Following an open recruitment process the Office for Students (OfS) welcomes the appointment of six new independent committee members to three committees of the board: the Risk and Audit Committee, Provider Risk Committee and Quality Assessment Committee.
Our new members are:
Risk and Audit Committee
The Risk and Audit Committee considers the effectiveness of processes relating to corporate governance, risk management and internal control at the OfS and assures the OfS board and Accounting Officer that these are being properly applied.
Satish Jeram
Satish has held a range of finance and executive roles in the private space specialising in Finance, HR and Internal Audit. He has worked for a variety of SMEs and blue-chip companies across several sectors in the UK and overseas. His last role was as a Finance Director with Qmatic. He is currently pursuing work in the voluntary sector.
Provider Risk Committee
The Provider Risk Committee has reserved decision-making powers under the OfS’s scheme of delegation to take regulatory decisions in relation to English higher education providers as described in the OfS’s scheme of delegation. The committee considers whether a higher education provider is complying with initial and ongoing conditions of registration and enforcement is an important aspect of its work.
Nisha Arora
Nisha is Director, Consumer and Retail Policy at the Financial Conduct Authority. She was previously Senior Director, Consumer at the Competition and Markets Authority and Acting Senior Director at The Office of Fair Trading. Nisha’s experience builds on an earlier 20-year legal career in private practice and as a senior Government lawyer.
Dr Michael Grenfell
Michael is Executive Director, Enforcement, at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and an executive member of the CMA Board. Prior to the CMA’s establishment he was a partner in legal practice at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP (previously Norton Rose), where he specialised in competition law for 25 years, including as Head of the firm’s London Competition Group.
Quality Assessment Committee
As required by section 24 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA), the Quality Assessment Committee provides advice to the OfS board on the approach to be taken by the OfS to assessing the quality of, and the standards applied to, the higher education of registered providers and those providers seeking registration, as well as the grant of degree awarding powers, and the way in which the Designated Quality Body (DQB) has exercised the functions under section 27 and Schedule 4 of HERA, including:
- the arrangements for holding the DQB to account for the performance of the assessment functions
- considering the annual report by the DQB
- preparation of the triennial report by the OfS.
Paul Gratrick
Paul is the Head of Operations in the Careers and Employability Team at the University of Liverpool. Previously, Paul has worked in Faculty Business Partner roles at the University of Liverpool and University of Manchester, working with senior academic and professional service colleagues on employability and student experience initiatives. Alongside this Paul is also a Director for the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) and a member of the Research and Policy Steering Group for the Institute of Student Employers (ISE).
Currently Paul is also a part-time PhD student at Durham University, researching student perceptions of value for money at UK higher education institutes.
Dr Jagjeet Jutley-Neilson
Jagjeet is a Director of Student Experience and Progression in Psychology at the University of Warwick. She is responsible for enhancing students' learning experiences and strengthening the student voice. Jagjeet is also involved in educational research which explores black, Asian and minority ethnic and disabled students’ learning experiences in Higher Education.
Dr Graeme Pedlingham
Graeme is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience at the University of Sussex and has strategic responsibility for assessment across the institution. He has expertise in curriculum design and management, and in supporting student transitions in Higher Education. An academic in English Literature, Graeme has experience of working across education sectors and in developing cross-institutional collaborations.