Universities face fines over curbs on access

Universities that fail to increase the number of applications they receive from working-class students will be fined by a new regulatory body established yesterday to widen access to further education.

Universities that fail to increase the number of applications they receive from working-class students will be fined by a new regulatory body established yesterday to widen access to further education.

Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, emphasised that access to further education must be available to all. He attacked the "Brideshead Revisited image" conveyed by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

He announced the establishment of the Office for Fair Admissions (Offa), which will also have powers to prohibit universities from charging top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006 if they fail to sign a five-year agreement to visit schools and seek out more applications from students in the lower socio-economic groups.

Offa will also be able to recommend that universities not sticking to their agreements – by failing to offer enough bursaries to students from low- income groups – will be fined. Yesterday's package steered clear of setting targets for admissions.

Mr Clarke said: "We believe that the applications issue is the key one to hit in the first instance." He said that 35 per cent of students who obtained three A-grade passes at A-level failed to apply to Russell Group universities – the country's elite research institutions – despite many of those courses having lower entry requirements.

Independent school leaders welcomed the proposals but called for more to be done to reform the "fundamentally flawed university admissions system". Lecturers and students said the real problem was top-up fees.

Damian Green, the Tory education spokesman, said his party would scrap the access regulator. "This latest attack on the independence of universities will prove both unfair and ineffective," he said.