Council Tax Exemption Regulations

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Dear Central School of Speech and Drama,

The current regulations regarding student exemption from council tax state that in order to be classified as a full time student you must be;

"enrolled to attend a course of education lasting for at least one academic or calendar year - and which you are normally required to attend for at least 24 weeks out of the year and study for at least 21 hours per week during term time"

"Attendance" is defined as face to face contact teaching time with a lecturer/teacher, and does not include unsupervised individual or group study or examinations.

Could you please tell me,

1) How do you define a full time course?

2) How many full time (as defined by the university) courses do you teach each year?

3) How many full time students are enrolled at the University?

4) How many of the full time courses that you run would be classed as full time under the regulations above?

5) How many full time students are enrolled on the courses listed in question

Yours faithfully,

Kiara Vincent

Dear Central School of Speech and Drama,

Question 5 should read,

5) How many full time students are enrolled on the courses listed in question 4?

Yours faithfully,

Kiara Vincent

James Prince, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

To Whom It May Concern

Answers to your request from Central are as follows:

1) How do you define a full time course?

We use the definition given in your email, namely that a student must be
enrolled with the School on a course of study lasting for at least one
academic or calendar year, for which they are normally required to
attend for at least 24 weeks out of the year and study for at least 21
hours per week during term time.

2) How many full time (as defined by the university) courses do you
teach each year?

19 (3 UG, 15 PGT, 1 PGR)

3) How many full time students are enrolled at the University?

Total FT students as at 11/04/11 - 821

4) How many of the full time courses that you run would be classed as
full time under the regulations above?

All.

5) How many full time students are enrolled on the courses listed in
question 4.

As per Q3.

Best regards, Jim.

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Dear James Prince,

Thank you very much for your swift response.

I would just like to clarify your responses to questions 4 and 5. You said that your definition of full time study includes "study for at least 21
hours per week during term time". I just want to clarify what you mean by "study" in relation to questions 4 and 5.

My research is trying to determine whether the current regulations governing student exemption from council tax are fit for purpose. I have surveyed students about their experience of the amount of timetabled face to face contact teaching time they received on full time courses at UK higher education intuitions. This showed that many institutions have a low number of contact teaching hours per week, and expect students to do a large proportion of study unsupervised.

The council tax exemption regulations are written in a way that discounts unsupervised study or examinations as actual 'attendance' at the institution. Therefore, in order to determine if the regulations are fit for purpose or not, I would need to know how many courses you run actually meet the council tax exemption regulations as they stand, i.e. those courses that have at least 21 hours of contact teaching time per week, for at least 24 weeks of the year.

If you could please confirm that the courses you included for your response to question 4 and 5 do meet the council tax exemption regulations for students.

Thank you in advance

Yours sincerely,

Kiara Vincent

James Prince, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Hi Kiara,

At the moment we do define 'study' to include non-contact activities. In an amendment to our regulations for next year we will be defining the 21 hours per week as 'taught and directed independent study'.

Our UG courses have very high contact hours and would therefore meet the Council Tax regulations, but our PG provision would not.

I hope that this helps. Best, Jim.

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