- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 April 2003 09.34 BST
Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, will announce on Tuesday that the Government's 'access regulator' will have the power to fine universities which do not stick to the five-year contract. In the worst cases, institutions could be stripped of their ability to charge students top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year.
The announcement will re-ignite the debate about access to university, with independent schools complaining that their students are being discriminated against for being 'too middle class'.
The Government will make it clear that, although it does not want to get involved in the 'minutiae' of admissions policy, it expects institutions to make greater effort at connecting with secondary schools in inner-city and deprived areas.
Ministers have backed away from suggestions that the regulator would be able to take into account parental income when considering access issues.
Government sources said the access agreement was about levelling the playing field rather than discriminating in favour of one group or another.
Between 2000 and 2001, 56 per cent of independent school pupils applied to the elite 'Russell Group' of universities including Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, Warwick and Edinburgh.
That compares to 35 per cent of pupils from state schools.
Whitehall officials insist the problem is not that the university admissions systems is biased but that many state school pupils still believe that university was 'not for them' and did not apply. Once they have applied, the same proportion of independent and state school pupils, about a fifth, are accepted by Russell Group universities.
The figures comparing students from different class backgrounds show similar results. Fewer students from lower-income families applied to universities than from middle-class households, but once they had applied they had the same chance of getting in.
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: 'We want to ensure fair access for all and raise the aspirations of students from poorer backgrounds.
'The only way to encourage a broader range of applications is to discover what is putting people off and then tackle it.'
Government sources made it clear that they would not get involved in endorsing specific admissions policies as that was a matter for the universities themselves.
Bristol University has been at the centre of criticism for experimenting with different admissions policies which did not simply rely on A-level grades. The Government plans will only say that admissions policy should be based on 'merit and potential'.
'This will not be about Big Brother pontificating from on high about what universities have to do,' said one Whitehall source. 'It will be far more subtle relationship than that.'
As part of the access agreement, universities will run outreach programmes with state schools and increase the number of 'meaningful' bursaries they offer to people from deprived backgrounds.
The document will praise an Oxford University scheme which offers bursaries worth £2,000 over three years and Warwick which funds 30 scholarships worth £2,000 every year for students whose parental income is below £15,000.
Each university already has benchmarks set by the Higher Education Funding Council on increasing access. No specific targets will be set, but the regulator will judge progress in an annual report.
Universities that are deemed to be failing will be named.
The regulator, who is likely to receive a six-figure salary, is due to start work in 2005 with top-up fees being introduced the following year.
