Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) I beg to
move, That this House has considered the Office for Students. It is
a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. Higher
education is unanimous in recognising the need for effective
regulation. The UK has an international reputation for the quality
and strength of our higher education sector. Everyone involved in
the sector I have spoken to or corresponded with understands the
role that...Request free trial
(Kingston upon Hull West and
Hessle) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Office for Students.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria.
Higher education is unanimous in recognising the need for
effective regulation. The UK has an international reputation for
the quality and strength of our higher education sector. Everyone
involved in the sector I have spoken to or corresponded with
understands the role that effective and proportionate regulation
has to play in improving standards and maintaining that
reputation. I thank everyone who has been in contact since they
saw this debate timetabled.
The Office for Students was created in 2018 with the aim of
ensuring that higher education in England delivers positive
outcomes for students. Its mission statement is:
“to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a
fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their
lives and careers.”
However, there are increasingly concerns that it has become
overly bureaucratic, imposes increasingly high costs on
providers, takes an inconsistent view on what does and does not
affect the quality of student education, and has become more
concerned with extending its areas of oversight to meet the
desires of the Government of the day than the needs, experiences
and views of the students for whom it is supposed to exist.
Regulation is vital for any sector, but it comes with financial
and resource costs that must be proportional to the risk, and
must represent value for money. The cost of regulation for
providers should be an important concern for the OfS, as
ultimately that cost is felt by the students. The HE sector has
to contend with regulatory overlap; there are multiple regulators
in the HE, further education and technical education sectors, as
well as multiple subject-level, professional, statutory and
regulatory bodies.
The Government’s own regulatory code outlines the principle that
regulators
“should collectively follow the principle of ‘collect once, use
many times’ when requesting information from those they
regulate.”
It also says that regulators should
“share information with each other…to help target resources and
activities and minimise duplication.”
It says:
“Regulators should avoid imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens
through their regulatory activities”,
and
“should choose proportionate approaches to those they regulate,
based on relevant factors including, for example, business size
and capacity.”
Is the OfS adopting that approach? In the past few years, it has
spent a great deal of time continually revising its regulatory
frameworks and processes, including the B conditions of
registration on quality and standards, the access and
participation regime and the Teaching Excellence Framework.
In 2022, there were a number of significant consultations running
simultaneously, and major consultations were run with very short
response periods. For example, the consultations on quality and
standards, B3, TEF and underpinning data all ran at the same
time. The supporting documents for those consultations ran to a
total of more than 700 pages, and the sector had just eight weeks
to respond to all of them. That approach results in a very high
cost to institutions, and risks undermining the quality of data
submitted due to the compressed timetable. For example, one
Universities UK member had 10 full-time equivalent staff
supporting regulatory compliance at an approximate staff cost of
£444,000. Another institution estimated the cost of regulatory
activities to be £1.1 million in 2022-23.
Such demands place a higher relative cost on smaller providers,
which not only lack the resource of the larger providers but tend
to offer a wider range of education, including higher education,
degree apprenticeships—the Minister’s favourite—further education
and other industry-specific continuous professional development.
That means that they must deal with a large number of regulators
in addition to the OfS, including the Institute for Apprentices
and Technical Education, the Education and Skills Funding Agency
and Ofsted. Unfortunately, that does not just mean reporting for
some students to one regulator and for others to another. Degree
apprenticeship students have to be reported to both the OfS and
IFATE in significantly different ways. GuildHE reported that one
provider needed separate data teams for the two bodies.
On average, the cost of regulation for a student studying HE in a
FE college that has only a small HE provision is £289, compared
with £14 for a student studying at a large HE institute. That
cost is even more pronounced in the light of the lower tuition
fees charged by many colleges—£6,165, in contrast with the higher
education fees of £9,250.
In the same report on regulation in smaller universities and
specialist colleges, GuildHE said:
“Overly-legalistic language in communications, delays in meeting
their own deadlines, short consultation periods, consultations’
outcomes that rarely listen to the views of those consulted and
political capture”
were regular complaints from their members. Those complaints are
repeated in the results of the OfS’s own survey, “Report for the
Office of Students: Provider engagement”. Its executive summary
said:
“Providers are confused by the complexity of some OfS processes,
communications and consultations, and related tasks require high
levels of resource by providers.”
It went on:
“Providers would like a more transparent, collaborative, and
consultative relationship with the OfS with a shared focus on
student outcomes, including opportunities to contribute and share
good practice.”
Specifically on smaller providers, it concluded:
“Small providers felt that the OfS was geared towards large
established universities and didn’t acknowledge their different
levels of resourcing and experience.”
Furthermore, the report read:
“Smaller and further education providers feel that their
different circumstances and student audiences are not recognised
by the OfS and that the regulator failed to adapt their approach
accordingly.”
Those complaints go to the heart of the student experience. HE
students are not a homogeneous group and a diverse HE ecosystem
is required to meet their needs, but the OfS seems to be
operating an overbearing, one-size-fits-all approach. It appears
that that approach suits no one, as the report also said:
“Established providers felt they should be treated differently
from newer providers and that communications they received didn’t
reflect their low-risk track record.”
In the guidance for condition B4, all registered providers are
now expected to retain—this is ridiculous—five years of all
student assessment. Conservative estimates from Universities UK
of what digitalising and storing work on such a scale might cost
an institution resulted in figures of between £270,000 and more
than £1 million a year. That does not include the environmental
cost.
The requirement also poses difficulties for subjects such as art,
design, performing arts, and medical and veterinary subjects.
