Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2020

I, Dan Tehan, Minister for Education, make the following guidelines.

Dated 12 December 2020

Dan Tehan

Minister for Education

Contents

Chapter 1 – Preliminary

1  Name

2  Commencement

3  Authority

4  Definitions

5  Schedules

6  Savings provision

Chapter 2 – Higher Education Providers

7  Purpose

8  Higher Education Providers

Chapter 3 – National Priorities

9  Purpose

10  National Priorities

Chapter 4 – Medical Student Loading

11  Purpose

12  Working out the medical student loading

Chapter 5 – Determining the Funding Clusters

13  Purpose

14  Determining the funding clusters

Chapter 6 – Advances for Certain Purposes

15  Purpose

16  Advances for certain purposes

17  Reduction of grant amounts in the following three years

Chapter 7 – Transition Fund Loading

18 Purpose

19 Working out the Transition Fund Loading

Chapter 8 – Maximum basic grant amount for higher education courses

20 Purpose

21 Maximum basic grant amounts for higher education courses

Schedule 1—Repeals

Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2012

Chapter 1 – Preliminary

1  Name

  This instrument is the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2020.

2  Commencement

 (1) Each provision of this instrument specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this instrument as originally made. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this instrument.

 (2) Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this instrument. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this instrument.

3  Authority

  This instrument is made under section 238-10 of the Act.

4  Definitions

Note: A number of expressions used in this instrument are defined in Schedule 1 of the Act, including the following:

(a) EFTSL;

(b) funding clusters;

(c) maximum basic grant amount;

(d) national priority; and

(e) Table A provider.

  In this instrument:

Act means the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

Department means the Commonwealth department administered by the Minister responsible for administering the Act.

HESDC means the Higher Education Student Data Collection which is a component of the Higher Education Statistics Collection required under subsection 19-70(1) of the Act.

5  Schedules

  The instrument specified in the Schedule to this instrument is repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule.

6  Savings provision

  Despite the repeal of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2012 made by Schedule 1 of this instrument, those guidelines, as in force immediately before the commencement of this instrument, continue to apply on and after that commencement in relation to a grant made under Part 2-2 of the Act for the 2020 grant year.

Chapter 2 – Higher Education Providers

7  Purpose

This chapter specifies, for the purposes of subparagraph 30-1(1)(b)(i) of the Act, providers other than Table A providers that can be paid grants under Part 2-2 of the Act.

8  Higher Education Providers

The higher education providers are:

(a)    Avondale University College Ltd trading as Avondale University College;

(b)   The University of Notre Dame Australia trading as University of Notre Dame Australia;

(c)    Bond University Limited;

(d)   University of Divinity trading as MCD University of Divinity;

(e)    Tabor College Inc trading as Tabor Adelaide;

(f)     Eastern College Australia Inc;

(g)   Christian Heritage College;

(h)   Holmesglen Institute trading as Holmesglen Institute of TAFE; and

(i)     Melbourne Polytechnic.

Chapter 3 – National Priorities

9  Purpose

This chapter specifies, for the purposes of paragraph 30-20(b) of the Act, outcomes in the provision of higher education as national priorities.

10  National Priorities

The following outcomes are national priorities:

(a)    increasing the number of persons undertaking Education and Nursing courses of study;

(b)    supporting a number of persons undertaking Science, Computing, Allied Health, Other Health, Education, Nursing and Society and Culture courses of study at the University of Notre Dame Australia; and

(c)    supporting a number of Indigenous persons undertaking courses of study at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Chapter 4 – Medical Student Loading

11  Purpose

This chapter specifies, for the purposes of subparagraph 33-1(1)(b)(ii) of the Act, the method for working out the amount of medical student loading for a provider for a year.

12  Working out the medical student loading

(1)    The medical student loading for a provider for Commonwealth supported ‘medical student EFTSL’ for the allocated number of medical student places in 2021 and later years is the medical student loading in 2020 (of $1,465 per place) indexed in accordance with Part 5-6 of the Act.

(2)    For the purposes of determining a ‘medical student EFTSL’ only students undertaking medical units of study in a course of study in medicine, completion of which would allow provisional registration as a medical practitioner by an authority of a State, a Territory or the Commonwealth (Field of Education codes (under the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Australian Standard Classification of Education) 019901 - medical science and 060100 to 060199 - medical studies, excluding 060113 – pathology), are taken into account. 

(3)    The allocation of medical student places for a particular year is equal to the most recent full year student load data reported by the provider through the HESDC and cleared as final by the Department, plus any subsequent approved variations for a course of study in medicine not yet reported in the HESDC and specifically allocated to the provider by the Minister.

Chapter 5 – Determining the Funding Clusters

13  Purpose

(1)    This chapter specifies, for the purposes of section 33-35 of the Act, how to determine, for the purposes of the Act, the funding cluster, or the part of a funding cluster, in which units of study are included, or the particular funding cluster, or the particular part of a particular funding cluster, in which a particular unit is included for the purposes of the Act.

(2)    Funding clusters are defined by the field of education (FOE) code arising from applying the ABS Australian Standard Classification of Education as set out in the table below.

