DfE turns off the funding tap at the Oxford Business College

OBC is a private provider of higher education courses franchised by providers registered with the Office for Students – all of which already appear to be in the process of being “taught out”.

(Phillipson says “five” – at the weekend, the Sunday Times only listed four lead providers – the University of West London, Ravensbourne University, Buckinghamshire New University and New College Durham. The fifth may be another lead provider whose students have already been “taught out” of a previous partnership).

The statement to Parliament says that the Department for Education (DfE) became aware last year of “credible concerns” about the recruitment and attendance of students on courses offered by the college.

That does suggest that the New York Times story on OBC in the summer of 2023 was either not noticed by DfE, or didn’t constitute a set of “credible concerns”.

Phillipson says that on becoming aware of concerns, the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) investigated – and having received and carefully considered the GIAA’s reports, shared with the College and its partners for comment, the funding tap is now being cut off.

This GIAA work seems to be a separate exercise to that referenced in last year’s National Audit Office report on student finance at franchised providers, which surveyed the whole system – and found “serious weaknesses” with no single body clearly responsible for tackling fraud. That flagged poor data assurance, limited oversight of unregistered providers, and weak coordination between the SLC, OfS, and DfE.

Attainment and attendance

Phillipson calls out two specific issues – a failure to provide assurance that students’ prior attainment (including their competence in the English Language) has been adequately assessed, or that their attendance on their courses has been adequately monitored.

The former of those is interesting because the Higher Education and Research Act defines institutional autonomy, in part, as the freedom of English higher education providers to “determine the criteria for the admission of students and apply those criteria in particular cases”.

The Office for Students (OfS) has tended to roll with that framing by arguing that its regulatory framework doesn’t test whether a provider has applied a particular set of criteria for admission – but if a provider doesn’t hit standards for support (B2) or outcomes (B3) that would indicate a problem. And of course OfS’ framework applies to lead providers, not their franchised partners.

In other words, there is no part of the regulatory framework that (explicitly) expects a certain level of prior attainment (including competence in the English Language) nor that mandates adequate assessment of said attainment, other than with reference to the support required or minimum outcomes to be attained.

That may be why DfE has taken action rather than OfS, and on a process rather than outcome standard.

The “adequate monitoring of attendance” issue is also interesting because both the Public Accounts Committee and the NAO’s reports noted that no single definition of attendance is applied in higher education, in general or even to “full-time” students.

That resulted in a process duty being published in guidance by the SLC – applying across Wales and Scotland too. That says that providers should retain a “sufficient, auditable record” of attendance in a format that enables it to determine if a student is attending their course, adding that:

…The Department for Education, Welsh Government or the Student Awards Agency Scotland, as applicable, reserve the right to ensure there is action if it is considered a provider is not implementing an effective attendance policy.

This, then, is what appears to be our first example of “action” as per that policy.

(Of course the Home Office, for international student purposes, has been working on this too – and has come to a specific, if complex, conclusion that is… different.)

On both of these issues at least some registered providers – either engaged in direct or franchised provision – will likely need to… reflect on whether Phillipson’s expectations are being met in these two areas.

Student protection

What happens now at OBC? Turning off the funding tap appeared to contribute to the collapse of the Applied Business Academy, with some student protection fall out, last year – here Phillipson says that OBC’s partners have all “initiated planning for student protection” which will allow “genuine students to transfer to new courses”.

The (lead) partners now have until the end of the current academic year on 31 August to complete those transfers, during which time the students affected will be able to retain their maintenance and fee support, “provided they remain engaged with their studies” – and if they transfer, they will be able to receive funding to complete their studies.

Missing is any mention of entitlement to compensation for those students – and who should pay it if they are entitled to it.

Meanwhile in the associated Sunday Times story at the weekend, OBC says that it believes Phillipson’s decision is unlawful and will seek to challenge it in court:

The Department for Education’s lengthy investigation into Oxford Business College concluded with no findings of fraud, illegality or malfeasance. Despite this clear outcome, the DfE has indicated that courses will be de-designated as of September 2025 — a decision OBC firmly believes is unlawful and will challenge through judicial review. Safeguarding our students’ interests remains our absolute priority.

A further statement on the front of the OBC website says:

At Oxford Business College (OBC), we take any concerns about alleged fraudulent student finance behaviour with utmost seriousness. OBC upholds the highest standards of integrity,compliance, and academic excellence. As a committed higher education provider, we rigorously adhere to all regulatory requirements and work closely with partner lead providers and authorities to ensure full compliance with academic and financial regulations. Continuous enhancement is integral to our ethos. We proactively collaborate with partners to safeguard the integrity of the student loan system and uphold accurate reporting. Our financial activities are fully transparent and compliant with UK higher education regulations. OBC remains engaged with regulatory bodies, partner institutions, and relevant stakeholders to uphold best practices in academic and financial governance. We will thoroughly review the recent media and assess any areas for further improvement.

The Sunday Times story includes a quote from a “senior academic” that says they were aware of entire families enrolling on the same course, with students admitting that they were paid to recruit their relatives:

You don’t get multiple members of the same family in one cohort, and you don’t get multiple members of the same families producing almost identical assignments, and you don’t get more or less identical assignments produced by all the students on the course. It’s so obvious to anyone with any experience as to what was going on.

It says that OBC believes it is common for relatives to enrol on the same courses, and that a referral fee of £250 was available to students for a short time in 2023, which is not prohibited. It also says that more than 650 student loan applications were sent to the SLC from the same IP address, another IP address traced to an OBC building was the source of 164 applications, and that two other IP addresses were the source of 63 student loan applications based in Romania.

The Sunday Times says that “at least one other private college is being investigated by the DfE”, so as well as the wider measures on OfS registration for franchised providers and domestic agents there may be more to come on this story still.