SOCIAL MARKET FOUNDATION information adds value to university provision, removing their need to search for relevant students or deploy application systems. Recommendation three - supporting the development of evidence-led good practice Support the development of evidence-led good practice, including by • expanding the relevant data published by HESA in England including an estrangement flag • requiring institutions to include care experience/estrangement in their APPs and ultimately to work towards the NNECL Quality Mark to access funding • commissioning long term tracking of outcomes for institutions participating in schemes like the Quality Mark. Access Access efforts should prioritise school attainment and addressing under representation of number of care experienced students at selective universities Doubling overall university participation is inadvisable without improving school attainment – to that end, tutoring, investment in virtual schools, and careers guidance can help It is natural for policy discussion of HE outcomes for care experienced and estranged students to gravitate towards the headline number of students in university. It is the most natural measure of success. The MacAlister review’s objective of securing a quality education for care experienced people is broader than the target of doubling the proportion of care leavers attending university, and particularly high tariff universities, by 2026 – but that target is where attention is naturally drawn. Similarly, Scotland’s perceived success in supporting care experienced students is often evidenced by reference to the tripling in the numbers going into HE (albeit from a lower base than England). We understand the value of these targets for focusing minds and keeping government, sector and society accountable for achieving genuine change. At the same time, though, it is critical that targets are achievable, and that we avoid perverse consequences that could result from pursuing them too aggressively. In Chapter Two we described how almost every expert we spoke to believes that school attainment is the biggest barrier to HE access for care experienced and estranged people, and presented some of the statistics on school performance that backs up their view. We also presented the evidence that care experienced students are often among the most marginal – least certain as to why they are going to university, and that university is for them. 54