How we regulate financial sustainability within higher education

In light of the challenging economic environment, we’re scaling up our work with providers to better understand their financial positions.

Improving our data

In addition to the annual financial return, we will be working with the sector to collect more timely information on providers' financial positions to ensure we understand how their finances are changing.

We will also continue to ask universities and colleges facing large or complex financial risks to submit information about their cashflow more regularly.

Engaging with providers

We will continue to call providers to better understand what they're doing to ensure their financial sustainability.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we are concerned about a university or college. These conversations help us to understand a provider’s individual context, whether they are exposed to risk or not, and ascertain whether we need to establish a deeper understanding of their financial management.

We may also request more information or arrange to visit in person.

Detailed financial reviews

For some providers we may undertake a more detailed financial review.

We may undertake this work directly, or we may work with financial consultants with the expertise to help us understand, in greater depth, the financial status of an institution.

Using consultants provides us with additional capacity and a greater range of expertise to support our financial monitoring. Working with them will be a routine part of our financial sustainability regulation.

The use of consultants is not a signal that a university or college is at imminent risk of financial failure and should not be viewed as an indication of its financial position.