So, there are probably two dimensions to this. First of all, we have provided £3.5 million of separate funding specifically targeted to improve and increase collaboration between HE and FE. So, we put out a circular inviting proposals for that, and it was competitive, so we funded what was the best of the proposals, and we constrained it to be available only to pump-prime new activity or to add value to existing activity, but not just to keep things ticking over. We had seven bids submitted from across the three Welsh regions on a whole range of activities, which we probably haven't got time to go into now. I've got a long list here, but, for example, in south-east Wales, the University of South Wales is leading on a bid partnering with Cardiff University, Cardiff Met, with the Open University and all the FE players in the region. So, we were really pleased, actually. We tried to get it within regions, because that's how you get the biggest impact for learners in the area and also for smaller enterprises in terms of innovation work. So, that is a specific bit of funding designed to incentivise HE-FE collaboration. And then we direct fund a couple of FE institutions for delivery of higher education for historical reasons, and we also have our funding going through to support franchise activity between HE and FE. There are about 5,000 students who are studying HE programmes under franchise in FE colleges in Wales, and our funding method has, historically for some time now, protected that money. So, we try to prevent universities from taking the money out of franchise and onto campus, because we think it's important to try to encourage local provision within particular localities. And, certainly in areas where public transport infrastructure is perhaps not what it might be, for people to move to universities can be quite a disincentive, so—. But we encourage it that way as well.
Thank you. Then, finally from me, the council's remit letter for the 2019-20 academic year from the Minister does ask you to consider how you'd increase openness and transparency around the use of fee income. So, what are the issues here, and how will you take this forward?
The reporting of the income and expenditure is largely provided, probably more so in narrative form in the accounts and the financial statements and annual reports of institutions. A number of institutions also provide graphs and more easily accessible information to understand the income and expenditure of universities. But we would accept that this information isn't easy to access at the moment. There are examples of good practice across the sector in presenting as simply as possible what the income sources are for universities and how they spend their money. And we're going to be working with the Welsh universities and sector bodies to improve the accessibility of that information for Welsh institutions. More transparent reporting of income and expenditure, and not just fee income, is actually very important for understanding how income cross-flows work in universities. Some reasonably simplistic analyses can assume that all the student fee just covers the direct costs of academic provision, but there's much more to the student experience than that, so there are costs: there are the infrastructure costs, the student support costs, even the community engagement and all the research activities bring benefits to the teaching and fee provision. So, more transparency of all the universities' income sources and expenditure and a better understanding of the income cross-flows and why you can't look at universities in isolation of student provision and research, you have to look at the whole—so, we'll be working with them to improve that information.
Thank you.