The Business of Widening Participation: Policy, Practice and Culture

Widening participation (WP) has increasingly become part of the normal ‘business’ of English higher education (HE) providers during the last 25 years. WP entered the policy mainstream for the entire HE sector following the Dearing Review (NCIHE, 1997) and the election of a new Labour government wedded to notions of social justice but also concerned with ‘lifelong learning’ in the name of human capital growth. This book employs a dual usage of the term ‘business’ in relation to WP policy, practice and culture in the context of the marketised English HE system. The first, figurative, usage explores the ways in which WP has been drawn into institutional positionality as HE providers are encouraged to differentiate themselves in the market. The second, literal, usage explores the ways in which the business of WP has become ‘business as normal’ for the sector and institutions, increasingly intertwined with other activities and which play out variously, often in response to regulatory demands of the state. This introductory chapter first contextualises these developments with a brief overview of the evolution of the HE sector in England before proposing a multilevel model – the HE policy enactment staircase – as a way of thinking about how policy is made, enacted and implemented within the sector. This chapter then draws upon this model to acts as a structure for this book. It does this by moving from a macro-level exploration of ideological levels of policymaking, through National/Sectoral level right down to the issues at an institutional and operational levels. In doing so, this chapter creates a framework from which to understand how the various elements and levels of the business of WP play out within the English HE sector.

This chapter provides the context for understanding how English widening participation (WP) policy has interacted with the development of a marketised and expanding higher education (HE) system (the ‘dual imperative’ highlighted in the introductory chapter of this volume). It traces the intensification of market approaches in HE since 1997, examining how these interact with and become intertwined with evolving national WP policy concerns. Since 1997, WP for under-represented groups as a national policy aim has become firmly embedded in the activities undertaken by higher education providers (HEPs). Policy initiatives have moved between incentive and risk to encourage HEPs to address national and local inequalities of access and (later) student success and differential graduate outcomes. This chapter gives an overview of the key policy moments in this period and argues for how they have shaped the way in which the business of WP is enacted throughout the sector. It highlights how the business of WP drawn widely has become simultaneously a regulatory requirement, a way for institutions to differentiate themselves in the HE market and a key marker of institutional civic or social responsibilities. Situating this alongside the increasing focus on students and applicants as consumers, this chapter also begins to problematise the issues of collaboration and competition this creates.

This chapter traces the history of widening participation (WP) policy from 1992 to 2021, as seen largely from the point of view of a practitioner involved in policy enactment. After a brief overview of the history of widening access to higher education (HE), with its long tradition of outreach to adults, this chapter focuses on the significant shift to WP among young people in 1992. Following attempts to specify the problem and to provide the available evidence about it, a range of initiatives was introduced, designed to test appropriate interventions. This chapter identifies three broad strands of intervention – changes in the funding method, the requirement for institutions to produce WP strategies, and the development of collaborative programmes, all underpinned by a programme of research. Though the balance of these three strands has varied ever since, all have always been present. Underpinning all this intervention was a general assumption, again differentially emphasised, that widening access and participation to HE, though an ambition for the whole sector, would be an activity separate from and subordinate to the existing missions and ‘business’ of institutions and accepting the existing market hierarchy. From 2010 onwards, there was a sharper policy shift, which sought to make the existing market both a market in entry qualifications and a genuine financial market in tuition fees, with students seen as consumers, and a determination to ensure value for money for all and from all institutions. In spite of this, the three strands of intervention remained.

The English sector is characterised by an expanding and increasingly differentiated set of higher education providers (HEPs) and an ever-more diverse student body. As a consequence, HEPs are as differentiated in their widening participation (WP) approaches as they are in every other aspect of the business of HE, and this has led to tensions between why and how they should go about the business of WP. Are HEPs driven by the desire to enhance social justice or merely responding to regulatory pressure? This chapter discusses how changing market regulatory regimes have interreacted with, and often conflicted with, institutional missions as they try to respond to the dual policy imperatives discussed in earlier chapters: the economic, human capital expansionary dynamic and the desire to enhance social justice through access to the HE system.

The architects of institutional policy are rarely those tasked with operationalising it. This can create gaps between what is set out in policy and what happens on the ground. This is an under-researched area and one this chapter will shed a light on. This chapter examines the role that widening participation (WP) practitioners play in operationalising policy. Focusing upon the implementational level of the policy enactment staircase, it examines the roles of individuals working at the coalface in enacting WP policy. Drawing upon research conducted by the author in 2016–2017 with higher education providers (HEPs) in England (Rainford, 2019), it supplements this with data from a sector-wide survey conducted by the editors of this book in 2021. In drawing together these two data sets, it offers a rich picture of who works in WP within HEPs in England. It examines the multitude of roles undertaken by these practitioners and how this varies across the sector both in HEPs and collaborative Uni Connect partnerships. This chapter also highlights how practitioners can shift the focus of how policy is operationalised. In doing so, it examines some of the challenges faced by practitioners and the extent to which they are given the tools to carry out this essential work. While this chapter argues that practitioners have a level of agency in the work they do, this can be constrained by both national and institutional policies. It argues that these constraints are often shaped by competing imperatives of both social justice and economic drivers.

