 G cracking on the 9th meeting of the equality and human rights committee of 2016. Gw loads of people to do the usual and put your mobile phones and devices on silent flight mode place. We are moving swiftly on to agenda item 1, which is the scrutiny of the draft budget for 2017-18. It is our main item of business today. The scrutiny for this committee's work is to focus on and to examine public policy in the area of disabled people and British Sign Language users applying to and attending Scottish universities. We have some BSL translation with us this morning, so we will just carry on with our work this morning. I would like to welcome our two panel members this morning, who are Russell Gunson, a member of the commission on widening access and director of IPPR Scotland. Welcome back to the Parliament, Russell, and Lynne Graham, head of the Secretary of State for the Commission on Widening Access. I thank you both for coming along this morning for your written evidence. We have had quite a lot of written evidence in from organisations and people who have taken part in this inquiry. What we would like to do first up is to give you both a couple of minutes to do a brief opening statement on the work that you will be doing. We have some questions coming from our colleagues and the committee. Russell, do you want to go first? Yes, thank you. Firstly, thank you so much for having me here today. It is a very interesting but also very important topic that you are looking at as a committee. Just to be clear from the start, I am here as a commissioner, one of many commissioners that sat on the commission on widening access. I will not, for one minute, think that I am speaking on behalf of the commission as a whole, at least of all Dame Ruth Silva, who is a fantastic chair of the commission and is more than capable of speaking for herself. Secondly, of course, I am not here as a Scottish Government representative, so if there are questions around Scottish Government policy, I can give you a view, but I can give you no, I am afraid, inside information. Cower, the commission on widening access, took place 10 years since the last major look at widening access in Scotland, which was called learning for all. We are very conscious that 10 years was a very good time to be looking at the issue, particularly given widening access rates had pretty much been static over that period of time. We are really keen, as a commission, to look at the very wicked problem of widening access from a system-wide approach. Often, within a large system like post-16 education, or you can go beyond that education more generally, parts of the system are able to blame or point towards other parts of that same system in terms of why the problem is still there. We took a system-wide approach to avoid that sort of scissor paper stone mentality within it. Equally over that 10 years, many bits of practice have been built up within the sector. There are loads of activity happening around widening access. What we wanted to do was to help the sector as a whole to determine what was good practice versus what was merely practice. Finally, in terms of an approach, we wanted to move away from the idea that there was a deficit in the individual when it comes to access. Too often, we can look at the applicant, the student or the graduate, and argue that there is a deficit of grades, skills or knowledge within that individual. For us, if there is a problem in widening access, it is a system problem. The deficit is in the system, not in the individual. Throughout the commission, we took evidence. We had a call for evidence. We had a number of study visits out into the sector. We also broke the commissioners down into expert working groups around some of the key issues within widening access as we sought it. In our final report, there were a large number of recommendations, 34 recommendations, with key recommendations including targets, a 20 per cent target for those from the most awry backgrounds by 2030. Equally access thresholds, looking at a very different way of doing admissions in the future. Access thresholds being the grades required to do the course as opposed to the going rate, if you like. We can get into some of this, if you like, in questions. Access framework, which would look very much at nudging activity towards good practice, an impactful practice and, of course, a commissioner. A commissioner on widening access, which the Government or in the midst, I understand, of appointing. The remit for car was clear, though. It was focused on deprived communities, so our focus as a commission was on socioeconomic factors. Therefore, in terms of BSL and disabled students, whilst, of course, there are intersectionalities between deprivation and those issues, we did not look at those issues in great detail directly. However, because we understood that, there was a key recommendation within the commission's final report that the commissioners should absolutely look at other protected characteristics in terms of widening access looking ahead. More work will be required, we understand that, and we understand that the commission will be taking that on. The 10 years since the first look at widening access, we have only seen incremental progress in that time. I certainly hope that, as a commissioner on the commission on widening access, over the next 10 or 15 years, we have seen much more of a step change on widening access. I hope that the commissioner and the implementation of CARES's recommendations will see that. Very much, Russell. Lynne, have you got something to add here? Not really, I think that Russell has covered the work of the commission. In terms of my role, I was involved in the inception of the commission, the remit and the scope, right through to publication of the final report. I am now leading the access team within government, so we have a number of dual roles there. I want to continue to support ministers in developing policy around access, and to lead on the co-ordination of implementation of the recommendations from the commission, and to support the commissioner for fair access when they are appointed with their work, to take forward their recommendations, but also to act as an advocate and a leader on this agenda. You will realise that the work of this committee is about equalities and ensuring that people have equal access. I have seen recommendation number one. The first point was the cohesive and system-wide efforts to drive fair access in Scotland. Acting as an advocate for access for disadvantaged learners and holding to account those with a role to play in achieving equal access. We are going to meet some of the admissions officers and disability officers over the course of this inquiry, so we will go into more detail with them. However, as a first principle in the recommendations, that is an excellent one, but it is very wide. It does not just deal with the deprived communities. One of the things that we have realised and the work that we are doing in the committee is that there is never just someone with a one-protected characteristic that they all overlap. In many cases, people from areas of multiple deprivation or social indices that recognise that have a disability as well. It is not just equal access for people from impoverished backgrounds or areas or that type of environment. It is then the added issues of having a disability or some of the other protected characteristic