Such subjects use a range of approaches to assessment, including
continuous assessment based on a series of exchanges. To
digitally record all those exchanges would be inappropriate and
would entail GDPR issues. The retention of students’ work in the
arts presents difficulties over intellectual property rights,
which return to students on graduation.
I am not alone in being particularly concerned about the recent
announcement that the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher
Education will no longer be the Secretary of State for
Education’s designated quality body. That means that it will no
longer be responsible for assessing quality and standards in
English higher education to inform the OfS’s regulatory decision
making. The QAA has relinquished its role because the work it was
being asked to undertake in England on behalf of the OfS was no
longer compliant with recognised quality standards, namely the
European standards and guidance that are monitored by the
European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education.
As the Minister will be aware, the QAA has been in existence for
over 25 years. The system it has established is regarded by many
countries as the gold standard in quality enhancement and
benchmarking and it is still in operation in Wales. Its
withdrawal in England is entirely due to the conditions that the
OfS has insisted on how their reviews are undertaken.
Among the issues that led to non-compliance were the OfS’s
refusal to publish reports on providers, ending the cyclical
review of all providers and the insistence that student
representatives—remember that this is the OfS—should no longer be
part of review teams. The sector is still waiting for
clarification on how the OfS would replace the QAA’s role in
terms of breadth and activity beyond investigations. Will the OfS
now become the regulator, the enforcer and the assessor of
quality? If that is the case, how can there not be a conflict of
interest?
(Sheffield Central)
(Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a fine speech. I apologise for missing
the beginning, because the debate started surprisingly early. She
made a really important point about the QAA. Does she not agree
that it is rather extraordinary that the QAA is no longer
providing that role on the basis that it wanted to provide
student voice, significantly? The gold standard she described
requires the presence of student voice within the regulatory
framework. Does that not go to the heart of the problem with the
OfS at the moment? I recall, in a Public Bill Committee,
discussing with the Minister at the time the fact that the OfS
was set up with too small a student voice. That voice has become
consistently more marginalised through its life.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall speak in more
detail about how the voice of students has been marginalised. It
seems fairly ridiculous that the Office for Students wants to
exclude students when its whole core purpose and mission
statement is to represent and promote the needs of students.
There is a serious disconnect. I think we should be slightly
ashamed of the fact that the QAA is moving out of that role
within English institutions.
Although only 6% to 7% of higher education is taught in English
FE colleges, they make up around 37% of providers registered with
the OfS, and there are more FE colleges on the OfS register than
universities. The Education and Skills Funding Agency and the
Department for Education are the chief regulators for FE
colleges, and several agencies have funding, regulatory and
inspectorial roles in the FE. OfS requirements on quality and
standard of teaching, student support and wellbeing and financial
sustainability overlap with those in many instances.
Large institutions are not unaffected. Universities UK provided
an example of one member reporting a total of 99 data returns
being required for the 2022-23 academic year across not only the
OfS, which represents only a small proportion of this number, but
also professional, statutory and regulatory bodies, the Student
Loans Company and the Office for National Statistics. That is
being supported by a team of seven full-time staff members.
Indeed, concerns about multiple and potentially duplicate data
collections were recognised by the DfE in the creation of the
higher education data reduction taskforce in 2022. I am hoping
the Minister will be able to feed back with progress on that.
It has been argued by some that the focused remit for the OfS, as
set out in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, was
already quite wide-ranging and too broad, with 25 conditions of
registration. Over the past five years, the OfS has expanded its
responsibilities to include as priorities unexplained grade
inflation, harassment and sexual misconduct, mental health and
wellbeing, freedom of speech, diversity or provision, modular
provision, transnational education, partnership and franchise
provision and non-OfS-funded provision such as additional teacher
training and degree apprenticeships. With the withdrawal of the
QAA, we must now assume quality assurance is a priority. Where is
the compelling evidence for this expansion of OfS priorities
beyond its original remit in HERA?
In 2022, the Higher Education Policy Institute’s student academic
experience survey showed that the majority of students were
comfortable about freedom of speech and showed a recovery in
several aspects of students’ wellbeing, with the life
satisfaction, life feeling worthwhile and happiness categories
all increasing. Tackling harassment and sexual misconduct is of
course crucial, but is that really the role of the OfS regulator?
It is already covered by legislation. The Government’s summary of
HERA suggests that the OfS’s primary aim was to make it easier
for new higher education providers to enter the market and raise
teaching and quality standards. What has driven the OfS to move
so quickly into these other areas, bringing increased financial
and resource costs for both regulator and regulated?
It seems that the OfS is disproportionately influenced by
ministerial pressure. We have just heard of how the increased OfS
burden increased regulatory scope, but providers are paying for
that twice—once through the extra costs of data collection and
administration, and again through a 13% increase in OfS fees to
cover its own costs of moving into these extra areas, as
announced in December last year. It is worth noting that the OfS
was due a review of its fee model two years after its
establishment, but that is yet to happen.
However, this is not an increase the OfS wanted in September 2020
when it committed to a 10% real-terms reduction in registration
fees over two years. Then came guidance from the Secretary of
State for Education and the Minister for Further and Higher
Education in March 2022 advising that the fee reduction was not
necessary in view of the priorities the OfS was being asked to
pursue. This is neither the first nor the last incident of the
priorities of the OfS not being set by the sector or, crucially,
by the students, who it was set up for, but by the
Government.
In November 2021, the Secretary of State and the Universities
Minister write to the OfS requesting that it start requiring
universities to work with schools to drive up academic standards.
