Temporary changes to registration and other applications

The Office for Students (OfS) is temporarily refocusing its resources to support its work in response to the financial challenges affecting higher education providers in England.

This is to ensure students’ interests are protected. This will mean temporary changes to our assessment of applications from providers.

We have provided further information on this below.

What is changing?

We are not accepting new applications from providers seeking to register with us, gain degree awarding powers, or gain university title. Applications that have already been submitted and that are at an early stage will be paused. These temporary changes are in place until August 2025.

• Registration. No new registration applications will be accepted and all registration cases in the early stages of assessment will be paused.
• Degree awarding powers. No new applications for degree awarding powers will be accepted, and applications that have been received but where assessment has not yet started will be paused.
• University title. No new applications for university title, or for a change in a provider’s name where it already holds university title or university college title, will be accepted. Those already submitted will be completed.

If an application is at an advanced stage of assessment, or a provider has an open application for university title, we will continue work on these applications as usual. All other work will continue.

Why are you making this change?

We published financial analysis in November 2024 that indicated more providers are at increasing financial risk. We do not expect a significant number of providers to fail in the short term. But the number facing significant challenges in the next two or three years is increasing, as our latest financial analysis from May 2025 has confirmed.

We needed to act to do all we could to support the financial resilience of the sector. This continues to be our top priority. It means we refocused existing OfS resources onto our financial sustainability work on a temporary basis.

Our priority has been applying our finite resources to managing risks for the students already in the system, over the benefits that new providers, or those seeking the ability to award qualifications, will bring.

If we had not made these changes, there was a real risk we would not be able to effectively discharge our duty to monitor financial sustainability and ensure that students’ interests are protected.

Why registration, degree awarding power and university title?

The decision to pause work on applications is driven by the interests of students, specifically the need to prioritise managing risks for students already in the system, over increasing the numbers of new providers entering the sector or extending the number with degree awarding powers.

In a more stable environment, increasing the diversity of the sector and registering new and innovative providers is to be welcomed. But we know from our most recent financial sustainability update that it is medium and smaller providers, or specialist providers, that are more likely to be affected by financial challenges in the years ahead. These are the types of providers we see seeking registration and degree awarding powers at present.

While we are currently meeting our published timelines for resolving registration applications, there is a risk that we won’t be able to do so as the scale of our financial sustainability work increases. We wanted to be transparent and implement a temporary pause, rather than starting cases and having to stop them to take up urgent work, causing uncertainty in what we know can feel like a lengthy process for providers. Our decision to pause these processes was not a reflection on the applications from the institutions affected by these temporary changes.

What will the impact be?

We recognise this has had a detrimental impact on a small number of providers with an application that is being paused, or for those providers that were planning to apply during this period.

The pause has enabled us to increase our monitoring financial sustainability for providers which will increase protection of students’ interests, whether we are working with a higher education provider to ensure it has a sustainable future or working to best support students in the event that a provider closes or discontinues courses. Refocusing our resources in this way has put us in the best possible position to protect students’ interests at a challenging time.

What have you been doing during the pause?

We have consulted on reforms to improve the registration process to facilitate high quality applications, and are now considering consultation responses. We intend to publish the outcomes of this consultation and our new approach to registration in August. If we decide to make changes to our approach to registration we will publish a suite of updated guidance. We will also host online workshops to introduce applicants to any new process, and increase our engagement with providers to support their submission.

Find out more about the proposals we consulted on.

We're making changes to how we write DAPs assessment reports to make this process more efficient, and we’re going to trial a more risk-based approach to varying providers’ DAPs to simplify this process. We intend to make changes to reduce the evidence requirements and streamline the DAPs process over the coming months.

We've heard that providers would find it helpful to have the briefing where we discuss their DAPs application much earlier in the process, so we'll take account of that in our scheduling. This means we can discuss evidence requirements with a provider in more detail at an early stage, and the provider can tell us about anything relevant to prepare for its assessment.

We have also changed how we oversee the assessment process, so now the same team will manage the end-to-end process, which should reduce the timelines for providers.

When will applications reopen?

We will restart this work in August 2025. When we restart our assessment work, we will need to stagger recommencing cases. We expect to prioritise providers that have had a paused assessment once we resume this work. We have asked providers with paused registration applications to submit updated information so we can prepare to resume work on their case. We will re-open access to the registration application portal when we have published our final decisions about any changes to registration, and any updated guidance and templates are published. We encourage providers to consider any updated guidance we publish so they can make a high quality, complete, submission.

We have given each provider with paused DAPs applications a provisional assessment schedule to inform its future planning as we restart work on each case.

As we will prioritise applications from providers with paused DAPs assessments, we will have reduced capacity for new DAPs applications in the 2025-26 business year. We will publish further information on this in the coming months, and will discuss provisional timelines with applicants when we start accepting new applications.

What happens next?

In August, we intend to publish final decisions following consultation on proposals for a new approach to registration. We proposed that changes would apply to a provider submitting an application when we reopen for new applications. We’re continuing to consider further ways in which the DAPs assessment process can be streamlined and will keep providers updated on any changes.

Have you also paused applications to change category of registration?

Yes. To change the category in which it is registered, a provider must submit a new application for registration. This means we would need to assess it again against the relevant initial conditions of registration. Providers can apply to change their category of registration when we reopen in August.

How can I get further information?

If you would like further information about your application, or if you have a question about our decision to stop accepting new applications, you can contact [email protected].