The government’s policy on international students has, for the past six years, been driven in large part by its objective of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands. The government has argued that a large number of non-EU international students – around 90,000 – do not leave the UK at the end of their studies, a claim made on the basis of data from the International Passenger Survey. Its policy towards international students is designed to reduce this number, in order to progress towards achieving its net migration target.

However, this approach is based on dubious evidence. Other data sources suggest that the government could be relying on an overestimate of the number of students who stay on in the UK after completing their studies – one that overshoots by many tens of thousands. This means that government policy could be focused on driving out tens of thousands of people who may no longer be in the UK. The estimate the government uses is not reliable enough to guide policy.

This is deeply worrying. The international education sector is one of the UK’s biggest services exports, and one that has significant growth potential. It is also well-placed to help our universities weather the implications of Brexit. Yet ministers have used the 90,000 figure to justify a series of restrictive policies on international students. This is harming the sector and forcing well-integrated migrants whose skills our economy needs to leave the UK after completing their studies.

Moreover, the evidence suggests that few members of the public consider international students to be immigrants, so a more restrictive policy is unlikely to assuage public concerns on migration. With a weak evidence base and little political value, it is time for the government to re-evaluate its approach to international students.

KEY FINDINGS

• The government’s commitment to bringing down net migration to the tens of thousands per year has led it to focus on trying to reduce the apparent gap between the number of new students immigrating and the number of former students emigrating. It has done so because student flows are relatively easy to control compared to other types of migration, and because – according to the International Passenger Survey (IPS), the data source used to calculate the net migration figures – students appear to make up a large proportion of total net migration to the UK. Government ministers have claimed on the basis of this data that many non-EU international students (around 90,000) are not leaving the UK after completing their studies.
• However, this claim is not supported by other evidence. Our new analysis of other data sources suggests that the IPS could be overestimating the number of students who stay on in the UK after completing their studies by many tens of thousands. The Home Office’s visa data suggests that only around 40,000 non-EU individuals who came to the UK on student visas still have valid leave to remain or settlement five years later. The Annual Population Survey suggests that only around 30,000–40,000 non-EU migrants who previously came as students are still in the UK after five years. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA’s) Destination of Leavers Survey suggests that three-quarters of non-EU higher education students who are working six months after completing their studies are employed outside of the UK.
• While each of these data sources measures slightly different things and has its own methodological limitations, the large discrepancy between the other sources’ figures and that of the IPS suggests that the latter’s 90,000 figure is not reliable enough to be used as a guide for policy.
• Motivated in large part by the belief that considerable numbers are not leaving the UK, the government has implemented a range of restrictive policies towards international students, including scrapping the post-study work visa, imposing limits on working while studying, and creating new rules for education institutions in order to monitor compliance. While it is certainly right to root out abuse and tackle bogus colleges where there is robust evidence of wrongdoing, these rules have adversely affected genuine students and institutions, and have undermined the UK’s reputation as a desirable destination for international students.
• The total number of international students coming to the UK has fallen over the past six years, and the number of them enrolling in UK higher education has stagnated. This is worrying, as international students bring major economic, social and intellectual benefits to the UK. In total, UK education exports are estimated to be worth approximately £17.5 billion to the UK economy, with the fees and expenses of international students comprising three-quarters of earnings within the education sector. Moreover, the effects multiply: an international student who studies in Britain is an investment. They retain a knowledge of and links to Britain when they depart, making them useful ambassadors and multipliers for British firms who later seek to build trade relationships with those former students’ countries.
• While immigration is a key public concern, a large majority of the public is positive about the contributions that international students make to the UK. Only 22 per cent of the public see international students as immigrants, and while nearly 70 per cent of the public want to reduce migration flows, just 31 per cent want to do so by reducing university student numbers.
• Other countries are outpacing the UK in the international education sector. Our main competitor countries – Australia, Canada and the US – do count international students within their net migration figures, but do not include them within their numerical targets for permanent migration.
• The three countries have each made efforts to attract international students through a range of different measures. Australia has announced a new national strategy for expanding its international education sector, and has streamlined its visa processes. Canada has expanded opportunities for international students to access post-study work and permanent residency. The US has extended the optional practical training programme for STEM students, which permits off-campus work both during and after study.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Students should be excluded from the drive to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. The government should split up the net migration target into its individual components – workers, family migrants, asylum seekers and so on – and set migration targets for each of these flows. As with our main competitors in international education – Canada, Australia and the US – students should be classed as temporary rather than permanent migrants, and should not be subject to a target.
• The UK should take a leaf from Australia’s book and set out a 10-year plan for expanding its international education sector, as part of the government’s new industrial strategy. It should create a new role – a minister for international education – to develop and take forward this plan.
• As part of the 10-year plan, the government should reintroduce the post-study work visa for STEM and nursing graduates, allowing visa-holders to apply for any graduate job, with no salary threshold, for 12 months after graduation.
• More generally, international students should be exempted from the cap on Tier 2 visas and the resident labour market test for one year after they graduate, rather than for four months as at present. For the first 12 months, they should also be exempt from the ‘immigration skills charge’, which is to be introduced in April 2017.
• The Office for National Statistics should seek to improve its data collection methods to enable more robust assessment of the migration patterns of international students. We recommend that the government prioritise student visas in its roll-out of the exit check scheme, which should provide a more accurate picture of emigration flows and allow for exit data to be cross-checked with visa records.
• The government and the higher education sector should also jointly take proactive steps to measure the extent to which international students return home by boosting the response rate of the HESA Destination of Leavers survey.

