Treating students fairly, on an ongoing basis

If you think back to February of last year – when the Office for Students consulted on new condition C5 – it was always clear that eventually this new approach to student and consumer practice would eventually make the leap from an initial to an ongoing conduction of registration.

No less a commentator than our own Jim Dickinson noted that:

what is being proposed here is one set of rights for students in a new(ly registering) provider, and another set of much weaker ones for everyone else, all in the name of “fairness”, at just the point that providers are under pressure to not deliver on some of the promises they made to students

If anything, those (financial) pressures have compounded in the subsequent 14 months. So while the advent of ongoing condition C6 (and the consequent demise of conditions C1 and C3) there is a sense that we are consulting on whether to close the stable door with the horse already some distance away.

To be clear, the proposals are welcome (and familiar). The overarching requirement to “treat students fairly” is both clear and actionable – it codifies the requirements of consumer law in ways that make instinctive sense to students and other stakeholders. Research has shown that students are not keen on the “consumer framing” but see “fairness” and “honesty” as reasonable expectations of providers.

As OfS puts it:

Students should have confidence that providers say what they mean (“they provide clear, accurate, and honest information to support informed decisions”) and mean what they say (“they deliver the experience promised, and act as expected to resolve issues when they arise.”)

These new requirements will apply to existing, prospective (offer holders, but all marketing information falls within scope) and former students (as with C5). And again, information needs to apply for all modes of delivery (includes all forms of partnership and transnational education). Providers will also be accountable for the action of agents and should be undertaking due diligence (though this excludes “rogue agents”, where a provider has not authorised the agent to act on their behalf).

Those principles in full

Underneath the catch-all commitment to fairness, providers are required to enact a series of principles founded in consumer protection law. These are, in short:

• promote students’ understanding of their consumer rights
• deliver the provider’s commitments relating to higher education and ancillary services
• proactively identify and plan for risks that could affect the delivery of higher education and ancillary services, and act early if those risks materialise
• enable students to access timely, clear and effective advice to navigate complaints handling and redress processes
• act in good faith
• deliver higher education and ancillary services with reasonable care and skill

There’s a couple of bits to unpack here. “Ancillary services” are anything that could influence a student’s decision about what and where to study, or their experience of higher education once studying. There is an illustrative list in the condition itself – libraries, disability support, scholarships, accommodation, sports facilities– but there are two important things to note. The first is services and facilities that would “not reasonably be considered part of the higher education experience” – your coffee shop, your laundrette – are excluded. And accommodation, where provided by the institution, is explicitly in bounds – though OfS will not seek to determine whether a provider had complied with an applicable code of practice (the UUK/GuildHE one or the ANUK/Unipol one) and providers will not routinely report on accommodation matters to OfS.

Third party ancillary services are included – where a provider is contracting out services it should retain overall responsibility via due diligence and monitoring: a shift in the position of the regulator over the initial condition (C5).

With all of this it is worth remembering the evidence base. OfS cites 2025 Public First polling that found – while 79 per cent of students felt they were promised access to a well-equipped campus, facilities, and accommodation – fewer than half were happy with what was actually provided. Although, to be scrupulously fair 83 per cent of students in the sample felt that information received before enrolment was “upfront, clear, timely, accurate, accessible, and comprehensive” and the figure for students who did not agree that promises had been fully or mostly met was 15 per cent.

Specific information requirements

So what of it? What do providers have to do as a response to the overarching fairness and the underpinning principles. As with C5, it is, in essence, a question of web design: every registered provider needs to publish a set of documents on a single web page, which should include mandatory standard wording on student protection arrangements.

This is deemed to constitute clear, accurate and comprehensive provision of information to students

On a single web page (accessible via a “single click”), you’ll need to have:

• a) higher education contracts (standard terms and conditions applicable to different groups, fees and additional costs)
• b) any separate contracts that set out terms and conditions for the following ancillary services:
  • i) library services
  • ii) disability support packages
  • iii) scholarships
  • iv) accommodation
  • v) sports facilities
• c) policy (or policies) related to course changes (course, qualification and validation, mode of study, location and facilities, fees, types of students recruited – and on specific student group impacts)
• d) any documents that set our complaints handling processes
• e) refund and compensation policies
• f) a list of any agents that work on behalf of the provider and information explaining how students can raise any concerns or complaints in relation to these.

If you’ve supported a young person on their application journey, you may wish to reflect on the likelihood that anyone would access this information prior to enrollment – much less click through to each agreement. It feels more likely that this page will act as a point of reference when students contemplate making complaints: something that OfS is well aware of (“as students receive large amounts of information at the start of their course, they may overlook policies they do not expect to need. If problems arise later, they may not remember receiving these documents or may find it hard to locate them on provider websites or in old emails”).

What is notable here is that the regulator has set out expectations relating to franchise and partnership agreements – times where it can often be unclear which set of rules apply in a given situation. Students can expect to have access to applicable contracts:

• where the provider is a delivery partner in a subcontractual arrangement (this means all contracts between itself and students, and between the lead provider and students)
• where the provider is a lead provider in a subcontractual arrangement (this means all contracts between itself and students, and between the delivery partner and students).

And if you feel like this may be a lot, documents need to be clearly labelled as to which students these documents apply to.

Other matters

The list of prohibited actions mirror those in additional condition C5, but adds in “aggressive commercial practices” (characterised as including but not limited to “harassment, coercion or undue influence” as relating to applicant or student decision making.)

The Student Protection Plan condition set out in condition C3 will disappear as soon as C6 is enacted. The SPPs have never been any use to students or the regulator, and in instances where providers have become unviable OfS has generally relied on other powers. As the consultation itself puts it:

if a provider is facing a material risk of institutional closure, we already no longer rely on a provider’s student protection plan to ensure that it is taking steps to protect the interests of students. In these circumstances, ongoing condition C4 gives us a more effective tool to act. Using C4, we can issue student protection directions, including requiring a provider to produce and comply with the provisions of a plan for institutional closure (a ‘Market Exit Plan’)

Other than depriving us of the chance to read plans from collapsing providers that describe their risk of collapse as low, this decision – though it sounds dramatic – will have no meaningful impact on anyone.

Implementation

The consultation runs till 9 July, and analysis will be complete (with a summary published and final decisions made) in the autumn.

Following this there will be a phased implementation of C6. The requirement to treat students fairly comes in immediately on the publication of this final decision, with the publication requirements coming into force three months later – giving time for providers to gather and update documentation.

On enforcement – OfS “may consider” random sampling of providers’ websites and documents with a view to undertaking a thematic review. It’s not clear, but it feels likely that it would welcome notifications from the kind of people who send OfS notifications. It’s not exactly a sea-change in consumer empowerment.