Records of undergraduate student drop-out rates

The request was refused by University of Sheffield.

Myles Jordan-Bond

Hello The University Of Sheffield,
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information:
Records on student dropout rates from 1997-present date of undergraduate students, including what courses the relevant students were on, what year of study they were in when they officially dropped out, the date they ceased studies, their age and their gender. I would also request information regarding the level of maintenance loan they were receiving during their studies, as well as any additional relevant bursaries, grants or other financial support.
Please provide the information in the form of an excel spreadsheet.
If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.
If you can identify any ways that my request could be refined I would be grateful for any further advice and assistance.
If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or phone and I will be very happy to clarify what I am asking for and discuss the request, my details are outlined below.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
Best wishes,
Myles Jordan-Bond

Freedom Of Information, University of Sheffield

Dear Mr Jordan-Bond,
The information cannot be supplied within the appropriate time limit, and
therefore the Section 12 exemption applies.
Section 12 states that 'Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to
comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the
cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit. The
'appropriate limit' is defined in Reg(3) of the Freedom of Information and
Data Protection (appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, Statutory
Instrument 2004 No. 3244, as £450 or 18 hours (as defined in Reg 4(4) of
the same Regulations). In determining whether to invoke the Section 12
exemption, (exemption where the cost of compliance exceeds appropriate
limit), the University is entitled to take into account the costs it
reasonably expects to incur in:-
determining whether it holds the information
locating the information, or a document containing it
retrieving the information, or a document containing it
extracting the information from a document containing it
The University has determined that to produce the information you request
would indeed take well over the appropriate limit, and that therefore the
exemption described in S.12 is applicable in this case.
Data is also held between 2011/12 and 2017/2018
It has been suggested that the query is refined by supplying the HESA
defined "No longer in HE" measure. Details of the measure can be found
here- [1]https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis....
We can add Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPN) flag, Mature Y/N flag and
Gender flag. With regards subject/course, we can split out the data by the
JACS subject area, details here
- [2]https://www.hesa.ac.uk/support/documenta...,
there are 19 subject areas.
Please advise how you wish to continue with this request.
On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 at 12:35, Myles Jordan-Bond <[3][FOI #637838 email]>
wrote:

Hello The University Of Sheffield,
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request
the following information:
Records on student dropout rates from 1997-present date of undergraduate
students, including what courses the relevant students were on, what
year of study they were in when they officially dropped out, the date
they ceased studies, their age and their gender. I would also request
information regarding the level of maintenance loan they were receiving
during their studies, as well as any additional relevant bursaries,
grants or other financial support.
Please provide the information in the form of an excel spreadsheet.
If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the
information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in
Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16
obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.
If you can identify any ways that my request could be refined I would be
grateful for any further advice and assistance.
If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or
phone and I will be very happy to clarify what I am asking for and
discuss the request, my details are outlined below.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
Best wishes,
Myles Jordan-Bond

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