The average bonus rose 10.7% over the same period. The poll also shows the gender pay gap still appears to be an issue in housing, with average male chief executive pay 7.2% higher than female pay.

Click here for the full results and in-depth analysis.

Damian Hinds, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), released a list of councils and housing associations taking part in the ‘Trusted Partner’ pilot, to allow ‘trusted’ social landlords to receive vulnerable tenants’ benefit direct before they fall into arrears.

Universal Credit, which rolls six benefits into one monthly payment, directs housing benefit towards the claimant. This has concerned housing associations, which say that some vulnerable tenants will be unable to manage their finances and fail to pay their rent.

Under current Universal Credit rules, landlords can apply to have the housing benefit directed straight to them instead of the claimant, but by then the tenant has commonly fallen into arrears of eight weeks or more.

However under the Trusted Partner proposals, social landlords will be able to identify vulnerable claimants and apply to have the rent directed to the landlord before the tenant falls into arrears.

Universal Credit has been hailed as a way to enable social tenants to manage their money better by making them pay their rent themselves – a practice that happens in the private rented sector.

However, a survey by councils in June found 79% of around 3,000 Universal Credit claimants are in rent arrears compared to 31% of other tenants.

A small number of housing associations were piloting a ‘proof of concept’ pilot to protect vulnerable tenants.

Mr Hinds on Friday announced the names of the landlords taking part in the second phase of this pilot.

It followed a written question by former shadow housing minister John Healey, who called on the minister to release the names.

The first housing association tenants have bought their homes under a pilot of the Right to Buy.

The first sales under the pilot programme, which was launched in November, have been completed – just under a year on from the ‘voluntary deal’ to extend the Right to Buy.

It is understood eight sales have taken place in the first batch, although the government has not confirmed this figure.

The government is using a central budget to reimburse housing associations for the discount tenants receive, but has not confirmed how much compensation has been paid out for the first sales, or the overall budget.

When the main scheme is rolled out, discounts will be funded through the sale of high-value council houses, which has not yet happened.

A total of 790 tenants, of 48,000 in the pilot scheme areas, have applied to buy their home under the Right to Buy. This represents 5% of those who were eligible and not excluded.

To buy under the pilot scheme, tenants were required to have lived in their properties for 10 years – far longer than the three years in the council Right to Buy scheme.

It would also reactivate the recently axed Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme to support borrowing and give associations discretion over how they spend grant released from property sales.

Associations would also offer a Right to Part-Buy, costing the government up to £7.3bn, which would allow them to buy a share of their home with the same percentage discount as is offered on a full Right to Buy sale. The report includes no suggestions as to how this would be funded.

The paper also said there should be more mergers in the sector and this could be encouraged by only offering deals exclusively to larger associations.

