent of the student population have disclosed a disability or a medical condition or specific learning difficulty. We have a very high percentage of students with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties, so about 15 per cent of students with dyslexia and dyspraxia. The numbers have grown hugely. Since I started in post in 1998, there were about 10 students who disclosed a disability, and last year there were 293. The Conservatoire 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 are dealing with some very traditional, if I can say, art forms, music, opera. 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. Whether you are teaching your student the violin or you are rehearsing them in an opera, adjustments need to be made. Sometimes, just because of the traditional nature of those art forms, the idea of adjustments does not always come easily. I was just going to go round the table and allow everyone to have their seat. At the university of Strathlide, some of our issues reflect the issues that Shiloh has communicated in relation to Edinburgh. We have a very, very large campus on one of what is professed to be the steepest hills in Glasgow. We have huge challenges in relation to the physical estate. That has been addressed through estate redevelopment. All our new buildings are making sure that they are as accessible as is humanly possible. There are challenges of the physical estate. We are also experiencing growing numbers. Since I have been at Strathlide in the past six years, we have gone from 1,200 students to over 1,600 students with disabilities. What we are also finding is that the categories of disabilities are changing. There has particularly been an increase in mental health disclosure, which reflects the sector as a whole. We have also had a significant increase in the number of students presenting with autistic spectrum disorders. Obviously, both of these are wholly and entirely positive. We see it as great that people and students are choosing to disclose. 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 is not often seen as easy to support some of these students because of the nature of their conditions. 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. That can be a particular challenge. I feel that staff in central support services are quite comfortable and confident in supporting these students. Obviously, students spend the majority of their time in their academic department, so it is really trying to work with a very large academic community to try and equip them to feel sufficiently confident in their support of these students. I definitely feel that, in our experience at Strachlyde, there is a willingness without a doubt. 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 is not perceived as straightforward a student case. Is there training available for those staff? A key theme that has emerged through the evidence that we have had is some students feeling that they would be much more confident in the lecture room or in classes when, for instance, we have evidence from a student that uses BSL as a language, who felt that their university experience would have been much better if the lecturer had had some BSL or deaf awareness training. The same with mental health, the same with other disability training. What is available for staff? Yes, 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 that they have a level of deaf awareness. That is how it supports within the institution, but I assume that my colleagues across the table would definitely scope for doing a lot more. You said take-ups varied. Is there any moves as far as CPD for academic staff to make some of the training mandatory for their academic year-on-year CPD? The University of Edinburgh is very conscious of the support that academic colleagues require with regard to mental health. We have instituted, in conjunction with one of the senior academics who has 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 Anne has highlighted about engagement and attendance. Certainly there has been a bit of discussion about making that training mandatory. Currently it is not mandatory, but I think that I speak for many of my student services colleagues who would agree that we would like it to be so. I am going to open out to questions, Jeremy. Good morning and thank you all very much for coming along. I have maybe just three or four questions. If that is okay, I will keep them brief. The first one is picking up on the final point by Ushiller. I have no doubt that at any university and at the other universities across Scotland what you are saying is right at the top—the principal, the chancellor and the court all agree with everything that you have said. However, if you dig down to a lecturer in a particular school, it is just not getting there. There is something missing between your department and the average lecturer at any university. How do we bridge that gap? It is already well having policies and bits of paper, but if it is making no difference to the average student's experience, we are wasting our time. How do you see that we can bridge the gap between what you want to do and how we do it? That is a very good question. We have constantly grappled with it and we continue to do so. We are looking via the disability review that I mentioned earlier at that very issue. I think that we recognise that the key to the process is further engagement between the student disability service and each of the academic schools. I think that 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. Perhaps a situation arises where many academic colleagues—or some academic colleagues, I should not 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 is in the legislative context or whether it is just good practice or the right thing to do. I think that what we will be looking at specifically will be ways of further engaging with our individual schools probably starting from next year. I do not want to suggest that we do not engage with schools, but we recognise that that has to happen in a much more meaningful way. It is a question and it is aimed at whoever wants to jump in and take it. We have got a very helpful breakdown of, if you like, listening of the different types of disability that might come to the University. Clearly, the highest number of people across every institution is those that we have dyslexia or ADHD. I think that is very good. I think probably universities have by and large pretty well set up for that type of condition. My question is, how do you deal with more complex ones? I asked this question last week, is there a hierarchy of disability? If I have dyslexia well, we can cope with that, but if I have a multiple disability, physical disability or whatever, will there be more difficult to deal with? In your experience amongst the schools of your universities, is there a hierarchy of disability? You were not in one way or the other. I will jump in with that. You are 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. I will 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, he would need a complete package of support. Our approach was that open day was probably September or October for application or entry the following year. From that point onwards, we engaged with that student to ascertain as early as possible what support that student may require. It was a supportive approach, it was a 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. The early intervention was key because for that support package, the student needed to look at adapt and accommodation, we needed to look at whether his social 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, 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 the 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 Strathclyde 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 applicants 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 of the course by April, May time for entry in August, September. Can I be devil's advocate for a moment and say if 10 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 good question and I'm not trying to accuse you of not but I think what is the level that you can cope with? Yeah 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 support package 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 a promise. 