Dandridge has has been energetic, forthright and proactive since OfS opened up shop this year. She’s built up a very strong in-house team. She’s engaged the sector from top to bottom. She’s beaten the drum for stable, fair, risk-based regulation. And she’s been crystal clear OfS will intervene robustly, whenever universities don’t act in students’ interests. This is crucial. Dandridge has had to tackle the lazy claim she is “poacher turned gamekeeper”, after moving from UUK to OfS. But conversely, she is dealing with complaints that OfS is at the beck and call of ministers chasing headlines on, say, limiting unconditional offers, reversing grade inflation or restraining senior pay.
The Power List panel was in no doubt that OfS will be a force to be reckoned with. But only time will tell the extent it will open up the market to new providers, whether it will protect quality and standards through the TEF, the extent it will use its registration to drive particular policy outcomes, and how it will triangulate competing interests and policy across the different UK nations.
First, the biggest challenge will be when faculties, departments and even universities start spiralling into ‘market exit’. Dandridge has been clear that bailing out failing institutions should not be placed above student interest – a big break with the past. But that may not survive contact with the political, economic and social realities. It’s an open secret that a growing number are running on empty. OfS will shortly be put to the test.
Second, Dandridge has set out a bold agenda on creating equality of opportunity – a cause close to her heart throughout her career. It has threatened sanctions against Oxford and Cambridge unless they show prove bursaries are helping poor students, not distorting the market by capitulating to the middle-class. It’s consulting on tough new access regulation and the rhetoric is clear: OFFA was too weak, progress far too slow and the system needs radical change.
And third, value for money remains the most difficult circle for OfS to square. Will the independent TEF review finally kill off the link between teaching quality and fees? Will OfS create real transparency on prices, costs and return on investment? Will it actively support students fulfil their consumer rights on, say, degrees falling short of their expectations or lost contact time during industrial disputes?
Finally, OfS’s credibility as a independent student champion will always be in question without real-life students knowing what it is and what it does. It’s all very well for Dandridge to insist OfS is not the “Office of the NUS”. But the regulator needs to do some very urgent building and engagement to be understood and taken seriously by students.