The pause in accepting applications to the Office for Students register is to be lifted on 28 August and, as Jim Dickinson notes, new providers now have a whole set of extra conditions that will apply to them.
As was spotted at the consultation, it will become odd that 430 or so “old” providers have less stringent rules than those who join the register afresh. OfS is very clear – the new rules protect students and taxpayers.
Meanwhile DfE is suggesting raising the stakes of the register by requiring both larger providers who teach via franchise, and those who want to deliver courses funded by the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) to join the register..
Why a Register?
One of the enduring regulatory mechanisms of English higher education is the list or register. From the outset of the regulated and funded system after the First World War there’s been a list that you needed to be on. These were invariably linked to hierarchies of status and funding. There were criteria with serious cut-offs: getting on the UGC funding list, making the list to be one of the colleges of advanced technology, or one of the polytechnics, or one of the colleges to be incorporated (and funded by PCFC) or to be allowed onto the HEFCE list.
The intention with the OfS register was slightly different. It was both more encompassing, many more providers were due to join, including those that didn’t want funding (or the encumbrances of funding) as there was no opt out. But it turned out that you could opt out; many providers have existed (some might say flourished) outside the register via the franchise route. Even benefits that were supposed just to be for those on the register – say the use of “university” in your title – have been granted to providers not on the register.
What’s recently vanished is the idea of a new (possibly lighter touch) category of registration for providers to offer the LLE. Back at the start of the OfS a registered (basic) category fell away. Given concerns about the behaviour of a few providers in the current registration categories, an Approved-lite wasn’t plausible.
Consultation
As you’d expect, the OfS says “We have decided to implement our proposals in broadly the form on which we consulted” There are tweaks, of course, particularly splitting out the initial tests on governance and management. These are at the heart of many of the problems we’ve seen – in particular how governance interacts with directors who may also be the proprietors of a for-profit business.
Being on the register is a major kitemark: the guarantee of quality. The framing of the new conditions is that the old ones weren’t sufficient. We can see that the Department for Education has been working around the register – the replacement for the DET (the FE training course, which was the source of many problems) being limited to providers with degree awarding powers, and those without TEF Gold and Silver going through a tougher process to run LLE modules.
A group of providers who have previously tried to get on the register will have to try again. OfS has stopped formally refusing applications.
We can see some of the providers who now franchising were refused in the past and so could the Public Accounts Committee (who were not amused). OfS took the unusual step of publishing a case note on Oxford Business College’s application to register, clearly indicating there was no way they were getting on the list, but only after OBC had withdrawn their application and DfE turned off the funding taps. It’s worth noting that OBC’s purported governance arrangements (including a former VC as its chair) seemingly vanished away when it started to unravel. OfS has reduced the period before you can apply again, but it’s clear they want to stop half-baked applications.
Leaving the Register
There remains an issue in that it turns out that that threat of being removed from the register isn’t much of a threat if you are exiting HE and entering administration. OfS used the formulation “The provider no longer wishes to access the benefits of OfS registration” for the first colleges that left, Applied Business Academy as “The provider is no longer able to provide higher education” and Brit College as “The provider will no longer seek to meet the conditions required to remain registered as a higher education provider in England”. Brit, another registered provider, has had its courses de-designated by the DfE.
If the loophole of providing HE while not being on the register is closed, then there will be plenty of pressure on the system. We’ve seen plenty of complaints about the time it takes to register and we will need to see whether OfS’ proposals make this better. OfS’s performance data does not record a time taken to resolve an application, but we’ve seen some take four years. Clearly they think that some providers are under-prepared for the registration process and also that they want to speed up the refusal (or forced withdrawal) process.
We can only see some of the issues that OfS and DfE are dealing with; these new conditions and processes are designed to close loopholes. As an example, we saw OfS refuse registration to Spurgeon’s College because its finances were poor, only to have to admit them a few months later after they had secured a loan. Spurgeon’s is now in administration. There’s increased requirements for financial information in the application process. It’s hard to look at the list of prohibited behaviours linked to C5 on student fairness without imagining a lot of these have been reported to OfS at some point.
Gas panic
The OfS register sits in the background – on the web site this is literally the case as it lurks under “for providers” and “regulatory resources”. The way it manifests itself could do with a spruce up – the web version is marked in “beta” mode (as it has from 2022) and parts of the functionality and data need an overhaul. Checking the OfS register is never quite like looking up whether your engineer has a safe gas certificate, but an increasing number of students have found their HE experience has blown up.
It’s hard to argue against protecting students and taxpayers, but the 429 providers already on the register should take a look at these conditions As Jim Dickinson notes there’s a challenge here on fairness for all providers and it’s hard to imagine that OfS won’t want to see both the fairness and governance and management aspects of the new E conditions apply to all providers pretty soon.
