Consultation on the OfS’s approach to regulating students’ unions on free speech matters

42. Under section 69B(6) of HERA, the OfS will be required to maintain a list of relevant students’ unions to which, according to information held by the OfS, the new free speech duties apply. This requirement is expected to come into force on 1 August 2024.
43. We are proposing to maintain a list of relevant students’ unions from information that we require from providers registered in the Approved (fee cap) category. This is because the relevant duties apply to students’ unions at providers in that category (see paragraph 41).
44. The Act will require the OfS to impose new initial and ongoing conditions of registration on providers in relation to free speech and academic freedom matters. The new ongoing conditions of registration for a provider registered in the Approved (fee cap) category must include a requirement that it keeps the OfS informed of its students’ union(s). These provisions are expected to come into force on 1 September 2025. We expect to consult on the new conditions of registration in due course.
45. Before the new conditions of registration come into effect, we have decided to obtain information about students’ unions from providers registered in the Approved (fee cap) category by using the existing powers set out in ongoing condition of registration F3. We have imposed an enduring reporting requirement on those providers to provide us with basic information about their students’ unions, and to inform us of any changes to this information in the future.
46. We have already imposed this reporting requirement, in connection with the work that we are doing to prepare for the commencement of our new duties and functions.
47. We propose to use the information that providers submit to us, to compile a list of relevant students’ unions, for the purposes of section 69B(6) of HERA.
48. Under section 69B(7) of HERA, the OfS will also be required to make the list of relevant students’ unions ‘publicly available by such means as it considers appropriate’.
49. We are proposing to make the list of relevant students’ unions publicly available by publishing it on our website. We propose that each entry on this list will include the name of the students’ union and of the associated provider(s). We propose to publish this list no later than 1 August 2024.
50. From time to time, we may receive information about an organisation that is not on our list of students’ unions. In those circumstances, we propose to consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether the organisation is a ‘relevant students’ union’ for our purposes.

51. The OfS does not currently hold information about, or contact details for, students’ unions at providers.
52. In our view, it is appropriate to obtain this information from providers rather than from other information sources. We consider that providers are well-placed to determine whether bodies and associations that represent their students are ‘students’ unions’ within the definition set out in the Act. That definition refers to the Education Act 1994, which imposes other requirements on providers, in relation to their ‘students’ unions’. Therefore, providers should already have identified any ‘students’ unions’ that they have.
53. Requiring providers to provide us with information about their students’ unions, also reflects the approach set out in the legislative requirements that will underpin the proposed new conditions of registration relating to free speech.¹⁹ Those conditions of registration are expected to come into force on 1 September 2025.
54. We are proposing to publish only the name of each relevant students’ union, together with the names of the associated provider(s). We consider that this will provide students, providers and other relevant stakeholders with enough information to enable them to identify which students’ unions are regulated by the OfS on free speech matters and fall within the OfS’s free speech complaints scheme.
55. We propose to publish the list on our website since this will make the information easily accessible to stakeholders. It will also make it easy for the OfS to keep the list updated. We have considered whether other forms of making the list publicly available would be appropriate. For example, we could make the list available on request. However, we consider that other alternatives would make the information less accessible and could result in stakeholders’ referring to information that is out of date.
56. The OfS’s new regulatory functions and free speech complaints scheme relate to all students’ unions of providers registered in the Approved (fee cap) category. They are not limited to the students’ unions that are included in the OfS’s published list. Therefore, we propose to make clear that the list that we publish is not necessarily exhaustive.

[19] See HERA section 8A(3).