Three months later, the OfS puts out a press release saying that
it will work with universities to
“put their shoulder to the wheel”
to increase attainment in schools. In March 2022, the
Universities Minister writes to the OfS asking it to conduct
on-site inspections. Two months later, the OfS puts out a press
release saying—guess what?—that it will conduct on-site
inspections. In March 2022, the Secretary of State and
Universities Minister write to the OfS asking it to set
conditions of registrations in relation to sexual harassment as
soon as possible—and it goes on to do just that.
The OfS does not appear to be an independent regulator, driven by
the needs of the student; it appears to be a regulator driven by
the desires of the Government of the day. But it is not even when
the OfS is directly required to do something, which I can
understand. If the Minister just happens to mention that
something is important, the OfS jumps to. In April 2018,
Universities Minister is in the news announcing that he will keep a
“laser-like” focus on vice-chancellors’ salaries. Guess what the
OfS does two months later, without even being asked to? Two
months later, it publishes a new requirement forcing universities
leaders to justify their salaries.
In April 2021, the then Universities Minister, the right hon.
Member for Chippenham (), is in the news for
announcing that she is “appalled” by inclusive assessment
practices that do not mark down students with incorrect grammar.
Again, there was no direct request of the OfS, but guess what?
Two months later, the OfS launches a review of inclusive
assessment practices. In February 2022, the same Universities
Minister is in the news, calling for universities to end all
online learning. The next month, the OfS launches a review of
blended learning.
Where is the regulatory independence that holds students at its
very core? The Government do not even need to write to the OfS to
get it to do what they want. They just need to issue a press
release, and now they have a member of the Conservative party,
who chooses to retain the party Whip, sitting in the House of
Lords who is the chair of the OfS. As the Minister is aware, Lord
Wharton had no previous experience in higher education. He did,
however, run the leadership campaign for the man who appointed
him.
Last year, while chair of the OfS, Lord Wharton spoke at the
Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest, Hungary. He
endorsed the recent victory of the Hungarian Prime Minister,
Viktor Orbán, a man who had been widely criticised for a host of
restrictions on human rights and democratic
practices—specifically, for attacks on academic freedom
including, infamously, shutting down the independent Central
European University. Lord Wharton said that CPAC was a
“great chance to pick up new ideas…reconnect with friends across
the world”
and
“fight for the values that we all hold dear”.
I am not even going to quote the remarks of another speaker who
attended the conference—Zsolt Bayer, a television talk show host
in Hungary—because the language he used is not something I wish
to repeat. Lord Wharton wrote an apology to staff, saying that he
did not know who else was speaking and had never heard of Bayer,
but that is hardly reassuring. The rest of the world can see and
hear this. What conclusion does the Minister imagine it is
drawing about our supposedly independent OfS?
So the OfS listens and responds to Government, but does it listen
and respond to students? We have already heard that HEPI’s most
recent student survey suggests a different set of priorities for
students from those pursued on their behalf by OfS. The OfS will
no doubt say that it has its own avenues to hear from students,
but we only get answers to the questions we ask. In the most
recent consultation on the national student survey, 90% of
respondents told the OfS that they wanted to retain the summative
question, “Overall, are you satisfied with your experience?” But
out it went anyway. The majority told the OfS that they did not
see the value of a question about freedom of expression, but in
it went anyway.
With or without those alterations, the NSS only captures the
views of final-year students—something that has contributed to
both the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office
concluding that the OfS has an “incomplete picture” of student
satisfaction. That dovetails with the evidence given in a hearing
for the ongoing Lords Industry and Regulators Committee inquiry,
when members of the OfS student panel said that the panel was
threatened with a reassessment of its future if they continued to
express views on inclusive curricula that did not conform to
those of the OfS staff. Former panel member Francesco Masala
said:
“we felt quite often that we were there potentially more as a
tick-box exercise rather than genuinely providing active
challenge”,
and that if
“you are…a representative of students, there will still be
someone in a boardroom who is going to tell you what you really
think and what you really want.”
Their opinion was that the OfS made decisions that were opposite
to the advice and views gathered through student surveys and
consultations and that it then buried the outcomes of those
consultations by rolling student feedback in with feedback from
all other stakeholders. That was particularly the case on freedom
of speech, which they felt was a Government priority and not a
student priority. Add to that the OfS’s insistence that the QAA
removed students from advisory teams and we might be forgiven for
asking, “What does the s in the OfS stand for?” It is unclear to
many in the sector whether the OfS has sufficient expertise or
capacity to meet its ever-expanding duties and operations. To
make matters worse, while expanding its reach into areas where it
is not needed, it appears to be falling at monitoring areas that
are core to its mission.
Both the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office
have found that the OfS lacks an integrated system for assessing
financial risk. These risks come from a multitude of external
pressures on universities’ financial sustainability, such as
rising pension costs, inflation in the face of frozen tuition
fees, the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the risk of
Government policy or geopolitical events affecting international
student recruitment. The OfS does not focus on assessing the
level of risk that these systematic risks pose to the sector or
our students, despite the fact that the proportion of providers
with an in-year deficit, even after adjusting for the impact of
pension deficits, increased from 5% in 2015 to 32% in 2019-20.
Some 26% of universities forecasted at the end of 2020-21 that
their cash balance would fall below 30 days’ net liquidity at
some point in the next two years. Financial stress is not
confined to one part of the sector: the 20 providers that have
had an in-year deficit for at least three years range in size
from 200 students to 30,000 students.
