So, in celebration of the whole of Team Wonkhe being engaged with running the triumph that is The Festival of Higher Education for the next two days, the Office for Students has released board papers from the 4 October meeting.

I try not to take release dates personally, but releasing stuff like this on the day that the only people who actually read it are busy feels a tiny bit pointed. So let’s leave aside the usual snark about how many papers are redacted (12) and how many go un-named (three “restricted items”) and crack on.

The minutes of the 4 July meeting (we covered the papers back in October) inform us that one of James Wharton’s final visits as chair was to that hotbed of UK higher education: the Dubai Economic Development Corporation. Susan Lapworth seemed oddly prescient in suggesting that:

a new government could pause work on legislative proposals or make changes to the commencement of new legislation and this may pause or change the work the OfS had been expecting to carry out this year

On the data futures front a redacted paper revealed that this year’s data return will be subject to “additional oversight”. If you are party to the lore that exists around the OfS Chief of Data role you will be thrilled to learn that the regulator has rolled that particular dice again: a new member of staff has been appointed, and she’ll be cracking on with writing a data strategy.

A quote for the ages from the “student panel update”:

The panel had noted that perspectives among students differ: while most student panel members are engaged with the OfS as a result of their wider engagement with students’ unions, other students, who are less engaged with the regulation of higher education, are less likely to see themselves as consumers.

On to the Chief Executive’s report from 9 October (wonderfully, the meeting was initially announced as 10 October and then rearranged) and the very welcome news that we will get outcomes data on students at each delivery partner for each provider from next year.

OfS has made two provisional decisions based on the eleven quality assessment reports from investigations that kicked off back in 2022 based on data collected at the turn of the decade. On the academic credibility investigations, there will be re-engagement with the providers involved in the autumn.

No news on regulatory decisions on the B3 reports, or the freedom of speech investigation of the University of Sussex that kicked off on 14 November 2021 (though there is an exciting “exempt” passage under the “freedom of speech” heading).

Over to TEF, and an external evaluation of the process and of student awareness of and use of the infamous ratings. Findings are due at the end of the year, and all this feeds into the development of the next TEF (due in 2027 as things stand).

OfS registered three new providers between May and this meeting, received 15 new applications for registration, one de-registration requests (to be re-registered as a “child entity” of a currently registered provider so we can all guess who that is), and seven applications have been closed (including two that had “been in progress for a significant period”). Add to that three reports with conclusions shortly to be announced (including one negative assessment), and one assessment of a registered provider with a specific condition imposed at registration, and we are looking at a fun regulatory autumn.

But the bit everyone will be looking for is on sector finance. John Blake already let slip that we’d be getting an unheard-of second update on the OfS’ financial monitoring of the sector, due in November. In fact, we heard today at the Festival it will be this week! The news can’t be good, as the regulator is already engaging consultants to work on financial assurance reviews for providers facing difficulties – indeed resources at OfS are being diverted into this kind of work. There’s every change that financial engagements will ramp up, with the possibility of more frequent submissions of core financial data coming.

The value for public money sword cuts in a number of ways, so in parallel OfS is engaged with a (redacted) number of providers on the governance and oversight of partnership activities – with “significant” such activity formally seen as a regulatory risk.

Finally, the data futures independent review is now expected towards the end of the year (it goes to December board). There’s been (as had been expected) variable progress on the submission of 2023-24 data, with OfS chasing a bunch of larger providers who have yet to sign off. In typical OfS fashion the numbers are redacted, which is mad because they are in the HESA newsletter every week: 178 providers (56 per cent) have pretty much completed submission as of 7 November.

What’s the student panel up to? We have the notes from a meeting held on 20 June 2024, which saw the panel engaged with defining the student interest. What’s that – well it seems it concerns a nuanced take on students being consumers. OfS has learned that provision extends beyond the purely academic experience, context matters, students care about developing soft skills, and that students are diverse. Which is… good, I guess. The panel also gets a “you said, we did” report back from the regulator: it tells them it will get better at communicating with students following their feedback and positioning the OfS brand.

We now know better than to expect detail in these releases, but it is notable that this board meeting (David Behan’s first) felt like a reset. Three substantive items saw discussion of the political context, the sector context, and the student context: a wide ranging update on progress towards strategic goals and on the approach to gaining and using student input.

The (statutory) Quality Assurance Committee manages to capture the highlights from two meetings on less than a page of A4. Well, I say highlights. They talked about five requests for degree awarding powers and/or university title. We don’t know what they said or which providers were involved.

And the OfS Risk and Audit Committee did its thing – this is the group that thinks about OfS risks rather the ones who look at the wider sector. You can maybe guess the issues – there’s a big focus on data futures (again, if you are not down with this 2023-24 is going to be at least as hard as 2022-23). There’s an unexpected delight in the section on stewardship of public funds – if OfS is to take on the overall oversight of value for taxpayer’s money in higher education it wants powers in primary legislation (rather than persisting with the DfE/SLC/OfS triumvirate).