“What is typical is that the right hon. and learned Lady is jumping on the latest bandwagon without checking her facts. Less than half the universities that have published figures so far have said that they will seek to charge £9,000 for some courses” — Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions, 5 April 2011

“The Leader of the Opposition has claimed that 80 per cent are doing so. It depends on how you measure this, but current estimates suggest that 22 out of 46 Universities are aiming for £9,000. I know adult numeracy is a problem – but under no system of mathematics that I am aware of does 22 out of 46 represent 80 per cent.” — Vince Cable, Speech, 6 April 2011

“Of the 23 universities that have announced their fees, 18—more than 80 per cent—plan to charge £9,000. It is not the exception; it is the rule.” — Ed Miliband, Prime Minister’s Questions, 30 March 2011

With all the talk of social mobility this week, each new announcement by a university of its intended tuition fee rates is making the news. Last week at PMQs, Ed Miliband attacked the Government on the grounds that the early announcements showed the full rate would be the norm.

This week Nick Clegg and Vince Cable kicked the ball back up the field by saying that “less than half” and “22 out of 46” sought to charge £9,000 per year.

Interested to get the full figures out into the open, Full Fact put in an innocuous request to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills asking for the list of universities from which they derived that figure. Little did we know what a can of worms we were opening.

Given that fewer than half of all universities have announced their intentions regarding fees there is a limit to how much use the interim numbers are, but with such senior figures debating them they ought at least to be accurate and verifiable.

Initially the Department told us that they did not have a list, but said they believed the Times Higher Education Supplement did. Unfortunately, the THES list states that 9 out of 33 universities want less than the full rate, suggesting that Mr Miliband’s claim last week could have been the best information available at the time and that Mr Clegg was wrong yesterday. Unfortunately, the THES does not provide sources for its list.

The BBC’s list, which does include sources for most universities, states that 9 out of 32 universities want less than the full rate.

Eventually the Department replied to say that they have a list of 46 but “we don’t think it’s helpful to share it”—over our protests—and advised us to contact all the universities if we wanted to compile our own.

They insisted that 22 out of 46 universities not charging the full rate is a public figure based on universities’ announcements, and that just because Ministers had used it in public they did not have an obligation to explain how they arrived at it.

When we contrasted this to the figures compiled from public announcements by the BBC and the THES, a spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister explained that the Department’s list included information provided privately by universities to the Government. This is, of course, completely unverifiable, although we accept the Government’s word on it.

However, that is not the final word on the matter. If you compare the BBC and THES lists, it appears that 24 universities will be seeking the full rate.* That is more publicly declared for the £9,000 rate than is allowed for in Mr Cable’s estimates, and more than Mr Clegg’s half too, regardless of whether it is half of those the media have noticed, or half of those the Government has heard from.

The spokesman explained this by pointing out that two universities on the BBC’s lists are down as ‘Expected’ not ‘Confirmed’. Only one of these, Liverpool, is listed as seeking £9,000. There are two other maximum-rate universities for which sources are not listed, so perhaps one of these is an error. If so, and if none of the 13 other universities the government has heard from plan to charge the full rate, then Mr Cable’s estimates could be accurate. (Note: we have not checked each of the primary sources).

Mr Clegg’s claim is more complicated because he specifically refers to half of “the universities that have published figures so far.” The BBC and the THES have only clocked 34 public announcements, but both put the proportion asking for the full £9,000 above 50 per cent. We put it to Mr Clegg’s spokesman that perhaps, under pressure on his feet in the House of Commons, he mistook the estimates for figures derived from public information, which seemed the most likely explanation. Apparently not.

The spokesman pointed out that universities could be making announcements all the time, meaning the figure is a constantly moving target, and said that as far as the Department was concerned less than half the universities that had published figures by yesterday afternoon wanted to charge the full rate.

That seems unlikely to be true. Yesterday, when Portsmouth made their announcement, the BBC published a similar list. It listed 18 confirmed, sourced, announcements from universities planning to charge £9,000 out of 30 announcements in total.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that figures for all universities will be available soon, and the gradual lifting of the veil does not necessarily reveal balanced information. Bursaries and fee waivers will also serve to reduce the level of fees that students actually pay. The figures in this factcheck and the debates we are covering are not necessarily a guide to what students will actually experience.

Nevertheless the information the Government has given on this subject appears to be thoroughly untrustworthy. It is secret, in tension with if not contradictory to that compiled by outside organisations, and can be true only on some very tenuous assumptions.

The Government should either be prepared to publish a list based on public information only, or use a list compiled by a reputable outside body we have cited, or simply stand by the point that people should not be relying on partial and probably distorted information when the full picture will emerge within months. The failure to provide the figures which are being publicly quoted by a minister is unacceptable.

In the mean time, the BBC provides sources showing that 20 universities have confirmed plans to charge £9,000.

* The £9,000 universities from BBC or THES (including those without sources or listed as ‘Expected’): Aston, Bath, Birmingham, Cambridge, University of Central Lancashire, Durham, Essex, Exeter, Imperial, Kent, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Loughborough, Manchester, Oxford, Reading, Royal Agricultural College, Surrey, Sussex, UCL, Warwick

UPDATE: The Guardian Datablog have also been keeping a list of their own. As of this morning, before Leicester's announcement, they had 23 out of 32 opting to charge £9,000.

The lists compiled by media organisations

For sources, see the BBC list, which is unfortunately the only organisation to give its sources.