The Office for Students (OfS) has published its business plan for 2024-25. The plan sets out the OfS’s priorities and areas of work for the forthcoming year.
It is published as the OfS continues to engage with students, universities and colleges on its new strategy, which will be published next year.
The plan sets out a number of areas of focus, including financial sustainability, the quality of courses, and equality of opportunity.
Writing in the foreword of the plan OfS chief executive Susan Lapworth said:
'The financial sustainability of the higher education sector is a high priority for the OfS this year. Our annual report on financial sustainability highlighted the risks facing the sector, and universities and colleges need to take action to ensure that they are well placed to weather financial storms. We will continue to monitor individual providers, intervening where necessary, as well as producing sector-wide analysis and facilitating discussion in this important area.
'Our first quality assessment reports were a significant milestone for the regulation of the sector. I’m pleased to see how universities and colleges have responded to them, reflecting on the lessons for their own courses. The OfS, too, has learned lessons and we will continue to develop our approach following discussions with those providers we have assessed and with the wider sector.
'To effectively deliver all the activity I’ve described, we need to have robust, productive and trusted relationships with those we regulate and effective mechanisms to understand students’ perspectives. We’re continuing our engagement and events with the sector, including meeting students up and down the country in our visits to providers. We are working hard to reform how students are involved in our work, to ensure their experiences and expectations are at the forefront of our thinking. This includes generating a more coherent, external-facing definition of the student interest, and a step-change in our work seeking insight from students through qualitative and quantitative methods, remodelling our Student Panel, and re-conceptualising our role in bringing information to students about higher education.'
Earlier this week the OfS’s annual report and accounts were laid before Parliament. The report sets out the work of the OfS for 2023-24. In her commentary, Susan Lapworth set out the work the OfS have done to engage with students and the universities and colleges it regulates. She said:
'I’m grateful that staff and students from more than 80 universities and colleges have given their time to meet with me, OfS staff and board members, as we’ve visited the institutions we regulate. We have received positive feedback about the value of these visits and the opportunity they present to discuss shared interests. From our perspective they also help us to understand the impact of our regulation and how we can improve. We have also extended our programme of events and webinars this year, to reach more people and to increase understanding of our work across the sector.'