Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2016 to Question 50332, what assessment she has made of the (a) level of variation in assumptions made by different institutions in devising fee income estimates and (b) effect of that variation on the utility of those estimates; and if she will make a statement.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are autonomous bodies. They are responsible for making their own assumptions about how their income and expenditure will develop in the future, reflecting their judgment about the impact of current actions and strategies, as well as external influences. They are also responsible for putting in place measures to ensure their financial sustainability.

HEIs provide the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) with these forecasts to enable it to assess the financial sustainability both of individual institutions and the sector as a whole. HEFCE recently published its 2015-16 report on the financial health of the HE sector, which can be found at:

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/2016/201634/HEFCE2016_34.pdf