The Department for Education (DfE) launched a call for evidence in April 2024 on the way that non-medical help (NMH) funded through the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) is delivered to disabled students in higher education.
A key question in the call for evidence was whether students should continue to have an individual entitlement for NMH or if responsibility for this should move to higher education providers. It also asked what is working well in the current system for NMH, what isn’t working well, and how it could be improved.
The consultation ran from 10 April 2024 to 3 July 2024.
Our response
In our response we called for the individual entitlement to specialist NMH funded by DSA to remain in place, emphasising that this is the best way to ensure that all students with disabilities will get the support they need wherever they choose to study.
We emphasised our support for a social model of disability and the development of inclusive approaches, as well as the strengths of IHE members in this area. However, in a context of increased demand and reduced funding for student support, removing the individual entitlement would lead to a disparity of provision across providers and limit student choice.
We argued that a model of provider responsibility would have a disproportionate impact on small providers, like those in our membership, who have high proportions of students with disabilities coupled with small staff teams. The diversity of student needs and level of expertise required means that it would not be realistic to meet these needs internally – meaning this provision would need to be outsourced, and systems and processes established to quality assure it. This would be a disproportionately more expensive model, with administrative costs that would ultimately take funding away from the student.
Other points we raised in our response include:
- The importance of specialist one-to-one support for students with complex needs, to complement the support their institution provides, which has benefits both during their time in higher education and beyond as they transition into the workplace.
- The need to remove barriers in the application and assessment process, which are currently leading to students not receiving, or experiencing delays in receiving, NMH. This includes greater flexibility in evidence requirements to enable those without a diagnosis to begin receiving support at the start of their course.
- The need for more effective information sharing from the Student Loans Company (SLC) to support providers to integrate provision and ensure there is no duplication.
- The importance of considering how the rollout of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will change students’ patterns of study and therefore how they access support, as well as the increase in work-based learning, and reviewing how support is coordinated in these scenarios.
Read our full response using the download link below.