EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Guidelines made under subsection 238-10 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003
Amendment No. 1 to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No.1
Issued by the authority of the Minister for Education, Science and Training
Subject: Higher Education Support Act 2003
Amendment No.1 to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No.1
Authority
Section 238-10 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (the Act) provides that the Minister may make guidelines for the purposes of the Act. In particular, section 238-10 specifies that the Minister may make the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines to give effect to matters set out in Part 2-2 of the Act.
Purpose and operation
The Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines No.1 commenced on 13 December 2006 and are now being amended for the first time.
Chapter 7, Reduction in assistance for higher education providers failing to meet certain requirements, sets out the requirements known as the National Governance Protocols and the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements.
The amendments to Chapter 7 reflect changes to the Act made by the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Act 2007 (the Amending Act). Section 33-15 of the Act was repealed and replaced with a new section 33-17. Section 33-17 has the effect of providing for a reduction in funding to higher education providers that do not meet certain requirements. The reduction is calculated by reference to the amount that the provider would have received as an increase for meeting the requirements (under the previous section 33-15) using the funding clusters and Commonwealth contribution amounts that would have applied before the amendments in the Amending Act take effect. It continues the effect of previous section 33-15.
Other amendments have been made to delete obsolete provisions that refer to previous grant years. No changes have been made to the requirements known as the National Governance Protocols and the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements or the dates for compliance with them.
Chapter 8, Adjustments, sets out the circumstances in which an eligible higher education provider’s basic grant amount for a year is to be adjusted, and the amount of the adjustment or how it is to be worked out under section 33-20 of the Act.
The amendments to section 8.5 of the guidelines provide that if a Table A higher education provider is under enrolled in 2006 by more than 1 per cent of funding (that is, the provider’s corrected basic amount for 2006 is less than 99 per cent of the provider’s basic grant amount for that year), an adjustment to the provider’s basic grant amount for 2007 will be calculated using the methodology specified in subsections 33-25(4) and 33-25(5) of the Act (‘the adjustment’) unless the Minister determines in a particular case that it would be reasonable to make an adjustment to the provider’s 2007 basic grant of a lesser amount, being 25 per cent of the adjustment calculated using that methodology (the ‘lesser adjustment’). That is, the Minister may determine that a Table A provider can retain 75 per cent of the funding by which its 2007 basic grant would otherwise be reduced due to under enrolment in 2006.
The Minister may also determine that the portion that the provider is able to retain is subject to conditions in relation to the expenditure of that funding that are specified in the provider’s funding agreement for the 2007 grant year. Funding agreements will be revised to include any such conditions, with the agreement of the relevant provider.
Chapter 9, Determining the funding clusters, specifies how to determine the funding cluster, or a particular part of a funding cluster, in which a unit of study is included and the particular funding cluster, or a particular part of a funding cluster in which a particular unit of study is included under section 33-35 of the Act.
The amendments to Chapter 9 reflect changes to the Act made by the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Act 2007. The number of funding clusters has been reduced from 12 to 7 as part of the Australian Government’s Realising Our Potential package. Most of the new clusters have been formed by combining existing clusters. The only exceptions are clinical psychology and allied health, which are subsets of existing clusters 5 and 6, and will be moved to the new cluster 4.
Commencement
The guidelines commence as follows:
Item 2 commences on the day after the day on which the guidelines are registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments; and
Items 1 and 3 commence on 1 January 2008 in accordance with Schedule 2 of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Act 2007.
Consultation
The higher education sector was consulted extensively on the amendment to Chapter 8. On 3 May 2007, the draft amendment was sent to the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (now Universities Australia), the Australian Technology Network, the Group of Eight, and the Innovative Research Universities Australia, the Council of Private Higher Education, and the Australian Council for Private Education and Training for comment. Comments on the draft amendment were then sought from the sector more broadly through the Backing Australia’s Future - Realising Our Potential Newsletter No. 26 in May 2007. No comments on the changes were received during the consultation process.
In respect of Chapter 7, no consultation with the sector was conducted because these were either changes resulting from the changes to the Act made by the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Act 2007 in relation to the replacement of section 33-15 with section 33-17 as outlined above, or the deletion of obsolete provisions in relation to previous grant years. No policy changes were made in relation to the requirements known as the National Governance Protocols and the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements or the dates for compliance with them.
In respect of Chapter 9, the changes were a result of a specific Budget measure that was informed by the findings of the recent Review of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, which examined the funding cluster arrangements under the Act. Extensive consultation was undertaken as part of that review. Information on the review, including the discussion paper, consultation process, written submissions and the final report is available at www.dest.gov.au (go to ‘higher education’, ‘policy issues and reviews’, ‘review of the Higher Education Support Act’.
The Australian Psychological Society (APS) was consulted in relation to the definition of ‘clinical psychology’ and agreement was reached on the final definition.