groups. The work of this committee is to look at that specific aspect in this inquiry as access for people with disabilities. In your work in the commission, did you come across—did that come through? Is there any sort of information and maybe insight that you can give us into the work that you did across the deprivation indices that demonstrated quite clearly that in some cases that was Carton Horse as far as whether it was—he came from a lower socioeconomic background or he had a disability or both? The brief input that was put together for today's evidence from the Joseph R.A. Foundation and MPI was really interesting and it confirms a number of other reports that seem to suggest that, for example, disability makes you much more likely to be in poverty. It does limit life chances in and of itself. Therefore, the commission is focused on socioeconomic factors. There is a logical link to suggest that we may, through increasing numbers of those from socioeconomic more deprived backgrounds into university, we may be able to do the same to disabled students too. I cannot say that the commission—again, the remit of the commission was very much focused on socioeconomic factors directly. We were aware that there were things beyond our remits that absolutely are necessary to be looking at. Again, that is why I think that this work is absolutely vital. Very much, I think that the commissioner, once appointed, does need to focus on those issues that the commission just simply couldn't. Beyond that, in the evidence that we took and the visits that we undertook, we were aware beyond our remit that there were factors beyond multiple deprivation on whichever way you measure it. However, the recommendations were very much focused on socioeconomic factors. However, as I said in the opening remarks, that principle of approach in terms of looking at this from a system point of view plays into this idea that, by focusing on one indicator, you could be missing a wider range of disadvantage. Taking a systems approach allows us—or allows the commissioner, should I say—to take a rounded view of disadvantage in general? Yes, I think that you generally find that people who find barriers—it is the barrier that is the issue and not the other things in that respect. If you are saying that a systematic approach is taken to reduce barriers or to end barriers completely, that is a good way to go. Can you give us any examples of where you have maybe identified some barriers and the work that you did do and the work that has been undertaken to either reduce or end those barriers? During the commission's process, it was clear just as one example that the admissions system that you mentioned, admissions officers, was one of the clear areas of focus for us. There was a number of different ways that you could approach admissions, so there is fairness around who could benefit the most from getting into university opportunity. There are supply and demand factors, so if there is a set amount of places at a given institution, you have to somehow reduce this larger number of applicants down to the number of places you have. Equally, there is who would do the best and who would achieve the most through their opportunity. Those three things are not, by any means, the same thing—they would point you in different directions. Getting into that, just in the admissions system, was a really interesting part of the commission's work. Where we got to was very much about fairness, and this was also about seeing opportunities to gain people with huge potential into university. Those were the potential to do the best that currently the system is missing, maybe through some of those supply and demand factors, for example. The same would apply, I would imagine, but again the commission did not look at this in specifics. The same would apply to other forms of disadvantage, too. If you are asking yourself the question, who would benefit the most from this opportunity, as opposed to some of those other questions that I outlined earlier? That might point you towards different people accessing the university opportunity that is on offer. I do not know if Lynne had anything to add on that one in particular. I think that, with the commission, we looked at social economic disadvantage, but we also looked at those with a care experience. We identified barriers for those with social economic disadvantage and proposed solutions to that. Then we looked at those with care experience to see if they had, over and above that, different barriers that those solutions would not assist with. I think that it would be similar in terms of looking at disability. A lot of the barriers for social economic disadvantage were to do with, if someone is born into a household where perhaps no one has been to higher education, where they do not have perhaps the finance to allow them to access extracurricular activity to build up their profile for their application, where they are not in a culture where a lot of people of their peers go to university. That is not necessarily the case if you are disabled, if you are born with a disability perhaps to an affluent family who you go to school that is quite a high progression school, you may not be facing the same barriers. There are other barriers around the attainment levels that those from social economic disadvantage backgrounds reach. We know they have lower attainment, we know people with certain disabilities, their attainment, their ability to attain their full potential may be limited by their disability. I think that it is about looking at the overlaps, identifying where some of the recommendations will help, but there are other areas where they may not be necessary for different groups. There will also be other areas where those with a disability would face challenges around perhaps communication and access, which would not necessarily be an issue for those from social economic disadvantage backgrounds. Although there are links between disability and poverty, we have to look at the types of barriers and who they are relevant to. From that, we can decide how much of this is going to help those with a disability and what additional areas have we not tackled in this that we need to be looked at. It is helpful, thank you. Moving on to open questions from our colleagues, Willie Coffey is your first up. Thank you very much, convener. I am good morning to you. I was pleased to hear your opening remarks, Russell, when you said that the deficit is in the system, not the individual. I think that that is quite an appropriate recognition that many of the barriers to equality of access are with individuals at all, really, there, with the systematic way that we approach this. Of course, for me and many others, the solution to this is going to be a long journey, but raising attainment is one of them. One of the other sides of that coin is admissions policies themselves. The paper that we have in front of us talks about having to look at the wider contextual admissions policies and non-academic factors. I am keen to explore with you what is meant by that and what are the barriers that youngsters are facing in terms of those aspects in getting to universities. In taking evidence and doing the work of the commission, I went a little bit into some of the different roles that an admissions system is attempting to undertake at the same time. We found that, for many institutions, contextual admissions existed