Universities UK has raised a number of issues with the way
investigations are being undertaken, including a lack of clarity
on the basis for the investigation, limited information on what a
provider needs to do to comply with the investigation, the scope
changing during the investigation, inconsistent methodologies
when investigating similar issues within different providers, and
the absence of an expected timescale with short deadlines for
providers to supply large amounts of information, with delays in
response to that information from the OfS. I was given one
example where a single query requesting a range of data and
information required 8,070 hours of staff time at a cost of
£48,000, including external legal advice and a number of examples
of requests for large volumes of information followed by changes
in the focus of the OfS inquiry. This is undermining trust in the
regulator when these requests have been felt to be fishing
exercises and, of course, that adds to the time cost and burden
of the work.
To conclude, we have heard from all areas of higher education,
large and small, that the regulatory burden is too large and
expensive. What steps will be taken to reduce it? For example,
will the higher education data reduction taskforce be reconvened
to assess and address data burdens across OfS and other relevant
regulators, including the OfS counterparts in the rest of the UK?
Fees are increasing by 13% with disproportionately higher costs
for smaller institutions. Does the Minister believe the OfS
provides value for money? Will the DFE consider working with the
OfS to make specific provisions for smaller institutions by being
less rigid in its data requirements, reforming its fee structure
to reflect the number of students at an institution and improving
two-way communication with the sector. As I know the Minister
cares deeply about degree apprenticeships, will he look
specifically at the amount of regulatory overlap required for
that?
We have a political placeman as chair, constant ministerial
direction of the OfS and an OfS no longer compliant with
recognised international standards. How will the international
standing of the UK HE sector, as one of the high academic
standards of excellence free from political interference, be
maintained? This country has a higher education sector that is
internationally regarded as maintaining the highest academic
standards and being free from politically motivated Government
interference. It needs and deserves a regulator to match. I do
not believe we have it yet.
4.49pm
(Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon.
Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle () for leading it. She gave a
credible, comprehensible introduction—no one could doubt the
knowledge she put forward today, and I congratulate her on
that.
Higher education is so important for England, and indeed for all
of us in the devolved Assemblies, where we have the ability to
direct our different ways of doing things. Although the Office
for Students does not apply to Northern Ireland—we have a
different system back home—the Department for the Economy at the
Northern Ireland Assembly has fantastic guidelines and direction
in ensuring equality and diversity for every student. As I always
do, I will give a Northern Ireland perspective to this debate—not
because the Minister has responsibility for Northern Ireland, but
to add another perspective, which will complicate what the hon.
Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has put
forward.
I want to honestly say what a joy it is to see the excellent and
knowledgeable Minister in his place, and I very much look forward
to his contribution. When we go to vote, I hear people from all
parties saying that he is a really good Minister. There is
consensus of support across the Chamber, which comes from the way
he deals with the questions put to him. It is quite an
achievement, and I congratulate him on that.
I am also very pleased to see the shadow Minister, the hon.
Member for Warwick and Leamington (), in his place. He brings a
wealth of knowledge on this subject, and I look forward to his
contribution as well.
In Northern Ireland, the higher education division formulates
policy and administers funding to support education, research and
related activities in the Northern Ireland higher education
sector. Unlike other parts of the United Kingdom, Northern
Ireland has no higher education funding council; the Department
for the Economy fulfils the roles of both a Government Department
and a funding council. In Northern Ireland, 77.8% of school
pupils will go on to study in some form of higher education
setting, whether that be through a regional college, university
or education-based apprenticeships.
I have a very good working relationship with my local technical
college and Ken Webb, its chief executive; we talk regularly
about these matters. I understand that the students the college
produces are excellent, and their potential to gain jobs is also
there, so there is good continuity from education to employment.
Within the higher education division in Northern Ireland, there
are many sectors that fall into this category, including the
student support branch, student finance branch, research and
knowledge branch, and many more.
I am minded, as I often am when I talk about education—the hon.
Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle referred to this,
and I am sure others will as well—that the students of today,
after all, are the leaders of tomorrow, whether they be
politicians, teachers, business leaders or, as in my
constituency, farmers. The opportunities are there. We need to
encourage and assist the next generation and give them help along
the way. That is important.
The Office for Students and other bodies aim to do their best to
represent the individual student on many issues: student finance,
employability opportunities—I am glad to say that I see evidence
of just how good those are—careers advice, which is also
excellent, partnerships, collaboration, and much more. Support
for higher education is crucial, as it encourages pupils to stay
in university and complete their course. According to the
Education Data Initiative, around 40% of undergraduate students
each academic year leave or drop out of their chosen university
course. Those figures are crazy. It is so important that these
opportunities are not wasted for others who have been dying—a
word I often use—to go to university to gain the opportunity to
do better educationally.
I am here to support the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West
and Hessle. I want to conclude by saying that this subject is so
important and this debate has been vital. The hon. Lady has
illustrated its importance in all aspects of higher education,
and I am pleased to add my contribution. I thank the Department
for Economy back home for all the work it does in this sector. I
know that the Minister always responds to these things, so I have
only one question for him, which hopefully he can respond to
here. Will he ensure that discussions are undertaken regularly
with all the devolved Administrations, in particular the Northern
Ireland Assembly, so that we can keep our support for him and the
hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle at what is
already an all-time high?
