All entries for Tuesday 24 July 2018

Provost’s Update #12

September Intake – Recruitment and Conversion

For the University as a whole, UG applications were up by 2% and PGT applications were up by 20% (the bulk of which were international applications).

Overall, undergraduate targets should be met in 2018, but it is expected that there will be an increased reliance on clearing, and that our competitors will also be highly active and investing in mechanisms to incentivise applicants. Applications from WP target groups at UG level have increased but offers and firm acceptances have decreased.

While application rates for PGT programmes have increased, there is uncertainty around conversion with year on year comparisons showing fewer applicants responding to offers. Our colleagues in Marketing and Admissions and Recruitment have been working hard to improve conversion rates, through a range of activities including calling campaigns, targeted emails and the provision of advice to departments about trying to encourage acceptances. Currently total acceptances are somewhat lower than at this time last year, although interestingly the number of unconditional firm acceptances is significantly higher than last year and it is conditional firm acceptances that are down. We continue to see significant progress week-on-week in the number of acceptances.

University Financial Plan

The University Financial Plan has been presented and approved at Senate and Council. It has been particularly hard work to pull the plan together this year, not least because of the impact of the removal of any inflationary element to HEU fee income. While the outcome for ARC in terms of surplus generation has been reasonable we are some £4m below the original target and we do have a savings target of £3.5m for the coming year. Meanwhile, APSG spend as a % of overall ARC spending has remained constant and is projected to continue to do so.

The budget surplus for the University for 2018-19 is 4.7% (before safety factor), down from a forecast of 6.3% for 2017-18. With limited growth in UG intakes, our planned income growth is slower than the growth in planned expenditures. We continue to invest in education and research but we also need to generate a surplus that will support the capital plan (with the new Faculty of Arts Building and the IBRB being the big new projects starting this next year).

ARC Planning and Strategic Fund

We are in the process of making commitments against the Strategic Fund (value £5m) and we will look to issue a further call for bids later in the year. We will update you soon on the commitments that are being made. In addition, we have been working to outline a simplified process for any in-year spending bids. This will reflect both the impact of the new HR system (which will incorporate an approvals workflow) and the new approach to budgeting and financial planning which will give greater scope for departments to make decisions without formal ARC approval. Details will follow.

Procurement

A recent meeting of Financial Planning Sub-Committee (FPSC) considered the outcomes of a major review of the University’s procurement activities. This review makes a series of recommendations aimed at generating additional savings and improving service levels. Estimates suggest that a more strategic approach to procurement with more active category management would enable the University to make additional savings of up to £5m over the next 4 years. A key element of this work would be a reduction in the total number of suppliers which would help to reduce processing costs, improve prices and allow the procurement team to focus on key supplier relationships and uphold standards expected including those related to equality and diversity, environmental and social factors and health and safety. Please rest assured that the procurement team will be working closely with academic departments, especially where there are important existing supplier relationships and/or specialist needs.

Quarter 3 Financials

The Q3 forecast surplus has been revised upwards to £40m. This represents £13m more than budgeted. Of this £3m is additional income and £10m is lower than planned expenditure. The reduced expenditure is primarily down to staff vacancies and some reduced activity in CCSG. The Q3 research forecast for the year is £128.2m; this is up £2.6m on an original budget of £125.7m showing an improvement of £4.1m since Q2. This extra surplus (beyond what was budgeted) is of particular value as it provides additional cash for capital expenditure and in that sense, helps to compensate for the reduced surplus in the coming year’s plan .

UCAS Figures and Future Student Number Forecasts

UCAS has released figures for the end of the current year’s application cycle. The figures suggest that:

· 636,960 people have applied through UCAS in the current application cycle (-2% compared with 2017 – but UoW is 2% up).

· UK domiciled applicants have reduced by 3% (from 529,620 to 511,460).

· EU (non UK) domiciled applicants have increased by 2% (from 49,250 to 50,130).

· Non EU domiciled applicants have increased by 6% (from 70,830 to 75,380).

The UK Government has released its latest forecasts for overall student numbers, loan outlays and repayments over the next five years, ie from the 2017–18 financial year to 2022–23. The number of new full-time undergraduates is expected to increase by 1% to 399,000 in 2018–19, before dropping over the next three years. The fall is due to an overall drop of 5% in the number of 18-24 year olds over the five year period. Thereafter we will see the demographic upturn that will drive a likely increase in demand for University places.