14  Determining the funding clusters

1. Note: where a 4 digit FOE code is used in this table, the relevant part of the funding cluster also includes all 6 digit FOE codes starting with that 4 digit code. 
2. Excluding Postgraduate Clinical Psychology units, which are in funding cluster 2 (see note 4), and excluding Professional Pathway Psychology units with FOE codes starting with 0907 which are in cluster 2 (see note 5).
3. Excluding Professional Pathway Social Work units with FOE codes starting with 0905 which are in cluster 2 (see note 6).
4. Postgraduate Clinical Psychology units of study are in funding cluster 2 and are psychology units of study (FOE code 090701) that contribute to courses of study that are accredited for the purposes of professional registration by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and which lead to Endorsed Areas of Practice in Clinical Psychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Counselling Psychology, Educational and Developmental Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Health Psychology, Sports Psychology and Community Psychology.
5. Professional Pathway Psychology units of study are Behavioural Science units (with FOE codes starting with 0907) that contribute to a course of study that leads to a bachelor degree or honours degree in psychology with a course structure that makes it compulsory to study units relevant to professional registration as a psychologist by the Psychology Board or Australia, and the course of study represents a pathway to professional registration as a psychologist.
6. Professional Pathway Social Work units of study are Human Welfare Studies and Services units (with FOE codes starting with 0905) that contribute to courses of study that lead to a bachelor degree, honours degree or master’s degree in social work accredited by the Australian Association of Social Workers.

Chapter 6 – Advances for Certain Purposes

15  Purpose

This chapter specifies, for the purposes of subsection 33-40(5) of the Act, how:

(a)    advances in relation to expenditure of a provider for certain purposes are to be determined by the Minister under subsection 33-40(1) of the Act; and

(b)    amounts of grant payable to providers under section 33-1 of the Act in the three years following the making of the advance are to be reduced.

16  Advances for certain purposes

The purposes for which an advance may be made to a provider under subsection 33-40(1) include the following:

(a)    to assist providers with the cash-flow implications of restructuring;

(b)    to implement adjustments arising from the specific effects of Commonwealth policy change on the payment of grants;

(c)    to rationalise staffing levels, courses and infrastructure both within and between providers;

(d)    to help secure genuine productivity improvements in the area of workplace reform;

(e)    to implement explicit decisions to restructure the educational profile of a provider; and

(f)     such other purposes as the Minister may determine. 

17  Reduction of grant amounts in the following three years

(1)    A reduction, for the purposes of subsection 33-40(4) of the Act, in the amount of the grant payable to a provider under section 33-1 of the Act for each of the years (up to a maximum of three years) following the year in which an advance is made under subsection 33-40(1), will be decided by the Minister.

(2)    In the years (up to a maximum of three years) following the year in which the advance is made to the provider under subsection 33-40(1) of the Act, the amount of the grant to the provider for a year, payable under section 33-1 of the Act, will also be reduced by an amount (A) calculated in accordance with the following formula.

   A = B – C

Where

B = the reduction in the amount of the grant for that year determined by the Minister indexed in accordance with Part 5-6 of the Act.

C = the reduction in the amount of the grant for that year determined by the Minister.

Chapter 7 – Transition Fund Loading

18 Purpose

This chapter specifies, for the purposes of subparagraph 33-1(1)(b)(iv) of the Act, the method for working out the amount of Transition Fund Loading payable to a higher education provider for a year.

19 Working out the Transition Fund Loading

(1)    The Transition Fund Loading is payable to a Table A provider, and the University of Notre Dame Australia, for the grant years 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Transition Fund Loading for a provider is calculated by the Department for a year using the following formula:

Where:

OF = ‘old funding’, which represents the lesser of:

(a)    the actual amount of funding the provider would have been entitled to receive under section 33-5 of the Act for the relevant year using 2020 enrolments, plus related student contribution amounts they would have received using 2020 enrolments,  or

(b)    the actual amount of funding the provider would have been entitled to receive under section 33-5 of the Act for the relevant year using enrolments for the relevant year, plus related student contribution amounts they would have received using enrolments for the relevant year,

  if changes to the Act had never been made to implement the Job-ready Graduates Package.

NF = ‘new funding’, which represents:

(a)    the actual amount of funding the provider is entitled to receive under section 33-5 of the Act in the relevant year, excluding any funding the provider may receive in relation to ‘short courses’ and ‘national priority places’;

(b)    related student contribution amounts; and

(c)    the actual amount of funding the provider is entitled to receive under the National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund for the relevant year,

  after changes to the Act have been made to implement the Job-ready Graduates Package, plus any grant amounts the provider receives under the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee which is a program established under Part 2-3 of the Act and set out in the Other Grants Guidelines (Education) 2012.

HEPPP reallocation = any change to a provider’s funding under the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) (including both increases in funding and decreases in funding) that will occur as a result of changes made to the formula for calculating the HEPPP from 1 January 2021.

(2)    If the Transition Fund Loading for a provider as calculated under (1) is less than zero, no Transition Fund Loading will be paid to that provider.

Chapter 8 – Maximum basic grant amount for higher education courses

20 Purpose

This chapter specifies amounts for the purposes of subsection 30-27(2) and paragraph
30-27(3)(a) of the Act, which provide that the maximum basic grant amount for a Table A provider for higher education courses for the grant years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 must not be less than the amount specified in these Guidelines.

21 Maximum basic grant amounts for higher education courses

The maximum basic grant amount for higher education courses specified in a Table A provider’s funding agreement must not be less than the following amounts specified for each provider for the relevant grant year:

Schedule 1—Repeals

Commonwealth Grant Scheme Guidelines 2012

1  The whole of the instrument

Repeal the instrument