Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the use of the Transparent Approach to Costing methodology by the higher education sector.

​​The data collected using the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) methodology is an important part of the evidence base, which the department uses to understand the financial sustainability of the higher education sector and the teaching of UK students who are publicly funded.

​The TRAC sector analysis, published annually by the Office for Students, was most recently used to support the strategic case for uplifting tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. This was set out in the regulatory impact assessment, published in January 2025 and accessible at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2025/40/pdfs/ukia_20250040_en.pdf.​

​The department continues to consider the interaction between TRAC and policy decisions in our policy development.