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 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 open as 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. That will be quite interesting in as far as the different types of assessments that you would do as compared to maybe the other ones. Yeah 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 student's 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 student's course and look at any adjustments that that would be required. So we are I think it's fair to say we are very flexible. We don't insist on written assignments students can present an audio submission or a video submission if that's easier. Students can they 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 sort of out of the set assessment diets for students. And so yeah I think we are we are flexible in 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 too nerve wracking or mentally not not possible to to perform in the in the hall then we will accept our recording as a performance assessment and we are we are always open to 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 are operating 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 yes we do 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 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 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 just my final question is in regard to I mean I think it's already positive what you're hearing there will be some students who simply 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 it's when you assess someone and you find you cannot meet their needs where do you signpost them on to or how would you deal with an individual group for whatever reason because of a disability you simply couldn't accommodate them what support do you give them and what signposting? 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 hierarchy of disability I don't 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 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 on that basis whilst also recognising that yet Edinburgh's physical estate is is less than ideal. Carol with your admissions hat on in your general overview of admissions across being the chair that's right. Is that something from an admissions point of view where you know 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 and what we also have a lot of facilities that are very modern and you know 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 laboratory work takes place or 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 and delivering lectures and tutorials and that kind of thing 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 under 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 student self-selects 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 that your questions earlier I think one of the challenges that that probably presents to all institutions is very much a keenness that applicants 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 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 as appropriate 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 they 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 that we took last week was about the UCAS system being much more responsive response to this and go to bring in Alex Cole. Thank you convener good morning everybody thank you for coming to see us today my question my well I've got two questions the first of which really stems from your comments just now carol and it's great to have you here because Aberdeen is my alma mater and I was president of the SRC and what just at the turn of the millennium actually a long time ago now but 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 nutrition and I just wondered if you could offer some comments about what mechanisms if any you employ to keep students in post once we've got them there particularly if they're affected by disability so that you know everybody you know 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 I mean retention is a a keen topic amongst you know all universe there's a lot of a lot of involvement and effort goes on to ensure that you know the student 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 from our university principle across all of our schools in the university to look at 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 prospectuses and they will come along to visit days and applicant days but it's very much it's 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're 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 multiple pieces of information at multiple points and not just a single well this is your handbook and 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 the student in any aspect of university university life so thank you a named person almost yeah just to say to follow on from what Carol was saying I think for us early intervention is is key we we track students absences and if a student has more than a certain number of absences then then they are asked to come along for an in what's called an investigatory meeting just to see if there are things that are not not going well if more support needs to be put in place if the support that's been provided isn't working we we also the learning agreements that I described earlier I contact all students with disabilities who have a learning agreement in January to 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 through their course is is looked at and and any any student who is not doing well again if they have a 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 the year we have our special circumstances board which happens just before the exam board and again all students with disabilities are are looked at and any any student who is is not doing well again the learning agreement and support is is checked and any issues are noted so so we do and because we're because of the numbers because the numbers are small obviously I realise that that this is perhaps a luxury that we have but we are able to to personally sort of track every student thank you my second question is speaks to the student experience we heard we were reminded last week very eloquently that that actually you know lectures only fulfill in my case if you're an art 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 kind of mitigating support to students with disabilities that those nine hours really are actually very just very much a small part of that student experience and when they talk about the sort of wider university life including societies and 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 managed 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 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 kind of five campus locations and obviously four base in Scotland and we try and make sure and we do endeavour at the moment to make sure the approach is 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 because we felt as though the touching points for students were quite minimal and to have an engagement point throughout the academic cycle in terms of you know attending classes assessment you know workshops etc and that pilot was very successful now we have a school enhancement diversion enhancement developer 