4.54pm
(Warwick and Leamington)
(Lab)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame
Maria. As has been mentioned, the Office for Students, which is
the independent regulator for higher education providers, is a
relatively new addition to the regulatory landscape in the UK and
was formed back in January 2018. I think I am right in saying
that this is the first opportunity that MPs have had to debate
the regulator since the passage of the Higher Education and
Research Act 2017. Here we are five years on, with this
well-timed and possibly well overdue debate about what is
happening in the landscape.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull
West and Hessle () not just on securing the
debate, but on her absolutely comprehensive and thorough
dissection of the issues, which ranged from the burden of
bureaucracy, the concerns about consultation and how it is
handled, the questions about the future measurement of quality
across the sector, and many points in between, which I will
elaborate on. I thank my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford
(), for his contribution and for reminding us of some
of the distinct characteristics of higher education provision in
Northern Ireland.
Before I build on some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the
Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, I want to stress
the importance of good, fair-minded, proportional regulation,
which is needed in any sector, especially the higher education
sector. For a sector that benefits from £30 billion in income
from public money, educates over 2 million students and
contributes £52 billion to our GDP, supporting more than 800,000
jobs, the need for regulation is clearly self-evident. To that
end, the Higher Education and Research Act lays important
foundations for the inception of the Office for Students. It is
important to stress that almost no one I have met working in the
sector has ever questioned the need for regulation. Indeed, as
Universities UK says:
“we support the objectives of the OfS and believe its statutory
duties are clear and appropriate”.
However, five years on from HERA, four of the main representative
groups—MillionPlus, GuildHE, University Alliance and the Russell
Group—have felt compelled to write to the Chair of the Education
Committee, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker),
expressing
“growing concerns that the OfS is not implementing a fully
risk-based approach, that it is not genuinely independent and
that it is failing to meet standards we would expect from the
Regulators’ Code.”
The establishment of any regulator, especially one that so
markedly departs from the role of the previous funding agency, is
bound to have some teething problems. But when we have reached
the point at which stakeholders are joining forces to raise
concerns that the House of Lords Industry and Regulators
Committee has launched an inquiry into, and when MPs feel
compelled to raise the issue in Westminster Hall, then something
has clearly gone awry. The question is: what?
Regulators are most successful when they are able to exercise a
proportionate degree of authority over the sector they regulate.
Authority stems from trust, which in turn reinforces the
authority of the regulator. The two go hand in hand; they are
mutually reinforcing. In part, this issue stems from the
structure of the OfS—for example, in not having adequate avenues
to allow stakeholders to offer feedback on its own performance as
a regulator. The OfS’s provider refresh strategy is therefore
broadly welcome, but part of the mistrust stems from a
perception—and I think it is a perception—that the regulator is
too easily at the beck and call of Ministers, stretching the
epithet “independent regulator of higher education” to its very
limit.
Most obviously, as we have heard, the chair of the Office for
Students, Lord Wharton, is seen as a plainly political
appointment, having little experience in the sector while
maintaining the Conservative Whip in the Lords. The potential
conflict of interest is plain. That he has visited only five
universities since his appointment may suggest that his interest
lies less in the promotion of the sector and more in occupying a
public office to shape the sector to his party’s wishes.
Certainly, his failure to declare an interest as a significant
donor to Ben Houchen’s campaign to be the Tees Valley Mayor when
interviewing and appointing Rachel Houchen as a non-executive
director supports that hypothesis.
They say that a fish rots from the head down—incidentally, the
last time that I used that expression in this House was in
relation to the Government of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge
and South Ruislip (). There is a perception that
the OfS is straying too far into the political fray at several
levels. Take the student panel, for example, which was mentioned
earlier. Last week, the former student panel members gave
evidence to the Lords Committee. They claimed that
“an acute focus on free speech in regulatory activities was
politically motivated rather than being based on the concerns of
the student body”,
and strongly indicated that the student voice, as expressed by
panel members, was “actively suppressed” when trying to counter
aims and policies that appeared to be political in nature.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central () talked about the student
voice being marginalised. I have frequently thought that the
Office for Students is a misnomer. Surely, if it was truly a
regulator for students, they would be given greater priority in
decision making and greater oversight, and they would turn to it
more often and would feel that their priorities—such as the cost
of living, student mental health, and sexual harassment and
violence on campus—were being given the utmost priority. Given
the seriousness of the accusations that have been made, I would
welcome the Minister’s personal commitment that he will ensure
that the student panel and voice are fully respected within the
OfS structure and the regulations that it makes, as schedule 1 to
HERA demands.
Another common theme emerging from my conversations around the
sector concerns the regulatory burden. Under HERA, the OfS is
required to ensure that ongoing registration conditions are
proportionate to the OfS’s assessment of the regulatory risk
posed by the institution. The OfS has termed this “risk-based
regulation”. That is an eminently sensible approach to take, but
unfortunately it is one that belies reality.
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull
West and Hessle, data gathering is being massively duplicated. To
give some anonymous examples, as we have heard earlier, I am
informed that, for the 2022 Higher Education Statistics Agency
data return, one member reported having to provide 59,000 student
records, which equates to 7.2 million individual data fields—an
increase from 4.5 million in 2019. We have heard that another
provider has 10 full-time equivalent staff supporting regulatory
compliance, at a cost of £440,000. Another has estimated that the
total cost in regulatory activities equates to £1.1 million in
the year 2022-23. So the burden is both concentrated and
widespread, particularly when taking into account the reporting
requirements of other regulatory bodies.
When it comes to degree apprentices, as we have heard,
apprenticeship providers are often subject to four, or possibly
five, separate regulatory bodies and demands: the OfS, the
Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education or IFATE,
the Education and Skills Funding Agency, and Ofsted. The effects
on smaller institutions are clearly greater, as these absorb more
and more resources to the detriment of the student experience.
