FOI_24-306 Specialised foundation programme
Date of response: 04 December 2024
We have now considered your request of 05 November 2024 for the following information:
I am enquiring about the local application process for the merit-based application posts on the Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP) available to students at your medical school for the 2024-2025 application cycle. This FOI request concerns the SFP posts managed directly by your medical school in collaboration with the Medical Schools Council, comprising one third of all available SFP posts, as outlined in this press release Within this FOI request, 'local' refers to: 1) SFP posts managed by your medical school 2) Medical students based at your medical school
Question 1. How many SFP posts are available at your medical school for the 2024-25 application cycle for direct application by local students (i.e. one third of overall SFP posts available)?
Our response:
10 posts were available (applications now closed).
Question 2. Please outline the components of the submitted SFP application via an Excel spreadsheet, denoting the component assessed and the points/percentage allocated (e.g. weighting per year of medical school, prizes, publications etc.)
Question 3. Please state whether the application process will include an interview component and, if so, under which conditions an interview would take place
Question 4. If an interview would take place, please summarise the components assessed in an interview (e.g. clinical knowledge, career plans, critical appraisal skills)."
Our response:
There is an interview process for those who meet an agreed threshold score against locally agreed criteria.
On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request.
| Exemption | Reason |
|---|---|
| s.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interests | Prejudice to commercial interests of any party |
We have applied this exemption to questions 2-4 of your request specifically to the assessed components of the Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP) application; details of the conditions in which an interview would take place; the components assessed at interview. It is our belief that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University of East Anglia.
To compete in the Higher Education market, with leading UK and international universities, the University must ensure that information that would be strategically useful to its competitors is not placed in the public domain. Release of such information would potentially compromise the University’s ability to recruit and retain prospective students to the SFP. The University’s position would be severely compromised if it were to release information that would benefit its competitors.
The higher education industry is a highly competitive global market. Universities across the globe all seek to attract, recruit and retain the best prospective students from a limited pool in return for funding and investment. The way in which the University of East Anglia chooses to do this is a core commercial activity which directly affects the University’s reputation and financial position. Student recruitment is undoubtedly a commercial activity for all universities.
The SFP is a hugely popular and competitive programme with the numbers applying rising year on year. It offers foundation doctors the chance to develop their research, teaching and leadership/management skills. The information requested is of value to the University since it contains details of our intellectual processes for selecting and testing students to admit the highest quality students to the course. The method of selection for the SFP is determined by the University and is not in the public domain. We do not share this information with our competitors. It is readily seen as commercially sensitive. Disclosure of this information would be useful to our competitors and would have a direct impact on our success in recruiting the highest quality students. It would hinder the University from selecting the best applicants. It is likely to commercially advantage other Universities who deliver similar programmes as other Universities would use this information to their advantage. It would prejudice the Universities future success in delivering a successful SFP which would impact on financial position when securing future funding.
Release of this information would be likely to make publicly available, information that would enable prospective students in current or future years to gain an unfair advantage, in terms of prior knowledge of the selection process. It is important that for the University to maintain its competitive edge that it is seen to be fair giving prospective students an equal chance of gaining a place on its SFP programme. Release of this information would compromise the fairness of the SFP admissions process.
Successful applicants need to be adaptable to a range of circumstances and an individual will not thrive if they simply ‘learn to the test’. It is these qualities that our carefully-judged marking criteria seeks to test. Our current approach addresses the need for transparency and the obligation of the University to ensure that our providers and the public can have confidence in the calibre of these students we assess because they are the future generations of academic medical professionals.
Release of this information is likely to destroy that careful balance and would prejudice and undermine the trust and confidence the University places in its admissions process. Since release of the information would give prospective candidates an unfair advantage, the University could no longer have trust and confidence they were admitting candidates with the relevant skills and experience to the SFP. Admitting candidates without the relevant skills and experience is likely to lead to reputational risks amongst our providers and be damaging to both our commercial and our financial position. Students without the relevant experience who have ‘learned to the test’ are less likely to complete the course. This would affect the University’s completion rates and future funding.
Giving prospective students an unfair advantage would certainly not be in the Universities commercial interests since it would be likely to prejudice their ability to compete on a level playing field with other Universities who would seek to use this information to exceed our recruitment activities. Release of the information is likely to damage our reputation amongst our prospective and existing students, providers, and members of the public who place trust and confidence in our admissions processes to recruit the best calibre candidates to be the future generation of medical professionals.
The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.
The factors in favour of disclosure would include:
Increasing public understanding of the SFP admissions process.
Enhancing the transparency and openness of the robustness of the SFP admissions process.
Increasing public confidence in the integrity and probity of the SFP admissions process
Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:
Ensuring that the SFP admissions process is fair to all applicants.
Protecting the ability of Universities to compete on a level playing field.
Preventing a distortion of the admissions process that would have the potential effect of raising costs to the public sector and/or reducing the quality of services.
After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in maintaining the exemption.