The OfS board is seeking to recruit two members for its Quality Assessment Committee and up to two members for its Provider Risk Committee in autumn 2021.
We are looking for new members to join these two board committees at an important point in the development of the regulation of the OfS.
In November 2020, we began a multi-phase consultation on teaching quality and standards. The proposals in the consultation were designed to ensure that our approach to the regulation of quality and standards maintains and strengthens the English higher education sector and its international reputation.
We aim to rebalance our approach by introducing further clarity on:
- how the requirements of our quality and standards conditions are expressed
- our requirements for registration with the OfS
- our approach to monitoring of providers.
It will also mean we are in a better position to anticipate risks to quality and standards, either for individual providers or for the sector as a whole.
The Quality Assessment Committee (QAC) provides advice to the OfS board on its approach to quality and standards.
As required by section 24 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA), the committee provides advice 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.
For the QAC, we are looking for applicants with experience of providing higher education on behalf of an English higher education provider or being responsible for the provision of higher education by such a provider. We are additionally seeking candidates with knowledge and experience of working effectively at a senior level in a complex principles-based environment.
See the QAC vacancies.
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.
The committee’s work focuses on registration applications and on monitoring and intervention cases. The committee considers whether a higher education provider is complying with initial and ongoing conditions of registration and has a decision-making role in relation to degree awarding powers and university title.
Going forward, our expectation is that the committee’s business will increasingly take decisions on the full range of business described in the OfS’s scheme of delegation.
For the PRC, we are looking for applicants with knowledge and experience of a complex principles-based regulatory environment, for example, a regulator, an advisor, a regulated undertaking, a consumer body, a representative body or similar.
As this committee takes decisions about the regulation of providers, we would not normally appoint members who are employed by higher education providers.
See the PRC vacancies.
We challenge ourselves to fulfil the commitments set out in our mission and values, to include a range of voices in our work and widen the diversity of our committees within the requirements of the equality and human rights legislation.
We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background.
We particularly welcome applications for these committees from disabled candidates and from black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates who are currently underrepresented in relation to our diversity aspirations for committee appointments.
Further information, including the person specification for each committee, is available in the candidate information packs.
You will be asked to complete a statement outlining your experience and addressing the essential criteria for the role. These are fixed-term appointments for two or three years, and a fee for attendance at meetings and expenses may be claimed.
Closing date: midnight on Sunday 4 July 2021.