but in very different forms. Contextualised admissions are all about not just looking at the grades of the individual but trying to get a much more rounded understanding of the person's interests, the person's talents, the person's potential to achieve. Most universities do have a form of contextual admission but they can vary quite widely between. All the way over to offering differential grade offers, depending on your background, would be quite an extensive form. Perhaps an opportunity to top up grades from a particular background over a summer school, for example, would be a form of contextualised admissions. All the way over to more of a baby step contextualised admissions, which would be having a look at the personal statement and supporting statement that most applicants have as they go through UCAS to determine interests and potential factors in their background too. All of it is to try and gain a true wider context of that applicant and to check and try and make the best judgment possible as to whether they would get the place or not. In terms of what we'd like to see in that, I think a running theme throughout most of the work that we did is we want this to be evidence-based, we want this to be driven by data and we want this to be the most impactful activity that's going on in the sector. Not all the time are institutions understanding the impact of their actions, so I think getting a little bit more on to whether their admission system, in this example, is having a positive effect on their targets and what they want to achieve in terms of widening access. The link isn't always there. Nudging, there's lots of good will, there's lots of very good intentions out in the sector and lots of amazing activity happening. What we need to do is to understand which of that activity is having the greatest impact on access and to focus on those that have the greatest impact. The access thresholds came about from the evidence that we'd found that people from socio-economically deprived backgrounds who got into university perhaps with lower grades did as well or better than their peers with high grades. It comes back to how well does their school attainment reflect their actual true ability and their potential. If someone from very difficult circumstances and difficult backgrounds has attained a certain level on leaving school, how does that compare with someone who's had a lot of support and attained the same level in terms of their potential? For disability, it would be about looking—some people with disability will not have any effect on their school attainment. It will not hold them back in any way for other people that may hold them back in achieving their full potential. It's about looking at that and seeing how well do the grades actually reflect their ability. I think that that was our feeling that your chance shouldn't end when you finish school. That shouldn't be the marker that you will assess at the end of school, and that's it. If there's a chance to catch up and to be successful within higher education, then that opportunity should be available. Is there any data from the universities that would show us what's happening here? Is there any evidence that the admissions policies are compounding the inequality of access, or is it making it better? That would be a really good place to start in terms of this inquiry and, again, the wider work of the commissioner once appointed to. For the widely accessed work that the commission did, we did have the evidence to suggest that, as Lynne was just referring to, whilst people from more deprived backgrounds are on average, but only on average, likely to attain less wealth than those from more privileged backgrounds at school, once it got into the university level, that same factor didn't exist. In short, you could have lower grades from a more deprived background at school, but perform just as well at university as someone with higher grades from a more privileged background. We don't have the evidence, as far as I know anyway, around disabled pupils. As to whether a disability is likely to lead to lower attainment, and then that second step, which is at university or higher education more generally, does that attainment hold all the way through? However, it is exactly the right question to be asking, I would suggest, in terms of are the admissions systems indirectly compounding a disadvantage that exists at school? Lastly, if I've got a moment, convener, the target, the 2030 target that 20 per cent for most deprived backgrounds should represent 20 per cent of entrance to higher education, but that's as a whole. That still allows certain circumstances or certain universities not to meet that target, if it's covered by others who exceed the target. How have we addressed that so that it is equal access to all universities? We were aware of the variation across different institutions in terms of our access profile for learners. There is a target within there that all institutions should be at 10 per cent of entrance by 2021. There is also an action in there for the Government and Ministers to review that target, going forward to see whether the Government will want to set a new target for individual institutions. On the one hand, we want all institutions to be doing their bit, but we also recognise that people perhaps from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to travel to study, so the profile of the population across the country affects this, but different subject choices affect that. The institutions are different, but we are very clear that every institution has to make its contribution, and at the moment the commission is offered to make that 10 per cent by 2021, which is quite a big step for some institutions. It will be reviewed thereafter. It wouldn't be a success if you achieved that 20 per cent by 2030 target by, for example, higher education in college, fully taking up the strain of that. Currently, there is a round reflection of society as a whole. There is a slight overrepresentation, if that is not too negative a way of putting it, of those from more deprived backgrounds within higher education in college than societies as a whole. If you push that too far and achieve your 20 per cent target, you would achieve the target, but you couldn't achieve what we were trying to achieve, which is a fairness across the system. Likewise, within universities, as the question suggests, if this was all done on, for example, newer institutions on the backs of newer institutions, rather than some of the older institutions, that wouldn't be a success either. There is a floor target in terms of, as Lynne says, so every institution according to the targets would need to get to 10 per cent by 2022. Equally within that recommendation, there is a suggestion that that should be reviewed. Over time, as we try and narrow the differences between institutions within the sector, that looks a lot more like success than if you have a very imbalanced pattern of access, but you meet your target overall. This isn't about meeting a target. The target is there to achieve the end goal, which is a fairer access to higher education in Scotland. Thank you very much for that. Thanks very much, Willie. Jeremy. Thank you for coming along. I have a couple of questions, but I was interested in your comment, Lynne, that once people get to university, they do as well sometimes even better than those that may come from a privilege