Alongside universities, there are an increasing number of ‘third sector’ organisations actively involved in shaping widening participation (WP). In partnering with universities, employers and collaborative programmes like Uni Connect, they are responsible for delivering on institutional and national policy objectives around WP, as well as accountable to their own organisational missions. Despite being part of established practice in WP, with their activities praised by policymakers, their roles and practices are rarely considered in assessments of WP activity. In comparison with universities, they can experience different expectations, challenges and opportunities and can also have separate agendas driven by their missions and organisational sustainability. This chapter explores how these organisations have emerged, the roles that they have created for themselves and how they have attempted to sustain or develop these. It traces how these organisations have emerged as key players in national and institutional policy and draws on interviews with third sector leaders and practitioners to understand how WP is understood and done outside higher education providers (HEPs).

The pressure on higher education providers (HEPs) and national programme partnerships to evaluate the impact of widening participation (WP) interventions has intensified as a result of wider changes in higher education (HE) policy and regulation, including the imposition of market forces. This chapter describes how policy stakeholder assumptions about how evaluation works and the outcomes it delivers have evolved over the last two decades. It shows how regulatory emphasis has shifted from a focus on monitoring and tracking, through to a call for return-on-investment analysis, before falling back on a pragmatic theory-informed approach. This chapter goes on to locate WP evaluation in the middle of a paradigm war, caught between proponents of a medicalised trial-based conception of evaluation methodology, and a practitioner-led position, which points to the complex contextual character of WP activities. It continues by exploring some of the many practical challenges faced by WP evaluators and argues that these have contributed to the sector’s perceived failure to deliver robust evidence of the impact of fair access activity. This chapter concludes with a look at the expanding market for WP evaluation products and services, which emerged in response to new flows of WP investment created by the 2012 increase in tuition fees.

Historically, the Further Education (FE) sector has always occupied the hinterland between the policy-heavy landscape that characterises the compulsory education sector and the fiercely independent Higher Education sector. Originally formed to give those who had not fully benefitted from their school education the opportunity to learn new skills and to be given a ‘second chance’, it gradually evolved into something that encompassed a far wider purpose of widening participation in education and also the promotion of social mobility. Because of this, the educational imperative has always featured strongly within the sector.

Recently this has been challenged by a shift to a more market-based approach that stresses neoliberalism, competition between providers and an economic imperative which can conflict with the original aims of the sector.

The sector has also increasingly been used to deliver government priorities, and given the quixotic nature of much of education policy, this has meant that the sector is required to be agile and responsive to a multitude of challenges. The colleges used as the two case studies in this chapter show that while it is important to ensure that the external metrics are met, if funding is available, then it is still possible to balance the educational imperative with the economic imperative with clear leadership and a strict focus on the college’s vision for their role within the sector. This means that the widening participation agenda can still be met, even if numerous barriers are put in the way.

This chapter explores the policy changes which occurred in English higher education since 2011 which resulted in new or private higher education (PHE) providers engaging in the sector with the same regulatory requirements as established institutions (the ‘level playing field’). This chapter begins by exploring some challenges in defining and understanding PHE in England and the United Kingdom and presents some international literature to frame the English sector against PHE developments in other countries, suggesting that England’s PHE sector is distinct from international examples as it did not emerge due to an inability on the part of the incumbent sector to provide sufficient diversity of opportunity to study in England, instead emerging through a perceived need for greater competition and efficiency in the sector. The policy development of the level playing field is outlined through a review of key policy statements and reviews. A review of a sample of Access and Participation Plans submitted by PHE providers in England is used to provide some contextual data around some of the challenges presented for small, specialist PHE providers engaging with and enacting national-level widening participation (WP) policy in England. Such challenges typically include small data sets which hamper thorough analysis of interventions, under-developed information technology (IT) and record systems, and a lack of specialist expertise. These findings provide some challenge to the idea that PHE or alternative providers are inherently good at recruiting and teaching WP students as many institutions appear to have limited capacity for the data analysis and evaluation required by the Office for Students (OfS) to support such claims.

The final chapter of this volume brings together the key debates from this book and situates them within an ever-developing policy landscape. It argues that the themes this volume raises around the two competing uses of ‘business’, both figurative and literal, continue to drive developments in widening participation (WP). It draws together threads around the figurative usage of business to consider the ways in which the ideology of marketisation has impacted the sector to date and continues to shape policies in this area. Considering the more literal ways in which WP has become the ‘business’ of the sector, this chapter draws together threads from across the second part of this book, which examined how higher education providers (HEPs), further education colleges, new providers and third sector WP organisations all enact WP as part of their ‘business as usual’. This chapter concludes with a summary of changes to the market structure introduced since the Higher Education Research Act (HERA, 2017), such as the levelling up White Paper (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022), the Department for Education (DfE, 2022a) higher education policy statement and Office for Students (OfS) regulatory consultations (OfS, 2022b), and questions whether these represent minor tweaks to a recently embedded policy environment or indeed render much of the 2017 settlement redundant. Whether these are considered as continuity or change, in the final analysis, they suggest that there remain tensions among those responsible for the executive/ideological policy direction, with corresponding knock-on effects elsewhere on the enactment staircase. What remains clear, however, is that the contradictions inherent in the dual imperative – the human capital needs of the country juxtaposed against a desire for a more socially just society – remain unresolved while a ‘level playing field’ market order is layered over such a steep institutional hierarchy.