More Choice, More Rights: Rent Strategy

more choice, more rights: rent strategy

equality impact assessment: toolkit

Introduction

Cambridge is one of the most expensive cities in the UK in which to rent land and accommodation, and the cost of living here is fast increasing. With this campaign, we will be lobbying the university to provide banded rents, so that students have more of a choice about the amount that they pay for accommodation and no student is priced out of this university.

Nationally, average student accommodation prices are being raised by an influx of private providers, and the NUS found that the average price of a room in purpose-built student accommodation is £146.73, representing an 18.45 increase since the last survey in 2012-13.

Across Cambridge in the private sector, rent is rising fast: Cambridge is the sixth-most expensive place to rent outside London, as a one bedroom flat averages £800 per month[1]. Putting the private sector aside, the 2015 Big Cambridge Survey revealed that only 51% of students who lived in college accommodation were satisfied with its value for money.

While college accommodation at Cambridge is undoubtedly cheaper for an individual than renting privately, it still does not offer satisfactory value for money for all and is unaffordable for many.

When colleges increase rent, but support and funding does not increase at the same rates, they are pricing people out of studying here. When colleges do not increase rent uniformly, they are adding yet another level of disparity to a University where someone’s experience is already so vastly influenced by their choices.

One solution to this is our proposal: the introduction of banded rents across all colleges. This would mean that there was a scale of pricing for different types of rooms available in each college, and therefore students would have the choice of how much to pay.

We believe that the experiences of different groups of students have to be taken into account when Colleges are raising their rent and changing their structures. One of the ways to do this, as mandated in the policy below, is to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment.

Our mandate

This policy was passed at CUSU Council on May 2nd 2016.

CUSU Notes:

1. That the cost of rents within the Cambridge Colleges, and within the city of Cambridge are high (and in some cases considered economically unattainable) for Cambridge students;

2. Of those students who responded to the 2015 Big Cambridge Survey, 86% lived within College accommodation, and of these just over half (51%) were satisfied with value for money;

3. Of those students who responded to the 2015 Big Cambridge Survey, 45% of students said that finances had some impact on their time at University;

4. Mature and graduate Colleges express the most concern about finances, according to the 2015 Big Cambridge Survey;

5. During the Lent Term of 2015, the CUSU President undertook a series of rent workshops across Collegiate Cambridge. These sought to provide cross-Collegiate advice and tools for rent negotiations, so that negotiations take a long view of rent price trajectories, keeping all student groups and how they will be affected in mind;

6. The CUSU President 2015-2016 created a Rent Guide for College Representatives;

7. The CUSU President 2015-2016 created a template Equality Impact Assessment for College rent price increases (see attached template) which seeks to ensure Colleges explicitly address how a rent increase will affect the different economic situations of students within their College

CUSU Believes:

1. Rent prices should not bar a student from applying to study at a College, nor bar a student from being able to complete their degree due to economic stress;

2. Any rent price increase proposed by a College should be equitable, fair and provide ample opportunity for student consultation and input before a final decision;

3. In the instance a College proposes a rent increase, the proposal should seek to critically and comprehensively evaluate how proposed increases will affect the varying economic and social groupings of students;

4. Simultaneous to any College rent increase deliberation, the necessary calculations should be made with regards to how much hardship or bursary support the College will need to offer;

5. Any ultimately decided rent increase should come with the necessary, preemptively calculated hardship or bursary support for the incoming year, any proposal which cannot assure this should be reconsidered;

6. No more than a certain percentage of a students’ overall, annual income should be spent on accommodation so it is not likely to cause financial stress;

7. College representatives should feel empowered to ask their College to meet certain economic funding arrangements for students in the event of rent increases which tip over a certain point.

CUSU Resolves:

1. That CUSU, led by the CUSU President. should continue to make equitable, democratic rent price negotiations a priority and work both centrally through University Committees and with College JCR and MCR representatives on individual and collective action;

2. College JCR and MCR representatives embarking on rent negotiations should pay due regards to the equality impact rent assessment as a way of holding their College stakeholders to account on the rent increases they propose, and how they will potentially affect mature, postgraduate, disabled, international, those within receipt of Government maintenance support and ‘squeezed middle’ income students, among other identified economic student groupings;

3. CUSU should campaign with students against a College decision, where the above requirements have not been met, and a College so decides to proceed with an increase.

What is an Equality Impact Assessment?

This Equality Impact statement is a tool which assesses the effects of a policy or an action plan on a group with protected characteristics. They are most effective when they are backed up with evidence and consultation, with maximum input from people in those groups and have been used by organisations such as the National Union of Students to challenge national policy.

This EIA is based on the groupings of funding a student may receive, and thus their economic status. We hope you will use it to highlight the inequalities and disadvantages for certain groups of students which will result from rent increases and use it to support our case for banded rent and your own rent-setting negotiations.

How do you fill it out?

To fill out an EIA, you should think about the different groups of students who will be affected by a rent change. We have grouped students according to the type of student finance they receive below.

You would then use existing data sets, such as the Big Cambridge Survey or your own College-based research to think about how they will be affected. You could also consult representatives of the relevant groups at your College, or run a focus group.