background, but whatever word you want to use. Could you provide us with that data, or could you point us in the right direction of where to get that data? That was going to be one of my questions, either a higher fallout rate. You said that it isn't there. I struggled. I was looking at myself to find that I couldn't. I wonder if you could bounce out of this committee, maybe email us with that information. I suppose that coming from a different perspective, I was interested. I met a couple of university principals here in Llorians over the past few weeks. With fixed numbers for students, I think that everyone agrees with recommendation 32 that we would like to see that 20 per cent, but what do you do to the people who perhaps have achieved those grades but won't get a place because there's not enough room for the privileged? How do we avoid discriminating against somebody who gets say five years for medicine perceived to come from a privileged background, but because the university numbers are fixed won't get a place, how do we stop discriminating against them and have you given any thought to that? I think the commission gave a whole a great deal of thought to that and what we call displacement of students that are currently in the system through widening access. There's a number of different ways to look at this and the first one is that you want to get the right people into your higher education sector. What does that mean though? Who are the right people? Now currently the system is very much set up to say well the right people are those that get the best grades at school and those are the people that are entitled or deserve or whatever word you wish to use, a place at university, but the evidence that Lynne will be able to send across to you suggests that there's a little bit of doubt as to whether that assumption is right, whether that connection between school grades and achievement at university is actually the correct one. So that's the first thing, I challenge back a little bit because there is not from your question but from others that put that point of view forward there's an implicit judgement that somehow people that deserve a place would be being displaced out that may not be the correct judgement. But beyond that again what are you trying to achieve with the higher education system? So there's not one thing, there's a whole number of things but there is a balance to be struck and whether we've got the right balance between fairness and allowing again that deficit in the individual point as opposed to deficit in the system, whether we've got the right focus there in terms of were we just saying this is their problem, you know you didn't attain well enough at school, you don't have the skills or the knowledge to get in or are we taking responsibility as a system to say actually we need to do better at getting the best out of as many people as we possibly can. Specifically on fixed places I mean even you ration a system in different ways, even the system down in England which is very large tuition fees no real at least in terms of cash investment from the public sector into it and supposedly on cat places there is a rationing in that system still there are still people that would be pushed out and even if we were very conscious of this even if you get access correct you may just be kicking inequality a bit further down that system so what about retention you know if you if you have access to a broad number of people are you potentially setting them up to leave early and never mind that what about graduate outcomes so if you get retention and access right are you setting people up at the point of getting a job or starting a career to have inequalities at that point so we have to think about this in the round we have to think about this is system-wide and we also have to think of access is not just access through the door but also staying there and then out the other end into a into a life never mind a career that people enjoy and find fulfilling I mean I suppose I mean I know willovians best because it's the area where I represent where we are living and I suppose I'm just would be slightly concerned that we end up with because you go to a certain school that is seen as privilege you are then discriminated against from getting university because because you go to that school and I think we just got a hold of that balance between the 20 percent and I think we do maybe to look at the numbers that are capped at the moment and whether that needs to be increased but that's not for this committee that's a wider issue. My second question kind of leads on nicely from what you said at the end there is that university college is not just academia it's the whole university experience making friends socialising joining club societies etc a very broad experience do you think that's a barrier to people coming in that even if you can do it academically as you said moving to a different part of the country perhaps that whole kind of thought of socialising perhaps the maybe force picture of what college or university is like stops people going particularly roles maybe with disability and how do we break that barrier down always work already being done around that I think in terms of so I mentioned retention and the question really is about the sort of wider experience of going to university or college or higher education and actually those two things are very linked in the evidence so the evidence would suggest the more you feel at home the more you feel like you belong at the institution that you're at the more likely you are to be retained through to the point of qualifying and equally the higher performance is more likely to so those two things are very much linked and actually there's a few factors in there some around deprivation but some that could go wider than that for example home students that live at home as opposed to the move and live close to campus move out of their home talking about young students now rather than mature students they are a bit more likely to drop out not be retained equally distance learners part-time learners there's risks there but we would guess those factors around not feeling part of the the wider experience in terms of what's being done about it so the student associations particularly I should say I used to work for the national union of students so I don't know if that is an existing conflict of interest but there's a risk of a past one but student associations can be vital in that process and I know absolutely and intimately that they are very focused on equalities more generally and being as accessible as possible to the full student body but beyond that there are lots that the institutions are doing too and I should have said in response to the last question that it isn't just the target here and it's not just the commissioner there are a whole array of different parts of the system that are focused on this so it's not a blunt target that people are focused on outcome agreements for example that you'll hear a bit more about from the SFC when you speak to them focus on quite a tailored set of ambitions for each institution so if there's a particular problem there around retention or whatever it may be the outcome agreement can focus the minds of both the SFC and the institution on it so there are a lot of things that the institution is doing the institutions are doing in that area but student associations