Personal Reflections on
Practice
Initial reflections on the case for evaluating widening access
interventions on their cost effectiveness
Neil Raven - [email protected]
Educational consultant, Loughborough University
Guidance to higher education providers (HEPs) from the Office for Fair Access and the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (OFFA and HEFCE, 2014) has placed much importance
on creating an evidence base able to demonstrate the impact of interventions aimed at widening
university access. Whilst HEPs have been encouraged to direct resources towards those activities
that are shown to work, and to develop ways to evaluate interventions to this end, no direct
reference has been made to the concept of cost-effectiveness. That is, until the publication of
OFFA’s (2015) Strategic Plan. Here, reference is made to the regulator’s intention to ‘challenge
[the sector] on cost effectiveness’ (OFFA, 2015: 17). Whilst there is no explicit indication that
widening access practitioners will be asked to use cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) in the
decision-making process, it would seem an appropriate time to explore what this concept means
and what it might offer, along with the challenges its adoption may pose and how these could be
tackled.
Cost-effectiveness analysis [CEA] seeks to compare the costs of delivering a service with its
impact. The calculation takes the form of a ratio setting the overall cost against a figure that
measures effectiveness (Tulloch, 2012, Levin et al., 2012). Generating ratios for a number of
comparable services identifies which ones are most cost-effective and, potentially, which should
be reviewed and which should be discontinued. Could this method work in the field of widening
access? A glance back to the days of what was then described as ‘widening participation’ offers
some clues.
In 2003-2004, HEFCE initiated a summer school programme that received matched funding from
the European Social Fund (ESF). This scheme covered most English regions and, over the five
years of funding, delivered 1,350 summer schools, mainly held on university campuses, to 41,000
young people (HEFCE, 2009, 3). As an ESF supported scheme, summer school deliverers
(universities and colleges) were required to calcul FRF