Once you have filled it in, you can use it as a tool to lobby your College for a rent freeze of an alternate pricing structure and back that up with the data you have gathered.

We also recommend that you populate our EIA with details of the percentage of their total income a student would spend on their rent. How to work this out is shown below.

Worked Example

Percentage income

The excel spreadsheet below is a template provided by the CUSU President 2015-16 displaying:

• Wolfson College 2015-2016 rent prices,

• funding available to students (national and College-based)

The formula presents the percentage of a student’s annual income spent on accommodation costs depending on their funding status.

It is CUSU’s recommendation that J/MCR Committee Accommodation Officers (or equivalent) continuously populate such a document during their tenure, enabling them evidence (during a rent negotiation with College) what might be the implication of a rent hike on the financial status of different groups of students.

This shows the percentage cost of different rents from different levels of income:

WOLFSON COLLEGE
Room Type / Cost per Year / % Of Mature Students' Maximum Income 15/16 / % Of Mature Students' Maximum Income 16/17
Study bedrooms (shared facilities) / 5009 / 38% / 34%
Study bedrooms (own facilities) / 5715 / 44% / 38%
Larger study bedrooms / sets / 6443 / 49% / 43%
Studio flats (own facilities) / 7993 / 61% / 53%
Double studio flats/study bedrooms (shared facilities) / 9013 / 69% / 60%
Room PH4 in Plommer House / 11429 / 88% / 76%
Shared sets / 12885 / 99% / 86%
Flats with own facilities / 13129 / 101% / 88%
Family Flats / 14280 / 110% / 96%

This is the other information needed to complete the calculation:

15/16 Student Support (First Year Student) / 16/17 Student Support
Type / Amount / Type / Amount
Max maintenance grant / 3387 / Maintenance Loan (Special Support element - mature) / 3469
Max maintenance loan / 4047 / Maintenance Loan (Standard) / 5878
Max Cambridge Bursary (mature) / 5600 / Max Cambridge Bursary (mature) / 5600
Max Cambridge Bursary (standard) / 3500 / Max Cambridge Bursary (standard) / 3500
Potential Income (standard age) / 10934 / Potential Income (standard age) / 12847
Potential Income (mature) / 13034 / Potential Income (mature) / 14947

Here are some written instructions showing how to calculate this (the formula view is also shown below)

To work this out:
1 / Input the types of room and their prices
2 / Work out the different amounts of income a student may have
3 / Make sure all of the numbers are in different cells to text
4 / Formula for working out income: "=SUM(Cell containing amount 1, cell containing amout 2 etc)
5 / Formula for working out percentage: "=cell with cost/total income amount"
6 / This should give a number that's like 0.056 - highlight all the cells which you want to contain percentages and click the % symbol underneath the box that says "General" in the middle of the top bar.

This is the formula view:

Room Type / Cost per Year / % Of Mature Students' Maximum Income 15/16 / % Of Mature Students' Maximum Income 16/17
Study bedrooms (shared facilities) / 5009 / =B5/B23 / =B5/E23
Study bedrooms (own facilities) / 5715 / =B6/B23 / =B6/E23
Larger study bedrooms / sets / 6443 / =B7/B23 / =B7/E23
Studio flats (own facilities) / 7993 / =B8/B23 / =B8/E23
Double studio flats/study bedrooms (shared facilities) / 9013 / =B9/B23 / =B9/E23
Room PH4 in Plommer House / 11429 / =B10/B23 / =B10/E23
Shared sets / 12885 / =B11/B23 / =B11/E23
Flats with own facilities / 13129 / =B12/B23 / =B12/E23
Family Flats / 14280 / =B13/B23 / =B13/E23

Equality Impact Assessment

As an example here, the mature home students’ section with regards to Wolfson College has been filled in for you.

Policy Assessed: / Annual rent increases
Assessed by:
Economic Characteristics / Who has been consulted? / How does a rent increase affect the group?
EU Students
Non-EU Students
Cambridge Bursary holders (home students)
Bursary holders (non-EU students)
Bursary holders (EU students)
“Squeezed middle”
(Home students)
Students, without access to maintenance grant, but without a wealthy background
“Squeezed middle”
(non-EU students)
“Squeezed middle”
(EU students)
Mature students
(Home students) / Big Cambridge survey data, 2015 / + We know that mature students face large financial burden; when Big Cambridge Survey data is split by college, colleges with the highest proportions of students reporting financial difficultieswere mature and grad colleges.
+ At Wolfson College saw 62.65% say that finances had had a
+ Mature students are also significantly more likely to have dependents
+ This combines to mean that a rent increase would significantly affect mature students, as they are already financially stretched and funding available is not increasing at the same rate as costs.
Mature students
(non-EU students)
Mature students
(EU students)
Disabled students
(Home students)
Disabled students
(non-EU students)
Disabled students
(non-EU students)
Students with dependents
(Home students)
Students with dependents
(non-EU students)
Students with dependents
(EU students)

Any Questions?

If you would like any further information on how to use this template, please get in touch with the CUSU President at

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