would also be one of the key ways to achieve that thank you okay you've got Mary next thank you thank you for your written submissions I wanted to ask a couple of questions around the practicalities of the recommendations and what they would actually look like can we go to recommendation one and the convener touched on this in her opening comments when you recommend that the commissioner for fair access leads a cohesive and system-wide effort to drive fair access are you able to give us a bit more information on what you think that would look like in practice because to produce a policy to improve access and to make it cohesive you have to include it's not a one-size-fits-all because you have to encapsulate all the different areas you're trying to cover so practically what do you think that will look like so to some extent it is not for me you know I can give you my view and I will but it isn't my decision but for how can you take I suppose first the place to start that there was a large debate within the commission as to where this commissioner should sit in the architecture of the system if you like and there was good strong arguments to suggest that it should sit within the HE within the FEHE part of the system but the argument against that and it won out was that this again needs to be a system-wide approach you need to include schools in this you need to include those employers potentially around the system as much as the FE and HE part of the system too so firstly that's a good place to start in terms of leading that cohesive approach the point of putting the commissioner in the position that it will be in they will be in was so that they are best able to look at this across the whole of the education system of course all the factors that look at it and I think I would point out that whilst we've had quite a static record and widening access over the 10-year period over the two or three-year period we've actually seen increases you know they're not should we say scintillating but they are actually in his in compared to where we've been they are progress that we've not seen before and there's a whole number of things that have happened at a similar time that could be driving that one the outcome agreements themselves came in secondly the prospect of legislation the post 16 education act was certainly being mooted that around the point that the progress began but my hunch and it's only a hunch is that it's the political focus it's the focus of all of you around this table but equally within the chamber and more generally the political focus on widening access hasn't been stronger I would argue than over the last four or five years and to me that does seem to be driving progress so for me in my view the commissioner can drive that cohesive approach by being a real conduit and a real point of influence across the system to really provide and including challenge to the Scottish Government and the Parliament really really provide that political focus on widening access so that we don't lose some of the progress that we've achieved over the last three or four years so it's it's less about a prescriptive policy to do it more about political awareness and I suppose you're kind of saying we're almost we've got an open door we need to keep pushing it that door and I think we need to learn from what seems to have worked over the last three or four years both in terms of that data-driven evidence impact element that I mentioned earlier but yes also in terms of what has focused the minds of people what has succeeded in doing that and the commissioner I think will be key in keeping that the foot to the floor if you like in terms of the progress that we've seen okay one job anything just echo what Russell said I mean I think the feeling with the commissioners was so what happens when we hand this report over we've looked you know the commissioners had looked at it as a system-wide effort and there was a fear that everyone would go back to their own part of the education system and concentrate on in their part so I think that was part of the reason to have someone that would be able to look across and independently sort of assess how all parts of the education system were performing to meet these goals I think also just that although it's it's like a cohesive and system-wide effort that doesn't mean it's the same for every individual it's more the system is working cohesively so the framework developing a framework for fair access where we're pulling together knowledge of what is best practice and how to implement different initiatives and how to evaluate them better sharing of data across the system those aspects that cut right across it just would be beneficial to have a person overseeing that and also I guess championing it and holding people to account where where progress was. You spoke earlier and it's in recommendation 21 about young people that have a care experience and the potential need for perhaps more flexibility within the system do you see that flexibility and again I appreciate that you're not the ones that are devising the policy or making the recommendation but is that flexibility around the way they go through higher and further education or is it around the support package because it strikes me it's not just people that have a care experience that may need more flexibility people with a range of disabilities may need more flexibility so I just wonder why you specifically focus on on a care experience for that for that recommendation in terms of the focus it was quite clear in the remit and that I think Dame Ruth if there was there was a few things that she in a very good way repeated often but one of them was if in doubt go back to your remit and absolutely we did that at points because this is such an expansive area you know we're just talking there about how the commission sorry commissioner um can achieve this over a longer period of time than the commission had to look at it in terms of so the care experience young people element came through the remit quite strongly in terms of our approach to it there were two recommendations at least and then that specifically focused on care experience young people but you can argue many of them if not all of them touch upon those potential students but the two one was the entitlement to access if you meet the access threshold and the second was around replacing loans with grants in terms of student support so on the first um what we found more generally for wanting access students was back to what we were saying earlier around the idea that lower attainment at school doesn't necessarily lend itself to lower attainment at university or higher education so that made the case plus lots of other more detailed bits of evidence for an access threshold that almost removed access students from that demand and supply factor for care experience young people there was an added element of disadvantage in that and moving from an access threshold that was almost by guidance to one that was entitlement for the student seemed to make sense particularly given the numbers at this point of care experience young people that go into the system which speaks to the displacement point from earlier so that's why on the first point on the second point and I wonder whether this is even more relevant to disabled students and the student support element so in general there isn't a huge amount of evidence actually um that student