Over a year ago, the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon.
Member for Chippenham (), launched the HE data
reduction taskforce, which of course is very welcome, to tackle
this very issue. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us
on when the taskforce last met, when it next plans to meet and
what steps he is taking to ensure that new initiatives, most
importantly lifelong learning, do not bog down providers in an
even greater regulatory quagmire.
In raising these concerns, I do not intend to discredit the
important work that the regulator has done in some areas. The
recent work on access and participation plans, for example, and
the launch of the equality of opportunity risk register could
prove transformational in improving the experience of higher
education for students from a widening range of backgrounds.
Likewise, a good deal of work has to be done behind closed doors
by necessity; managing the financial sustainability of providers
is the clearest example. To that end, I was pleased to read the
case study note provided by the OfS yesterday about how it is
managing financially precarious institutions, which are
increasing at an alarming rate under the current Government. I
should not need to remind the Minister that the proportion of
providers with an in-year deficit increased from 5% in 2015-16 to
32% in 2019-20.
In conclusion, the need for regulation is absolutely obvious;
indeed, good regulation is needed to generate confidence, trust
and investment in the sector from domestic students,
international students, businesses, government and research
bodies. However, the relationship between the OfS and the sector
is at an all-time low. It did not start at a particularly high
level. Trust and confidence is crucial in a regulator, and I am
afraid that there are profound concerns across the piece. I have
met with the OfS, and I appreciate that moves are afoot to try
and reset the relationship and restore confidence. I very much
welcome that. Trust and authority are hard-won and quickly lost.
To that end, I would welcome the Minister’s response on the
following points, as well as those I raised earlier.
What steps is the Minister taking to reassure the sector that the
era of heavy-handed political involvement in the regulator is at
an end? What plans does he have to raise the registration fees to
accommodate additional duties on the OfS? What assessment has he
made of any increase on institutional financial sustainability
and the student experience? Finally, what assessment has he made
of whether the OfS provides value for money, judged against the
objectives that Parliament legislated for it, and by comparison
with peers in the regulatory sector?
5.05pm
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education
()
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dame Maria. I
congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and
Hessle () on securing this debate. It
feels a bit like groundhog day, because we served together on the
Education Committee. I have the highest regard for her work, not
just on higher education but on special educational needs and
disabilities, mental health and post-16 education. I am very
happy to be debating the important matter of the OfS with her. I
have had the privilege of visiting Ron Dearing University
Technical College in her constituency, which is doing an
incredible job in transforming the lives of thousands of
students.
Before following through on the OfS issues, I want to begin by
setting out how I see higher education, because it very much
forms the architecture of what we are talking about today. Higher
education of course plays many important roles in our
society—developing people’s education and academic talents,
academic knowledge, and world-class research and innovation,
which are absolutely important—but for me the three key things
are meeting the skills needs of the economy, providing
high-quality qualifications leading to excellent, well-paid jobs,
and advancing social justice. What I mean by that is ensuring
that everyone, regardless of their background, can not only
access high-quality education, but complete their studies and get
good skills and knowledge, and jobs at the end. The OfS is
essential to upholding the quality and ensuring the success of
the higher education system and the aims that I have
suggested.
Before I turn to the OfS specifically, it is important to briefly
highlight the fact that we have an ambitious skills agenda, as
the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle pointed
out, with £3.8 billion of extra investment over the Parliament.
We are using that to expand and strengthen both higher education
and further education. We are investing an extra £750 million in
the HE sector up to 2025, to support high-quality teaching and
facilities, particularly in science and engineering subjects, and
to support NHS and degree apprenticeships. The hon. Member’s
university, the University of Hull, is receiving more than £10
million in the strategic priorities grant, so I hope that she is
pleased about that.
There is also, of course, the money that goes to UK Research and
Innovation, which is £25 billion over the spending review. That
is £6.2 billion for Research England, which funds our higher
education institutions. The latest estimate shows that the income
of English higher education providers in 2021 from tuition fees
in education was £21.6 billion, which was 55% of the total income
of £39.77 billion.
I was going to talk about the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education
Fee Limits) Bill, as I thought it would come up, but we have
plenty of time next week when we discuss the Bill on Report and
Third Reading. The Bill will be very important, because the
lifelong loan entitlement will provide everyone with a loan of up
to £37,000 to do flexible and modular learning. There will be
level 4, level 5 and level 6 provision, and it will start with
level 4 and level 5. The OfS and the new register of FE colleges
will provide the LLE, and those owners will have an important
role.
Let me turn to the OfS and its vital work to support the
Government’s priorities. I commend the activity of the OfS, for
the most part, over the last five years to put in place the
regulatory framework and to register providers. The hon. Member
for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle talked about the cost,
which boils down to just under £13 per student. She also talked
about regulation, and I completely get that. I am not a believer
in small or big Government; I believe in good Government. I am
not a believer in loads of regulation or low regulation, but in
good regulation. To be fair to the shadow Minister, the hon.
Member for Warwick and Leamington (), he said that as well.
Of course, I recognise that regulation creates a burden for those
being regulated, but it is important that the benefit of
regulation outweighs the burden. Seeking to minimise the
regulatory burden is a key focus. It is set out in the strategy
to 2025. I wanted to go as far as possible in doing so. The OfS
has already taken significant steps to reduce the data burden it
places on providers. In 2022, it removed the need for all
providers to send monitoring returns for access and participation
plans. It significantly reduced its enhanced monitoring
requirements, which are now less than a quarter of what they were
in 2019. It has published its intention to become increasingly
risk-based in the way it monitors compliance. It also plans to
vary further the regulatory requirements placed on individual
providers according to the risks they pose, which will affect the
impact of its regulation on those that pose the highest risk.
