Still no RAB charge allocations for BIS

Last November, I covered the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement for wonkhe. I pointed out then that the Comprehensive Spending Review had left out any Resource Accounting & Budgeting charge from the budgetary allocations for Business, Innovation and Skills (to cover 2016/17 onwards). The RAB charge allocations are utilised by BIS to cover the ‘impairment’ on student loans (the annual difference between the cash used to create new loans and the estimated value of repayments those loans will generate).

I understood that BIS would have these allocations confirmed in “Spring”, around the time of the Budget I presumed. A spokesman for BIS confirmed that these allocations are still not available.

With loans now to replace maintenance grants and to be extended to nursing, part-time, postgraduate and doctoral study, the RAB allocation represents a key means by which the Treasury exercises financial control. As I wrote back in November, “because so much hangs on loans these days we won’t really be able to assess how BIS did out of this funding settlement until we see the RAB allocations.”

Other forms of control did get mentioned; the Budget did reaffirm measures announced earlier about publishing data on earnings (not simply including it in the TEF metrics).

1.102 … The government will bring together information about the wages of graduates of different courses and the financial support available across further and higher education to ensure that people can make informed decisions about the right courses for them.