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 as a student that's got a disability they have a name disability advisors and we try to make sure there's a sort of 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 and we've also introduced in terms of the university kind of the ultimate student experience that all university try to strive towards and we've introduced a students a welcome festival and we run that at each campus and it's very much you know 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 and students association everyone is there and it's our societies it's our clubs to promote 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 second to none and Paisley 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 in the ground floor it's right next to funding advice disability services so very much focusing on student experience is at the heart of the centre of the university and that is replicated at Dumfries campus also at air campus and obviously now we are looking forward to the Lancer campus which 2018 we're striving to award that and again that'll have the same approach so we certainly have invested a huge amount in the last few years and 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 and about the first year we'll go into that and we'll do the student satisfaction surveys so we always analyse our information that we get from that 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 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 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 students don't want to be identified same as carer leavers they don't want the stigma of being identified for them 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 certainly 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 in 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 very clear element of the oral evidence we had last week and some written evidence 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 kind of a one-on-one off-put process policy for a deaf student that has to have an interpreter and so that they always have someone with them is endeavour to work towards that. What the disability team have noticed is that are identifying 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 Eleanor 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 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 book end on that one of the things that 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 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 in which it added to a virtuous cycle of investment in resources for it so that it almost sort of built itself as it were. My roles expanded in the last few months to take on all of recruitment admissions and participation not all of it who got ahead of department but for me in my asking questions in terms of applicant information sessions open days what extra support do we need to put into plate to highlight the support services that we have for these students that are coming on to the university and not just to pay as a campus but every single campus that we have in the university so it's for me it's it's a really exciting time to take things forward at the university. Thank you and good morning everyone a lot of them what I wanted to 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 you've been 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 and 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'd be fair she'll let you come back in that way yes apologies for the use of the word permitted that's a very good point thank you yeah I mean I think what what all institutions continue to grapple with is the fact that under the equality act we have an anticipatory duty which where again it ties into the whole kind of 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 yeah I don't want to go into too much detail about the admissions process because I'm not totally familiar with it other than um at Edinburgh we the disability information is not taken into account in terms of whether an offer is made but that's not really the point I'm trying to get at how 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 actually would probably be my admissions colleagues who would maybe carry on as an admissions person would be able to answer that yes I can try and try and answer that I mean obviously for 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 facilitate the delivery of the applications to each of the choices that an applicant has made now they do a lot 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 common place in universities in the application procedure which is not necessarily understood by those that are looking to go and have that experience and not everybody would appreciate what undergraduate means or what postgraduate means and UCAS have developed their services over you know 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 their different stakeholders so obviously applicants are key to their business as our schools and colleges as our advisors as our universities and colleges so as they're 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 and everything 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 with those that are going to be using it both at the front end and at the back end to try and ensure that that it's it's doing its job okay that's very reassuring does anyone else want to comment back just add in in terms of the engagement that UCAS has you know 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 we have Scottish universities thank you and so 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're doing so many developments on their products and we have webinars each Wednesday morning i think every fortnight and we can all participate and then we can view the sessions afterward so again as Carol says it's not just UCAS devising a product and running with it they do trying to engage with us and they bring in student testers so again as I said we're very lucky that we do have a very much a voice on how the products are moving forward okay thanks for that and I've just got one very 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 it was myself will we've arranged of 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 over it's four half day sessions and have to complete a support and course work for that so it goes in to quite a lot of detail on the development of inclusive teaching practice within the university so 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 there's 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 you know 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 it will be on a more informal basis but it will have training development but it will be very much specific and focused on that individual students needs as well we'll do something very similar with working with students who are blind or visually impaired as well like we do have we do have a rolling program of training workshops you know that we deliver kind of three or four times a year but then we will do kind of the tailored specific courses working with individual academic department when that need has been identified by the identification of a new student okay thanks for that and do other institutions do the same type of awareness training absolutely we'll very much similar to what Anne's outlined at Edinburgh we'll do tailor made training for individual schools on request and impairment specific the range of training we're 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 yes um similarly um we have um a learning and teaching conference every year and part of part of that um it's it's open to all staff and part of that conference is given over to disability awareness training um so we had um the NUS Scotland mental health officer um in this this year to give