Access and participation plans
How to submit a plan
Prepare your plan by referring to Regulatory notice 1 and Regulatory advice 6.
Use the templates available on the regulatory advice 6 page, along with your personalised fees, investments and targets (FIT) document from the OfS portal.
You can also watch our webinars with advice on submitting access and participation plans.
An access and participation plan should include clear information for students on what fees they will be charged and what financial support they are entitled to. We encourage providers to include clear information related to financial support in the plan, not via a link to a provider's website.
When including this information, you may want to consider how the information can be presented as clearly as possible. Important pieces of information are:
- the financial support amount
- eligibility criteria
- the duration of the support - is it for one year or for the duration of a student's time at the provider?
- whether students have to apply or they will be contacted if they are eligible.
We have no set expectations on where you publish your evaluation findings, but we encourage you to disseminate your findings as widely as possible. We would also expect to see a timetable included in the plan for where and when evaluation outcomes will be shared.
Further guidance is available in Regulatory advice 6: How to prepare an access and participation plan.
- We are working to understand the implications of any prospective changes to fee regulations, including those related to the introduction of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. At the moment, it’s best to complete the templates you have. In future we may adopt optional or mandatory changes in the way we collect fee information to allow us and providers to meet relevant legislative requirements.
- We published updates to ‘Annex C – Access and participation plan template’ and ‘Annex G – Student submission template’ which providers are encouraged to use. The update includes some accessibility features which should make it easier to comply with web content accessibility regulation when publishing the final approved plans.
- Wave 3 providers can download their empty fees, investments and targets (FIT) template for access and participation plans starting in 2026-27 from the OfS portal. There is one area to download and upload the FIT template, and a separate area to upload the written access and participation plan. Both can be found under the ‘Access and participation plan 2026-27’ heading of this portal page: Access and participation plan area - Office for Students.
For any queries about the FIT templates, please contact [email protected].
Use the checklist
We recommend using the checklist (Annex B of Regulatory advice 6) prior to submitting your plan.
Submit your plan
Use the OfS portal to submit the following:
- your access and participation plan
- fees, investment and targets document
- Annex A - Assessment of performance
- Annex B - Evidence base and rationale for intervention strategies.
Submissions via email will not be accepted.
Annexes A and B are exempt from the 30-page limit. Read more about how to submit data through the OfS portal.
Student submissions
Students' unions and representatives can submit an independent student submission to comment on how they have been consulted with and involved in their provider's access and participation work. Guidance on student submissions and student consultation is available in Regulatory advice 6.
Providers are expected to support student representatives if they choose to produce a student submission.
What to expect once you have submitted the plan
We normally aim to complete our assessment and communicate outcomes within 12 weeks. You will need to have someone available for queries during this period to avoid any delays.
We will normally have a maximum number of two re-submissions. If, after two re-submissions, your plan has still not met the requirements of an approvable plan, the Director for Fair Access and Participation may be minded to refuse to approve the plan.
The decision about whether to approve a plan is provisional in the first instance.
More information about the assessment process can be found in Regulatory notice 1.
If your plan is not approved
If a plan is not approved, a provider may apply to the Independent Statutory Reviewer, appointed by the Secretary of State, for a review of our decision. If a provider applies for a review of a provisional decision, the Statutory Reviewer will review our decision and may issue a recommendation on completion of the review. We will reconsider the provisional decision having regard to any such recommendation and will then issue a final decision.
The Independent Statutory Reviewer ensures that decisions related to the approval, variation, or enforcement of access and participation plans are fair and comply with the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA).
Simon Lewis is currently the appointed Independent Statutory Reviewer. Simon is a barrister. He is also a Lay council member of the University of Bradford and has declared this as a conflict of interest.
Queries
For any queries about the FIT templates, please contact [email protected].
For any questions regarding the portal or the submission process, please contact [email protected].
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