To: Directors of Finance of higher education institutions in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Of interest to those responsible for: Higher Education planning, Programme portfolio and Performance analysis
For further information contact: TRAC Support Unit: ; 0115 935 3400
Dear Colleagues,
Invitation to participate in Management Information Projects
I last wrote to you with news of the new TRAC Guidance. Since then the TRAC Development Group has held its annual conference for TRAC Practitioners, focusing on launching the new guidance and providing sessions on topics aimed at enhancing the utility of TRAC for institutions. The conference was very successful and had over 160 delegates in attendance from across the sector. Feedback from delegates at the conference has helped to inform the development of the TDG’s programme for 2015-16. To respond to the feedback from the sector, and interest in developing greater utility to institutions, we are undertaking three new management information projects that seek to provide good practice guidance and reference in the following areas:
- Costing Post Graduate Taught activity;
- Enhanced benchmarking from TRAC data; and
- Improving the efficiency of TRAC processes.
A brief summary of these projects is set out in Appendix1to this letter.
We would like to invite institutions to share experience, and participate in these management information projects. We hope that this will provide HEIs with valuable developmental activity as well as taking forward the TRAC agenda. This will enable institutions to better understand the factors affecting financial sustainability at institutional and sector level.
We are looking for a number of institutions to participate in these projects, working in clusters of four to six to share good practice. The work can be either in depth (e.g. developing systems inhouse) or lighter-touch (e.g. commenting on ideas or appraising approaches). The projects will report in a year’s time, and the outcomes from the work will be disseminated to the sector.
The projects will not all use the same approach, but they are likely to involve some or all of the following options for participation:
- a number of meetings (perhaps four over the year) where ideas are generated and developed leading to written outputs that will be available to institutions;
- active development of methods in several pilot institutions, which will plan the work and share experiences in discussion with each other; or
- alternatively, institutions could contribute by reading and commenting on papers via email.
If your institution would be interested in participating in one or more of the projects, please could you identify a lead contact (e.g. yourself, your Head of Administration, or Pro-Vice-Chancellor) and submit the form by e-mail to . The form can be downloaded from (A copy of the form is attached for information.)
We would appreciate early indications of interest by 15 May 2015,but we will consider further responses during May. Depending on the level of responses we may need to limit which institutions are selected to participate. If you have any questions about these plans, please contact the TRAC Support Unit in the first instance, or Heather Williams, whose contact details are at the top of this letter.
Yours sincerely
Professor Stuart Palmer
Chair, TRAC Development Group
APPENDIX 1: TRAC Development Group: Management Information Projects
Postgraduate Taught CostingAim: / To enable institutions to improve their understanding of the differential cost of teaching postgraduate taught students.
Outcome: / To provide a good practice guide and methodology that enables institutions to calculate the cost of postgraduate taught provision.
Approach: / This will be a sector-led project and include working groups of institutions, with support from the TRAC Support Unit. There is already the HEFCE Study of PGT costing that provides a substantial starting point, but this project seeks to expand the number of institutions involved and further develop the approach.
Enhanced benchmarking from TRAC data
Aim: / To enable broader engagement and use of the TRAC data as a source of information to support improved operational performance in institutions.
Outcome: / To produce a report that outlines options for extending the benchmarking that could be achieved from the TRAC data.
Approach: / This will be a collaborative project with the sector. It will be sector-led with support from the TRAC Support Unit, and will use a working group of interested institutions.
Improving the efficiency of TRAC processes
Aim: / To improve the efficiency of TRAC processes and explore the potential for institutions to make their TRAC returns earlier and/or bring forward their TRAC(T) reporting to coincide with the submission of Annual TRAC.
Outcome: / To identify ways to improve the efficiency of TRAC processes and the advantages of earlier TRAC reporting and produce a good practice case study outlining at a practical level the steps and actions taken to enable earlier reporting of Annual TRAC and TRAC(T).
Approach: / This will be a collaborative project working with institutions that are interested in improving their processes and accelerating the production of their TRAC returns. It will be supported by the Support Unit who will work with and observe the institutions’ plans and preparation for the 2014-15 TRAC process, drawing on the ‘TRAC the Easier Way’ guide. It will also identify any issues that need to be overcome during the cycle in order to document an implementation plan for other institutions to follow in bringing forward their TRAC reporting.
APPENDIX 2: TRAC Development Group: Management Information Projects
This can be downloaded for submission from:
InstitutionContact Name
Contact Number
Contact Email
Please indicate below which Management Information Project you would be interested in participating in? If interested in more than one project, please indicate your priority order by ranking each project 1, 2 or 3.
Project / Y/N / RankPostgraduate Taught Costing
Presentation of benchmarking data
Improving the efficiency of TRAC processes
Please provide any additional information you feel would be useful for us to know about your institutional approach and expertise in your selected project(s).
ProjectPostgraduate Taught Costing
Presentation of benchmarking data
Improving the efficiency of TRAC processes
Please return the form to no later than 15 May 2015.