to give um mental health training um we've had Scottish autism um to provide training on for on ASDs um the RNIB so it's it's again it's a a rolling program also if there are any specific requests from departments then we can organise that as well okay thank you thank you very much Willie Coffey thanks very much convener hello everybody um could I go back to this point about um 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 in 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 um in terms of a publicised common approach um 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 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 um and certainly Aberdeen our academic admission selectors work very hard to do that admissions setups 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 achieve 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 and again I think most universities 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 you know the disability or 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 you know to take account for the information that it 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 if before anybody else answers that could I just clarify what I mean really mean by this supposing I'm a student with a disability applying 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 isn't it 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 what do you 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 advisors and they work with our college partners on the move from for hnc and hnc students coming into the university and what we're going to arrange I think for me next year is having a college awareness session and we have a student recruitment team that engage with secondary schools and go out and do school talks but it's more the provision of our 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 advisors 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 but with funding of the disabilities and by having those sessions we're then going to be having that kind of me then we're going to have college sessions for students and we're looking for October we recently had a set of them last month but we felt we 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 sort of paisley and air and invite all our college partners and then once Lanarkshire's 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 of a students at a college just now and has their support in place the expectation might will be will automatically be at the university if 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 and the same with the DSA in terms of the funding aspects it is quite sometimes late for students to get their funding so I feel so yes we can engage when they have information and information and guidance 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 services always open for open days when students and their families come to see the university as a purpose I guess of their decision whether to 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 and yeah I think it's in addition some of the points that Kirsty made you know it's 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 and 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 and I couldn't say with any degree of certainty but I think that would be where a lot of information or certainly anecdotally that 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 you know 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 we'll we're kind of available to talk to potential students asking inquiries we're trying to manage and navigate their journey well before that their applicants and ensure that they have a mechanism to find out the detailed information that they might require so like the other universities we're 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 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 the choice is theirs. It's about personal statements and some of your submissions refer to these I suppose 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 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 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 through our widening access as well to explain the kind of things that we're looking for 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 and 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 they're pretty subjective really in terms of how they're treated I mean how I'm worried about what I'm concerned about is how can students who perhaps don't get accepted to one of your institutions and someone who perhaps does with exactly the same qualifications how do we know that there's fairness been applied well if they have the same qualifications that some likely that two different decisions will be made oh that's interesting but you can't imagine 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 programs 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 because I just press on that in responding to a student who has perhaps been turned down for something like medicine it's simply a letter of vaccine sorry he didn't get in there's no detail the explanation of here's how we looked at your personal statement here's what we scored and put positively and so on it's simply a letter that comes back saying sorry well it wouldn't be it at the University of Aberdeen because yes because they will they will get an X you know so applications to medicine if they're not being brought forward for an interview they are they are given feedback on why they are not being brought forward for interview there will be specific 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 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 interesting to pursue that another opportunity absolutely we're just about over over our time Annie I don't know if you want to get into a quick question just a very quick one on the back of willies we were saying willie was saying about the sort of personal statements and you were saying it's written submissions do you do other submissions as well at bsl submissions and video submissions the way that the royal conservator was saying that you would look at various different aspects to sit exam as 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 as 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 in and we would engage with the school and in my experience I've not had a school saying no it's not possible we obviously have interviews and additions for quite a creative programmes and there's film reel so they do have access to provide alternatives but it's not been mainstream as such but we do have an experience of a few people coming forward isn't it and we think it should be something that we should be saying during an interview that 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 down especially if it is sort of a dyslexia or something like that they could be very articulate at speaking and it may make their application more successful it might even feel a bit more confident in putting the application forward it's a really interesting point absolutely and I think you know 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 it was that had arisen last week from a BSL user who was a witness our inquiry last week said that if the opportunity to do the application in BSL was available but also the issue about what's available on your website for people that 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 we will be following up as part of the committee inquiry and if you go away and you think I should have said that please get back in touch with us 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 session so I'm going to suspend committee now we will be starting back sharp at 11 am but we've got a bit of work to do in the private session as well so thank you so much and we'll go into