Why Is HESA Reporting Critical for UK Universities?
The scale of statutory reporting universities manage each year to organisations such as the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) can feel relentless.
Every HESA return comes with strict deadlines, and all information needs to be accurate and submitted on time. Data errors or missed deadlines can jeopardise funding or result in eye-watering fines, so getting reporting right is mission critical to the smooth running of any institution.
A key challenge in this process is gathering the information needed to complete a data return, which can take many days, weeks or even months. Staff often juggle these data requests along with their own day-to-day responsibilities, so delays are not uncommon.
There's also the added complication that the criteria for reporting HESA student data, as well as information on courses and finances, frequently changes. What's required this year may be radically different to the last reporting cycle.
Systems must be regularly updated to reflect new reporting rules. In institutions that haven't yet moved to the cloud, where updates happen automatically, this responsibility falls to the university's IT team and can lead to system downtime.
And the challenge doesn't end there.
How can universities avoid HESA returns errors?
HESA is one of the key organisations responsible for collecting critical information from universities on behalf of government and higher education regulatory bodies. This data is used to shape regulation, guide funding decisions, inform policy development and enable students to make informed choices about where to study. As such, all HESA returns are subject to rigorous validation checks to ensure the information submitted is accurate and consistent.
Similarly to other reporting bodies, when issues with the data are discovered, the institutions concerned may receive a long list of flagged errors or incomplete fields that need to be corrected before a report can be resubmitted.
This time-consuming, but essential, process helps to ensure the data is reliable for funding decisions, policymaking and for public reporting purposes.
It can be a constant stress for reporting teams and their colleagues to keep up with these requests and submit the accurate data needed in time for the deadline.
But this pressure has eased for Ellucian Student customers with the new Ellucian Regulatory Management reporting tool. Regulatory Management works seamlessly with Ellucian's full ecosystem to drive institutional processes and power the full student and institutional lifecycles while ensuring data across the organisation remains up-to-date and consistent.
How the Ellucian Regulatory Management helps with HESA returns:
- Comprehensive Compliance Coverage: designed to address the full spectrum of regulatory requirements across multiple returns
- Time to Value: Delivered regulatory returns with a no-code/low-code approach allowing speed of update from regulatory change notification to use at an institution – no student record system upgrades needed for schema version changes.
- Data Democratisation: Enable Returns Officers to self-serve with an accessible and intuitive reporting solution.
- Delivered Validation: Purpose built out-of-the-box validations designed to meet the rules and requirements of the regulators, including business, coverage and tolerance rules. Plus, centralised error search and bulk update ensure data is quickly corrected.
Can HESA returns be simpler?
Absolutely. The days of chasing busy registrars for student data corrections or tracking down the curriculum team to update course details to meet higher education reporting requirements are over. There's no waiting anxiously for HESA to validate the data and return errors for correction either.
No more waiting
With the Regulatory Management reporting tool, regulatory teams can collate all the information they need to report to HESA themselves – and validate it to ensure it is accurate to the latest specifications – before it leaves the institution.
Instead of sending multiple emails to the finance team to request the latest fees data or waiting for updated course module information to arrive from the faculty administrator, this detail can be extracted in a few clicks for processing in a separate secure area of Ellucian Student or Banner.
External data, such as student records from a partner college delivering part of a course, can be imported simply too for reporting purposes.
All information is instantly validated to ensure it meets the latest reporting requirements without having to leave the institution. Any discrepancies, such as missing data on courses or new students, is flagged on screen straightaway with clear instructions on how to fix them.
With all checks complete and discrepancies accounted for, universities can submit accurate data reports on time, first time.
A game-changer for higher education data sharing
By removing the regulatory need for upgrades and testing, challenges that divert staff from their core responsibilities, universities can free up valuable time to better support students, departments and the institution as a whole.
The Ellucian Regulatory Management reporting tool simplifies the entire process and ensures institutions across the UK can meet their statutory reporting requirements.
Learn more about Ellucian Student
Key Terms for Data Management Leaders
HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency):
The UK's official body for collecting, analysing, and publishing data on higher education providers. HESA returns inform policy, funding, and public transparency, making compliance essential for institutions.
Statutory Reporting:
Legally mandated data submissions that universities must provide to regulatory bodies such as HESA. These reports cover areas like student enrolment, finance, and course data, and are subject to strict deadlines and validation standards.
Validation Checks:
Automated rules used by HESA to verify the completeness, consistency, and accuracy of submitted data. Institutions must address flagged errors or inconsistencies before a return is accepted.
Returns Officer:
A university staff member responsible for managing regulatory data submissions, often coordinating with multiple departments to ensure timely and compliant HESA returns.
