Everyone knows that OfS took over from HEFCE in April, but it is often forgotten that the former Office for Fair Access (OFFA) was also folded in. The post of Director for Fair Access and Participation is now a director of OfS but specifically named within the Higher Education and Research Act. And Millward, while not a figurehead of the new regulator in the same way as Barber or Dandridge, has been quietly effective in keeping access and participation in the public eye.
His access and participation consultation plays very much to the OfS house style – a longer cycle, more data, more targets and more trajectories. Millward successfully spans this into a call for a major improvement in diversifying student intake – the slow, if steady, progress engineered by his predecessors was clearly not enough. With most of his career spent at HEFCE, it would be easy to turn this into an accusation of career-driven ambition – those who have heard him speak will know that the director genuinely cares. And cares enough to make OfS use its teeth.