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Boots on the ground and guess who’s paying for them?
One of the more risible facets of the deeply risible Office for Students “boots on the ground messaging” is that the at least eight investigations into what may or may not be evidence of poor quality in a number of unknown English higher education providers is that the whole thing is funded by DfE to the tune of more than £10m.
Now a new set of regulations laid before parliament under the auspices of section 71 (1) and (2) of HERA allows providers themselves to take on this noble burden.
It was always a bit of a stretch for DfE to be funding these investigations – OfS as a regulator is supposed to be sustained entirely by subscriptions from registered providers – and section 74 of HERA does suggest that, although the department can make grants to OfS, the “boots on the ground” stuff (focused as it is on the content of courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised, or assessed) is possibly not in scope.
Though it may be fairly suggested that it is fair to expect a regulator to, er, regulate as a part of its core activity, we need to balance this against the cost incurred by OfS in visiting a campus and talking to people may be significant. Someone, clearly, needs to foot the bill for those squad cars, highly trained teams of academic specialists, and those personalised flak jackets for senior OfS staff.
Of course, the fact that fees are only payable where the investigation has found evidence of a problem where the OfS needs to act (s2 (6)). Nobly, and it a way that does not in any sense prejudice the outcome of an investigation, the OfS will itself cover the costs of investigations where no evidence of a problem is found.
The level of fees charged is to be determined by the OfS based on what costs it reckons it reasonably incurred in conducting the investigation, including the valuable service provided in writing the press releases that show how hard it is cracking down on whatever it is meant to be cracking down on. In a touching display of largesse, OfS may chose to waive or refund these fees – perhaps rewarding prompt payment with a lower total amount.
Providers may choose to make representations about any fee that is levied (remember this is both on top of and separate to the famous “up to £500,000” fine which has it’s own representations system), with OfS due to set the parameters in which this could happen.
Section 3 of the regulations requires the OfS to publish a statement about the way in which it determines these “reasonable costs”, and I feel confident the sector will get a chance to feed in as a part of a consultation in due course.
So to conclude, this is all perfectly normal stuff that a perfectly normal regulator needs to do. The sterling work of the OfS – which has effectively driven the sector from a position in 2017 where most providers were registered to a position in 2022 where many providers are in danger of not meeting regulatory requirements – continues.