support leads to access improving student support um leads to larger numbers of people from disadvantaged backgrounds going there isn't the connection there as far as we know one of the recommendations was to look at that however um but what you could imagine a closer link between would be retention and student support so if you don't have enough money to live on you may work too many hours in a paid job to top up your income or you just simply may not be able to attend um or the stress and strain of it may get um too much for you and I would imagine given the additional costs that many potential disabled students have um that the student support system may actually be more of a factor for disabled students and it is more generally for disadvantaged students so that talks you through the thinking in terms of why care experience young people why those two routes and in reference to disabled students I think both could be relevant but in particular the student support element and there is recommendation uh I forgot which number it is to look at the the student support system quite early on once the commission has been appointed thank you that's very helpful Lynn um just two things to add to that one of the part of the flexibility in the student support was around entitlement to come back if you've dropped out or entitlement to spread your study to go part time rather than studying full time if that was easier the person of that was actually that there are provisions in place for disabled learners to have that bit more flexibility and to receive funding um for the different modes of study um the other thing is that there will be a review of student support that's started um there's a independent review which started in October and it's due to report in autumn next year which is um looking at as student support in the round so that as along with as Russell said the commissioner has got a specific recommendation to try and look at the impact of of finance on access and to carry out research on that within three months of appointment as well so we will start to hopefully get more information on if that is I mean the decision we the commission was making was where's the best place to invest resource and the feeling was there was a lot of barriers before you got to that stage that were holding people back they weren't even you know care experience youngsters weren't even getting to that stage so um it's we need the evidence to say what specifically we'd make a difference to different groups of learners thank you thanks very much can i just pick up on it very quickly on a point there and it's a very discreet and specific issue actually but it's something that was raised with me with one of the supported accommodation organisations in my constituency blue triangle where you've got maybe care experience young people who have left the care system went into their own tendency the tendencies failed and they've ended up in supported accommodation but when they attempt to access anything which is above a national certificate level like an hnc they then lose that housing benefit support and i know you're talking about student support once the student is there but one of the barriers it seems to be for some young people either care experience young people or homeless young people who have their own vulnerabilities is it then they can't progress through an academic career because the level of funding to support them in that accommodation then falls so they can't afford it and so i wonder whether anything came in up in your investigations with care experience young people that showed you whether that was a huge trend or was it just something that they didn't register what came up more was over on the fe side of things further education side of things so the delays potentially between starting a course and accessing your your student support payment your bursary the potential for that bursary to be varied in in course during course or to be ended early and actually most of all some really logistical things around showing your proof of residency your proof of ID some of these things rely in this system on having parents and that's the default if you're not in that position the system sometimes can be very difficult to navigate and again it's all to do with headwinds and tailwinds so if you this it's not impossible but if you're putting a whole heap of difficulty in the way of someone who's already faced large barriers then you can't expect the chances of them to go to fe and he to be the same so it's about i think over on the fe side of things it came through a bit more strongly through the commission more generally though yes i think the interaction between the benefit system and the student support system could be improved potentially the devolution of some benefits and the ability to create new devolved benefits might help but overall you know regardless of where the power sits it's about the interaction between those systems being a bit more smooth than it is just now and again that hits on the people that are furthest away from being able to access i would argue yeah thanks thanks very much Russell um Alex thank you convener good morning Russell and Lynn and thank you for your presentations and your written evidence um i have two questions both well each are connected with opposite ends of that academic journey i'll take the first one first obviously um we know from successive reviews that um educational attainment in care experience young people is hampered in particular um by the very particular behavioural needs connected with trauma attachment disorder and loss and the fact that teachers and educators aren't equipped in training to deal with those very special behavioural needs and that that lets them down it's still a circle we've yet to square and i wonder if the commission what the scope of the commission is to work with schools going right back to primary school almost to equip and to identify the barriers to other marginalised groups in particular students affected by hearing loss or by sight loss or other disabilities and to work with educators and the institutions that accredit our teachers to break those barriers down before we get even to the admissions process a large focus of um what the commission wanted to look at during its time was what was going on out there in terms of particularly institutional outreach there are some centrally funded programmes through the sfc um and others too um but particularly what those institutions were doing in a lot of outreach for example work um are focused in general um on uh you know particular schools or or particular backgrounds there are a few that are focused on particular types of students so again bringing in disabled or potential disabled students or care experience young people i think those types of activity could be the best but um what we found from them again was that they were not necessarily focused on evidence so you know we have outreach that's quite broad sometimes particularly the earlier into the school system you go um that isn't necessarily focused on those pupils that would otherwise not enter but that's a very hard judgment to make at the age of four or five or six but secondly not necessarily focused on what works um so those two things um i think are key learning points from the commission that we tried to factor in through the framework so the framework is around building evidence of what does