Council Tax Exemption Regulations

The request was partially successful.

Dear University of Warwick,

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 of Warwick?

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 4?

Yours faithfully,

Kiara Vincent

infocompliance, Resource, University of Warwick

Thank you for your email which has been received by the University Legal
Compliance Officer.

The University undertakes to respond to Freedom of Information requests
within 20 working days and to Data Protection requests within 40 calendar
days.

If you are seeking general legal advice, please contact the University
Legal Adviser, [email address].

Thank you

Helen Wollerton
Administrative Officer (Legal Compliance)

Snodgrass Tan, Natalie, University of Warwick

Dear Kiara

I write with reference to your recent Freedom of Information request
(dated 5^th April and appended below). In order that we can best respond
to this, I wondered whether you might be able to let me know whether there
is any specific group of students that you are mainly interested in, which
might help us circumscribe the scope and provide a more helpful response?

Best wishes

Natalie

Natalie Snodgrass Tan | Senior Assistant Registrar

Management Information and Planning | University of Warwick | Coventry CV4
8UW

T: +44 (0)24 765 22470 | F: +44 (0)24 765 74363

E: [email address]

PA: Vicky Archer | Tel: +44 (0)24 765 74800| Email
[email address]

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Dear Snodgrass Tan, Natalie,

I am interested all students enrolled on a university (or funding body) defined 'full time' course.

I am trying to make a comparison between what the council tax regulations define as full time student, and what the universities define as full time students. I want to gauge a picture of how many students on university defined 'full time' courses would not actually be eligible for Council Tax exemption using the current regulations.

I realise that that will be a difference in the definitions and feel the Council Tax exemption regulations need to be updated to reflect the true nature of what it means to be studying full time.

Hope this helps you with providing the information

Yours sincerely,

Kiara Vincent

Snodgrass Tan, Natalie, University of Warwick

Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office on Thursday 7th
April and Friday 8th April on University business, and will only have
sporadic access to email. I will aim to respond to your message as soon as
possible but if your email requires an urgent response, please contact
Vicky Archer ([email address]) who will be able to redirect your
query accordingly.

Snodgrass Tan, Natalie, University of Warwick

Dear Kiara

This additional context is helpful, thank you. We will be in touch again shortly and in any event within the timeframe permitted by the Freedom of Information Act.

Best regards
Natalie

Natalie Snodgrass Tan | Senior Assistant Registrar
Management Information and Planning | University of Warwick | Coventry CV4 8UW
T: +44 (0)24 765 22470 | F: +44 (0)24 765 74363
E: [email address]

PA: Vicky Archer | Tel: +44 (0)24 765 74800| Email [email address]

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Owen, Nicola, University of Warwick

Dear Kiara

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 5 April 2011
relating to council tax exemptions for 'full time' students and for
providing the additional clarification of the background to your request.

The definition used by the University of Warwick to determine whether a
course is full-time or part-time is operated in line with the definitions
set out by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The
latter are in turn also aligned to the definitions as applied in the
Education (Student Support) Regulations. For information, the definition
as stated by the HEFCE is as follows:

"A year of instance if counted as full-time if it meets the following
criteria:

a. The student is normally required to attend the institution, or
elsewhere, for periods amounting to at least 24 weeks within the year of
instance and, during that time, they are normally expected to undertake
periods of study, tuition, learning in the workplace or sandwich placement
that does not meet the criteria to be sandwich year-out which amount to an
average of at least 21 hours per week.

b. Full-time fees are chargeable for the course for the year."

The above is in line with the regulations you have quoted regarding
student exemption from Council Tax.

With the above context in mind, in the current academic year 2010/11,
there were 12,450 full-time undergraduate students and 4,604 full-time
postgraduate students fully-enrolled on courses as of the University's
annual census date of 31st October 2010. These numbers cover both Home/EU
and Overseas students. If you require further detail, this is available in
the University's annual Academic Statistics Online publication at:

[1]http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/mip/b...

(See Tables 2.1 and 2.7 for a breakdown of the above student numbers).

I hope this is helpful, but if you require any further information please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Nicola Owen

Deputy Registrar

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Smith, Cara, University of Warwick

Dear Kiara

I write to check if you had a response to the below email? We are
currently preparing numbers for you for undergraduate, postgraduate taught
and postgraduate research students and will report the numbers separately
should you not give us an indication of a smaller group that you may be
interested in.

Kind regards

Cara

From: Snodgrass Tan, Natalie
Sent: 08 April 2011 10:09
To: [FOI #67651 email]
Cc: Smith, Cara
Subject: RE: Freedom of Information request - Council Tax Exemption
Regulations

Dear Kiara

I write with reference to your recent Freedom of Information request
(dated 5^th April and appended below). In order that we can best respond
to this, I wondered whether you might be able to let me know whether there
is any specific group of students that you are mainly interested in, which
might help us circumscribe the scope and provide a more helpful response?

Best wishes

Natalie

Natalie Snodgrass Tan | Senior Assistant Registrar

Management Information and Planning | University of Warwick | Coventry CV4
8UW

T: +44 (0)24 765 22470 | F: +44 (0)24 765 74363

E: [email address]

PA: Vicky Archer | Tel: +44 (0)24 765 74800| Email
[email address]

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Dear Smith, Cara,

Thank you for your reply, however, the HEFCE definition is slightly different to the council tax one.

I apologise for my wording of the request, it was not set out well, and questions 4 and 5 seem to have been misunderstood . For your clarification I have also included more background information to help you understand the full purpose of my request.

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 private unsupervised study.

However, 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.

So in clarification, in questions 4 and 5, I am asking for you to provide the number of courses you run that provide at least 21 hours of contact teaching time per week, for at least 24 weeks of the year, and the number of students enrolled on these courses.

Yours sincerely,

Kiara Vincent

Owen, Nicola, University of Warwick

Dear Kiara

Thank you for your follow-up Freedom of Information request relating to
Council Tax Exemption Regulations and how they relate to full time
students.

Firstly, from our perspective, all of our courses meet the regulations and
there has never been an issue regarding attendance.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to define contact hours per course in
accordance with your request, as this will depend on the options and
modules that students take and contact hours are not always face to face
teaching, but can be delivered through a variety of methods. For example,
on average most students in the science faculty will have more than 21
hours contact per week, whilst those on social sciences and arts faculty
courses may have less direct lecture or seminar time.

The University is currently working on the definition of 'contact time' in
relation to the requirement for Key Information Sets but the work is not
yet completed, so we are unable to provide the definitive information at
this point in time.

I trust that you will find this explanation helpful.

Yours sincerely

Nicola Owen

Deputy Registrar

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Kiara Vincent

Dear Owen, Nicola,

Thank you for you help

Yours sincerely,

Kiara Vincent