In terms of the regulation of small providers, of course the OfS
does apply the same requirements for all types of providers.
Whatever provider they go to, students should expect the same
quality of education outcomes, protection and support to complete
their courses. I accept that the regulatory burden should be
minimised, including for small providers, and the OfS has a plan
to minimise it. When it does so, it must have regard to the
regulation code principles on determining general policy. The
regulation code is less relevant to the work of the OfS when
carrying out individual investigations and taking enforcement
action, but it does take compliance very seriously.
OfS fees are tiered by student numbers, so providers with fewer
numbers, such as FE colleges, will pay less in fees. In response
to the question from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for
Warwick and Leamington, we are reviewing the high cost per
student for smaller providers when we consider the fees for
2024-25. We are considering those general fees at this time.
On the important point about the QAA, it chose to withdraw
consent for designation. If the English system is not in line
with the European standard, it is because we do not have cyclical
reviews, which we consider disproportionate in terms of
regulation. As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and
Hessle highlighted, the OfS will take on the quality assessment
role in the interim, while consideration is given to a permanent
arrangement. I have met university stakeholders to discuss those
issues.
Will the Minister give way?
I will in a minute. I have a fair bit to add and want to make the
following point, because the hon. Member for Strangford () is so kind and comes to a lot of these debates on
education and skills, as well as many other debates. I will have
dialogue with the regulatory bodies. I was planning to visit them
when visiting for the anniversary of the Northern Irish
agreement, but unfortunately my slip was withdrawn because I had
to vote in the House of Commons. Otherwise, I would have been
there and visited universities and colleges in Northern Ireland.
I very much hope that I will be able to make that visit. I note
that at Queen’s University Belfast, 99% of the research
environment is world leading and internationally excellent. I
think it is No. 108 in the world, so congratulations to Queen’s
University.
As far as we are concerned, it is No. 1.
I have a lot more to day, but I will give way to the hon. Member
for Sheffield Central now.
I thank the Minister for giving way. I agree with the hon. Member
for Strangford () that the Minister is widely respected for his work
on education and his appointment to this job was welcomed. But I
want to return to my earlier point about the OfS’s regulatory
approach. When I debated the establishment of the OfS in Bill
Committee with the Minister’s predecessor, I argued that we had a
reasonable regulatory framework—the Higher Education Funding
Council for England. The Minister at the time argued that it was
important to put students at the heart of regulation. That is why
it was called the Office for Students. Does the Minister agree
that, if it is to live up to that name, it should do what it says
and give a much stronger voice for students in the whole process
of regulation? He does not agree with my concern that students
have been marginalised, but will he set out how we could give
students a stronger place in the OfS’s approach to regulating the
sector?
That is an important question, and the hon. Gentleman is one of
the key higher education spokesmen in the House of Commons. I am
absolutely supportive of student representation. The student
panel is incredibly important. I made a decision as a Minister to
interview one of the members of the student panel. I did not have
to do that—I could have just ticked the submission and said that
Mr X or Ms X is fine—but I took proactive interest, because it is
incredibly important to do so.
I met the student panel, and I want it to have a voice. I went to
an OfS event in the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago. I
spent time chatting to the student panel, which is essential in
this. As long as it is used properly and listened to, it is the
best conduit for ensuring that student voices are heard. The
student panel has teeth. I will keep a watch over it, even though
the OfS is independent and I do not have operational control. It
is a bit like the police: the Mayor of London might have a say
over the chief constable, but he does not necessarily tell them
what to do day by day. Nevertheless, the student panel is
incredibly important, so I accept what the hon. Member for
Sheffield Central () says.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked me about the
taskforce. It last met in full in June 2022, and there has been a
subsequent meeting of arms-length bodies, separately, to discuss
progress and to identify areas of work to take forward.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that higher education is
preparing students for high-quality employment: three quarters of
graduates from full-time first degree courses progressed into
high-skilled employment or further study 15 months after
graduating in 2020. But more must be done to tackle the pockets
of poor quality that persist, and the OfS is committed to doing
that. The OfS has revised its registration conditions in relation
to quality and standards to ensure that they are robust, and it
is rightly now taking action to investigate and enforce those
conditions.
We want to ensure that students see returns on their investment
in higher education. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates
that the net lifetime return from an undergraduate degree is
£100,000 for women and £130,000 for men, but it should be noted
that the IFS has also found that 25% of male graduates and 15% of
female ones will take home less money over their careers than
peers who do not get an undergraduate degree. I think that
graduates should be achieving outcomes that are consistent with
the qualifications that they have completed and paid for.
To give an opposing example, it is a testament to the genuinely
excellent teaching and leadership at the University of Hull that
nursing and midwifery students experience the highest progression
rate—98%—compared to all other OfS-registered HE providers with
available progression data, and that the university has performed
above the OfS threshold for continuation, completion and
progression. I say those things to highlight not just the
brilliant work of the University of Hull but the important work
that the OfS is doing. Without the work of the OfS, we would not
have that kind of information.