work what is good practice including particular groups of students um or potential students and focusing activity from institutions on those things so in general terms that that was the picture the picture was there is quite broad brush intervention quite early on um it's not necessarily focused on the pupils that you would focus it on and it's not necessarily focused on impact but we want to try and do both of those things thank you the second question is we've heard a little bit about retention once students have made it through the admissions processes keeping them there um when i was president of Aberdeen university student representative council in the dim and distant past i sat on the university court i remember asking the vice chancellor of the university when we were talking about admissions and retention what happened when a student went to the admissions department for an exit form to leave their degree and nothing happened there was no counselling there was no discussion as to why they wanted to leave the course and and it strikes me that's still a bit of a problem in our tertiary education institutions in particular i think this affects those marginalised groups who still face barriers to learning and their progress through their degree what can the commission do to build in support at that very last you know that last stage when when you've got students actually asking for an exit form how can we intervene to make sure that we retain them and break down the barriers that have led them to that point and so um the there are interventions much more recently i think than in the past that institutions are beginning to make so for example flagging systems where whereas before i think as you described you knew a student had dropped out when they weren't turning up anymore and that was it and there was no necessarily effort made to bring those students back in or to work out why or to give them a different opportunity so i think i get the feeling things have improved from a low base um i insist and this is just my view not the view of the commission and certainly the work of the commissioner is what looking ahead will matter the most but things have improved from a low base i think there are some really interesting projects out there that again look at some of the factors that might lead to retention problems so if you're not turning up to tutorials at university if you're not turning up to lectures what do you need in place to know that and what do you need in place therefore once you do know that to try and make an intervention that prevents a drop out cancelling services um there's big trends actually in recent times that mental health has been one of the increasing um sort of disabilities for students within university um having the right systems in place to to manage those health problems and those disabilities is very important too and then lastly in terms of retention um around the outcome agreement process so again that's quite a system you know it's quite a um a techie way of approaching what is actually a very human problem but where there are retention problems either across a whole institution or within particular subject groups or within particular cohorts of students the outcome agreement process should be able to tailor a response for each institution to do that and i suppose i should have said earlier that you know we we can't think of disabled you know this more than than anyone but we can't think of disabled students as one cohort you know there's so many different types of disability within that um i think for the work that you're doing looking at you know other barriers to disabled potential disabilities as a whole is very interesting but are there barriers to particular types of disability i think is maybe a focus that you you might want to look at well made particularly about the fact we can't just apologise um the group the various groups of disabled students who go through our universities um communo if i may i think it as a job of work for this committee um identifying the data that exists on those students who leave our academic institutions because of barriers related to their disability would be an exceptionally vital piece of data for us to have that's not it do you want to come back in just leading on from what um Alex was saying in regard to the 20 percent for universities is that 20 across the university i mean i mean to be very kind of basic probably i was never going to have a great medical career or dentistry because of my disability so for some disabilities there will be and it's not a barrier picked up by society it will be a barrier picked up by the disability and there will be certain courses that probably aren't appropriate for certain disabled people so if the 20 percent across the whole university and how but on the other hand what we don't want to do is discriminate against some disabilities within some faculties so are we going to break it down in regard to faculties as well particularly university and see or is it 20 across the whole body of university so the target by 2030 recommended by the commission and accepted by the government was around socioeconomic deprivation and it was for higher education as a whole across college and universities so that figure is across the whole system there are other elements to that recommendation that put floors in for example to make sure as we were talking about earlier there isn't a huge disparity between part to the system and other part to the system for disabled students at the moment looking at particular trends whether that be by course by area by institution or by the system as a whole that rests on the outcome agreement process and you hear I would imagine a bit more about that from the SFC when you take evidence from them whether the commissioner wants to look at this issue in a bit more detail that would be up to them the recommendations there for them to do so and equally I think again the work of the committee here could be very interesting for the commissioner some recommendations in there which for example the improvements to data sharing the improvements to monitoring and analysis the development of a framework for fair access which were written within the commission's report but it was quite clear we said that when taking forward these recommendations we need to be mindful and inclusive of other groups so that we don't just do this for socioeconomic disadvantage or those of a care experience so the framework for fair access for example look at best practice across the whole system so it would be looking at retention what works in retention what doesn't work and what the improved monitoring would look at actually providing hard data on a regular basis so that we can see how things are changing and how they differ across the sector so there's a number of recommendations in there that in going forward we you know the commission has said that we should take account of other groups you know we should be inclusive and build the system so that it covers all of access it's not in some way you know just for that group of students okay okay billy I just follow up on accountability and scrutiny the whole thing at the end of this process when we hope that it's working I know several youngsters who who for example met entrance requirements for various universities but still didn't get in because they had to overcome some other process in order to get in like write