Universities act on domestic agents. A bit

Hence the commitment to return to pre-pandemic degree classifications when Covid’s “no detriment” policies caused a spike, its work on “changing the culture” when ministers noticed harassment and sexual misconduct on campus, and its work on “fair admissions” when everyone was offering conditional unconditional offers as an inducement to choose them.

The Code on the latter first appeared back in 2022, and was explicitly designed to reassure ministers that universities were working to “put applicants’ needs first.” It then got an update last year in the teeth of a ministerial investigation into international admissions standards.

And now there’s another update – this time one that clarifies expectations related to the use of domestic agents in admissions, that limits the scope of acceptable use to targeted outreach activity for specifically identified underrepresented student groups, or to facilitate admissions to specialist courses.

That’s a response to Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson’s announcement of her (seemingly doomed) intervention into Oxford Business College back in March, when her actions were to include:

… putting an end to the abuse of the system by agents recruiting students based in this country: this government believes they should have no part to play in our system whatsoever.

It actually goes back a little further than that. Back over that January 2024 international recruitment story, Robert Halfon announced an “urgent investigation” into agents – which DfE perm sec Susan Acland-Hood and skills director Julia Kinniburgh later said had also been looking at domestic agents and recruitment when domestic concerns emerged for the Public Accounts Committee over franchising. It’s not clear what came of that.

In reality, the modest changes to the Code don’t go nearly as far as the Agent Quality Framework does for international students, and even that feels to many like it’s full of holes – and when you add in that every profit-grabbing agent is going to argue that they’re key to recruiting the otherwise underrepresented, it’s not really clear that the changes go anywhere near the incentives problem in that part of the sector.

But it’s a comparison with OfS’ new definitions of fairness that arguably matters more.

Fairness is it?

You’ll recall that back in February, OfS launched proposals for a new initial condition C5 – Treating students fairly – to apply (oddly) only to new providers attempting to join the OfS register, which it finalised in August.

They make for a fascinating side by side comparison. On selling courses, agents and admissions, both the finalised C5 and the UUK/GuildHE code plant their flags in the same ground – the applicant’s interests come first, information must be complete, accurate and timely, and pressure-selling has no place in recruitment or offer-making.

Each expects consistency across channels and partners, with providers responsible for what third parties say on their behalf, and each pushes for clear governance around franchised provision so applicants know who is awarding the degree and who decides admission. Both seek transparent marketing, the responsible use of agents, and admissions cycles designed for informed choice rather than engineer haste.

But they do diverge. C5 explicitly brings advertising, websites and other pre-contract materials into scope, treats higher education and ancillary services as “services”, and regulates pre-contract “key documents” with specific unfair terms outlawed – broad discretion to vary or withdraw, asymmetric fee retention, hidden charges, opaque deposits, muddy closures/changes.

It squarely targets misleading practices in marketing – misuse of “university” or degree claims, pre-empting approvals, undisclosed advertorial, “free” offers that aren’t, persistent unwanted follow-ups, presenting statutory rights as perks, and manipulation of online reviews.

And it requires legible and time-scoped information, and prescriptive change policies that cover content, qualification, mode, location/facilities and fees (including resit charges). It sets minimums for complaints, refunds and compensation at the recruitment stage, treats agent and franchise representations as the provider’s own, and refuses to accept cosmetic fixes after the fact – if the underlying practice creates detriment, you fail.

Then there’s bits of the Competition and Marketing Authority’s guidance from 2023 that overlaps too, and aspects of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 that apply to getting in as well. Maybe the ASA should be involved. And the silence on deposits for international students is highly problematic.

The UUK/GuildHE Code is UK-wide but voluntary. Consumer law is UK-wide, but not regulated consistently. At one point during the UCL oversubscription issue, the galaxy brains at the CMA advised me that students (who hadn’t enrolled yet) could complain to the OIA. And so on.

The bewildering array of codes, laws, guidance and regulatory bodies around them does nothing to clarify to applicants what they can and can’t expect. And not only does none of it deliver the ban that Phillipson promised, none of it addresses the fundamental issue of the incentives.

It’s possible – even with some conduct rules – that some students shouldn’t sign up to the HE course that they do. Doing so, in some parts of the sector, is almost certainly not a good idea from either an experience or outcomes point of view. But plenty of agents will push them to. The sector relying on recruitment to survive is one thing. But door to door and TikTok, all in the name of reaching the underrepresented? Please.