Value for money - what should providers do?

Being able to see how their fees are spent is important to students. It allows them to understand whether they are receiving value for money and to hold providers to account.

For this reason, all registered providers must meet our requirements for transparency.

What should providers do?

1. Registered providers must have adequate and effective management and governance arrangements (condition E2). These arrangements must deliver in practice a set of principles – including being transparent about value for money for students.
2. We require additional transparency from providers wishing to charge higher level fees. These providers must submit a plan to us for approval, setting out how they will use this additional investment to improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups.

What does this mean?

One way that providers can satisfy our requirements is by regularly publishing clear information about how they ensure value for money, including income and expenditure data.

Where we identify providers who do not comply with our requirements about transparency, we may intervene by requiring plans for improvement.

Where we have concerns about a provider's efficiency, we can investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of a registered provider to assess whether they are providing value for money for students and taxpayers.