I talked about social justice, which is very important to the
hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle and to me. I
want to ensure that no student is excluded from higher education
because of their background. A wider point has been made about us
putting extra burdens on the OfS, but it has recently launched
the equality of opportunity risk register to highlight key risks
that can impact negatively on disadvantaged and under-represented
student groups across the whole of the student lifecycle. That is
an extra thing for the OfS to do, but I want it to happen. I am
delighted with that. I do not like the name “risk register”, but
nevertheless the principle is really important. It will empower
higher education providers to develop effective interventions and
support at-risk students, helping them not only get in but get
on. I have a lot more to day about Hull University. It really is
doing some remarkable things, and I hope to be able to go there
one day and see it.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle cares
deeply about mental health. We have allocated £15 million from
the strategic priorities grant to the OfS for mental health
support. That is another OfS duty and its purpose is to support
students’ wellbeing when they transition to university, and to
create opportunities for partnerships between providers and the
national health service. The OfS has a role to play in funding
Student Space, an online platform for mental health and wellbeing
resources. The OfS also runs a mental health challenge
competition with Northumbria University. It has supported
projects to ensure that mental health needs are identified by
providers. That is another important role for the OFS. Yes, the
OfS has increased its role, but it is doing really important
things that will make a difference to many students’ lives.
I knew that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and
Hessle would bring up degree apprenticeships. I have some
sympathy with what she says; there is too much regulation, and
all I can say to her is to please watch this space. I am looking
at it very carefully to see what can be done. Of course, we also
have to maintain quality, because if we do not have quality, I
will have the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Warwick and
Leamington, get up in Education questions and ask why
apprenticeship provision is so poor. The hon. Lady will be
pleased that over the next two years we will increase from £8
million to £40 million—£16 million in the first year, and £24
million in the second—the funding to promote degree
apprenticeships among providers. I know she will support that
extra funding.
A House of Lords inquiry has criticised the OfS registration fees
for being too high. As I have mentioned, however, in the light of
the Government’s commitment to funding skills over the
Parliament, the OfS registration fees offer value for money. It
is currently around £26 million a year, which is less than £13
per student. I do not think that feels like a high price to pay
to ensure that we have a high-quality system working in the
interests of students.
In conclusion, the work of the Government, which I have outlined,
and of the OfS regulator will continue to deliver on skills, jobs
and social justice. I accept that there is over-regulation—the
hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle highlighted
some unnecessary regulation that I will look at with officials at
the Department for Education. However, we have a world-class
higher education sector. I am not complacent about it. I
acknowledge that there is not enough in some areas, and that some
graduates are not getting good, skilled jobs, but many—in fact,
most—higher education providers deliver a top-class education and
equip students with the skills they need to get excellent jobs. I
am clear that a robust and fair regulator—a good regulator—is
vital to ensuring that our higher education sector remains world
leading and protects students and the taxpayer.
I think that the OfS has achieved a fair bit in the first five
years of its existence. It has registered 400 providers. It has
also registered the new Dyson Institute, which is—
Hoovering up students!
Very good. I have been to that university. I met James Dyson some
years ago when I was the Chair of the Education Committee. It was
extraordinary. I hope that there will be many more examples of
universities like that one. The Department will work closely with
the OfS to ensure that we continue supporting a world-class
higher education system. As I said, I remain committed to
delivering on skills, jobs and social justice. The OfS will be an
absolutely crucial part of that.
Will the Minister give way?
How could I say no to the hon. Gentleman?
I was hoping that the Minister could cover the three questions I
raised at the end.
I thought I had answered most of the questions.
There was one about political interference, which may be
difficult for the Minister to answer. Could I go back to the
second question? It was about whether he had any plans to raise
registration fees. I also had a question about an assessment of
the value for money that the OfS represents, particularly in the
context of other regulators.
I am happy to answer. I think I said that we are considering OfS
registration fees and that I will come back about that matter in
due course. I do not recognise any political interference. Since
becoming a Minister, I have had meetings with the OfS chief
executive and chair, and we have literally just discussed what
needs to be done to make sure that the organisation continues its
work and that we continue to have a world-class university
system.
I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon—what was the third point?
Assessment of value for money.
Ah, yes. I think the OfS is providing value for money. First, as
I mentioned, the cost to students is just under £13, which
represents value for money. More importantly, what are the
outcomes? If we have great universities, as we do, and we are
meeting the country’s skills needs, promoting degree
apprenticeships and acting further on mental health and other
areas, including social justice, to make sure that disadvantaged
students have the right outcomes, as we are, then the OfS will
absolutely be providing value for money.
5.27pm
I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. The Minister
knows how to charm me: he talked about how good Hull University
is, and of course I agree. That brings me to my favourite fact
about it: there are more graduates from Hull University in the
Houses of Parliament than from any other university, partly
because of its internship programme.
Nobody minds bureaucracy and paperwork if their purpose is seen
as improving outcomes for students; as a teacher, I never minded
that. The core of the issue is that although some OfS bureaucracy
does make a difference—I share the Minister’s thoughts about the
equality risk register—so much of it does not improve outcomes
for students. In fact, it has a detrimental impact as it drives
resources and energy away from the necessary focus on students. I
welcome the fact that the Minister is going to look at some of my
examples.
On the issue of the chair of the OfS, I should say that the
Minister and I served together for a few years on the Education
Committee—he cares about education, as does everyone in this
room. I just believe that we deserve an OfS chair who genuinely
cares about education as much as we all do.
Dame (in the Chair)
Before I put the question, I offer a sincere apology to the hon.
Member for Sheffield Central (). I started the debate six
minutes early because I knew that we would fill every moment, but
I could see that he had made every effort to be here by 4.30 pm.
I hope he will understand that, in starting early as we did, we
gave the debate an extra few minutes—including an extra few
minutes’ scrutiny of the Minister, which I am sure the Minister
appreciated.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Office for Students.
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