It also said some associations should borrow more, proposing that they take on debt worth 60% of the value of their homes. It acknowledged this would conflict with some association loan covenants “which may need to be challenged”.

The policies were designed to increase housing association development to 100,000 a year with about half of these offered on the open market, the paper said.

It said this was necessary to deliver the government’s targets as commercial house builders could “only ever sensibly build 140,000 homes a year on average” as they were constrained by planning andbusiness models.

Chief executives of housing associations which sponsored the report – Genesis Housing Association, Home Group, Orbit Group, Sovereign Housing Association, and Riverside Group – backed its ideas.”

The outcome of the EU referendum led to speculation that there will be more controls over immigration and on migrants’ eligibility for services such as welfare benefits and social housing.

This is a useful summary from CIH:

Brexit and how it might affect migration, housing need and eligibility

Although nothing will change in the short term and timescales are not yet known, this briefing explores some of the key issues around housing need and eligibility for housing which will have to be addressed.

Housing associations are increasingly using economic analysis to show the NHS how they can help cut health costs.

This is the conclusion taken from three reports published today by health thinktank The King’s Fund and the New NHS Alliance, commissioned by the National Housing Federation.

According to Inside Housing:

The reports reveal housing associations are increasingly using cost-benefit analysis to provide evidence on cutting costs because associations believe health care commissioners hold this analysis “in high regard”. The reports’ authors said associations are correct in this assumption, but added that “in reality, the use and understanding of economic techniques varies in the NHS as it does among housing associations”.

The authors warn there is no “standard way” to make the economic case for the contribution housing can make to health and those seeking a “silver bullet” to win NHS contracts will be “disappointed”.

However, the NHS is taking “place-based” planning seriously for the first time because they are required to produce Sustainability and Transformation Plans, which look at how local services can work together to improve health outcomes beyond the NHS, the reports’ authors conclude.

One of the reports said housing associations have “a lot to offer” the NHS and it should be “working more closely than it is with housing associations and the wider housing sector”.

NHS decision-makers tend to have a “clinical mindset” when assessing a proposed project which can lead to “difficulties” because these standards “don’t transfer comfortably into service redesign or well-being interventions”, one report said.

The report adds it is now “fairly well understood” that housing has an “important role” to play in mental health.

The authors said there has been a “quiet revolution” in the quality of social housing, with the proportion of homes not of a decent standard falling from 10.6% to 0.9% between 2008 and 2014.

The report adds: “This quiet revolution is delivering economic benefits to the NHS and the wider health sector through improved health of residents”. The report cites Birmingham City Council’s programme to improve homes to meet the Decent Homes Standard, which was estimated to return £24m per year to the NHS and cost £12m in total.

This is useful briefing from the CIH:

397207_what-you-need-to-know-about-the-homelessness-reduction-bill

Inside Housing and Dolphin Index have joined forces to carry out the second annual Innovation Index for the housing sector.

Using exclusive and up-to-the-minute data, IPPR analysis shows that other than an uncharacteristic downturn in job postings in the finance sector – particularly in London – employer recruitment patterns in the two months before and after the Brexit vote were in line with previous trends across all parts of the economy.

According to IPPR:

brexit-and-the-uk-labour-market-sept2016
IPPR and Burning Glass Technologies have, working in partnership, produced new analysis of online job vacancies both before and after the UK’s referendum vote to leave the European Union. The analysis compares jobs advertised online in key sectors across England in May/June and July/August 2016 with the same periods in the previous three years (2013, 2014 and 2015). This data offers some of the first insights into labour market trends ahead of official lagged indicators.

The analysis finds that there was an uncharacteristic downturn in job postings in the finance sector between May/June and July/August in 2016 – particularly in the Greater London region. For example, there was a 13.6 per cent drop in postings for jobs in the finance sector in London, for roles including chief executives and senior officials, managers, and quality and regulatory professionals. Job postings for the finance sector as a percentage of those across the whole economy decreased between May/June and July/August 2016 across every region in England – the only year in the past four in which this trend can be observed. Our analysis finds that, across most sectors of the labour market, employer recruitment patterns in the two months before and after the Brexit vote (May/June and July/August) were in line with previous trends.