some kind of letter or say something about themselves but they were never explained to them why they were rejected so at the end of this process will we be able to see will anybody be able to see why those kinds of decisions have been made about about youngsters so that we can all be assured that there's been some kind of fairness applied to their application and who would you say is the most ground to make up here is it the ancient universities or what do we know does anybody know what the pattern is and who has the most work to do in terms of the accountability and scrutiny particularly around admissions so those individual level decisions there was a big focus from us because for good reasons sometimes for fair reasons universities in particular sometimes keep the intricacies of their admissions decisions quite secret or at least private I say for good reason I don't mean to suggest that I agree with it but I can understand it in the sense that certainly Dan Stout you've seen when institutions have been much more public about being a bit more proactive in this area they've faced huge amount of pushback from potentially those families and certainly those media outlets that seem to think they represent those families that might be displaced out of the system through doing it so for good reason in the sense of understandable reasons but for us in the commission one of the things we absolutely wanted was much more open and transparency around it we in essence are giving cover to institutions to move and to a much more proactive way if there's grief from people that or media outlets in terms of them doing so they can point to the commission they can point to the government's backing for the commission's work that's the theory but there is a particular particularly as you move to access thresholds you know some of the recommendations within the commission's report around admissions we wanted them to be very open and transparent and there's a recommendation around that making sure that their admissions systems are clear and much more you know fair and transparent in terms of who has the most ground to make up that is a that is a tempting question I must say but I mean you can look at the statistics and you can see that those institutions that have the fewest students from the most deprived backgrounds tend to be the older institutions but there are mitigating factors in that so you can see that they would they would certainly argue that attainment at school level is a big factor in that so if if you need five A's to get into medicine and that is an F there's a judgment that should be made before that as to whether that is required or not there are fewer people from older deprived backgrounds that get those level of grades I think for me overall to cut through that issue a little bit I would like to see and this is a personal view those institutions with the most still to do to take more ownership over the fact that they still have more to do so yes by all means point to attainment at school but get in there and begin to affect attainment at school yes by all means say that you need a certain level of grades to get into your particular institution or a particular subject within your institution but check that do the work get the evidence make the case don't just assume it because it's been the case for the last 20 30 40 years so I think that ownership issue is really important that this is nobody else's problem this is your problem and if your institution doesn't have a strong enough record on this you know what are you doing to change that so I wouldn't go quite as far as saying as some people do the ancients are terrible at this need to get better there's a lot of really good work going on out there but I would nudge it much more in the direction of what are you doing about this rather than saying who else is failing and therefore leading to your record okay do it very quickly mary one can I just ask a very big supplementary on that very point is there any sharing of best practice across the higher education and further education institutions about the best way to go about widening access and encouraging more people to to apply so the first step in that is knowing firstly what works and what doesn't and that there isn't enough in my view work going on at least in the past I think that is changing to do the research which is quite ironic for research institutions but to do the research as to what works and what doesn't and the sharing beyond that once you knew what works and what doesn't there there are some factors that push and pull on that so the collaboration could be a really really powerful tool in terms of widening access but some institutions feel in competition with each other whether over widening access more generally students so a big focus of the commission was firstly that first step through the framework and through other recommendations to try and tell what was the good practice what was having the impact and then secondly to promote that across the sectors so that they can begin to focus whether in collaboration or not on what is what has worked elsewhere and you couldn't transplant things you know there are different institutions they are based in different areas they do do different subjects but you can begin I think to be inspired or take learning from from other places that have done well okay thank you okay thanks very much just very quickly and I know we're pushed past our time with you this morning we appreciate your your patience but very very quickly two quick things timescale for the commissioner do we know what that is and when they'll be appointed and the other thing is about the intrinsic work of this committee being equalities and human rights is whether the cognisance in all of the work that you're doing is is taken from a rights-based point of view I think for all of us here we're pushing that all policy in this place is a rights-based aspect to it so maybe just a very quick few thoughts on that Russell um in terms of timescale all I could possibly say is that um the commission made a recommendation that the commissioner should be in place by the end of 2016 so we're not there yet um I don't know if Lynn has anything else that I don't know just that you know um it is we're working on it the government and officials are speaking with ministers about it and we're still working towards that deadline and on the rights-based issue I think it was in our in our minds throughout um that this is absolutely fundamental to you know so many rights across so many human rights you know the the ability to reach your full potential and lead the most fulfilling and high quality life have the most fulfilling and high quality career that you can it's fundamental to so much of what we care about within the human rights and more generally rights movement so I see this as absolutely fundamental to that movement okay well thank you very much both of you for your evidence this morning we've exhausted our questions but we've not exhausted this topic as you can imagine we're going to go into much deeper detail on on issues around disability and BSL we thank you for your work with us this morning and we we hope to be working with you again in the future thank you so much I'm going to go on to recess so that we can then go on to recess briefly um suspend uh until we and then we will go on to private session after that so this has been to the committee