Consultation on OfS strategy for 2025 to 2030

English higher education is a national asset that attracts students, staff and partners from across the world. It is a driving force for opportunity that transforms students’ life chances. Universities and colleges of all shapes and sizes play a critical role in generating economic growth while also making important contributions to our society and culture, both nationally and locally. We all benefit from educated and open-minded citizens ready to contribute to our national life.

Many students experience excellent provision while they study. They continue to enjoy positive experiences and outcomes, and most leave higher education prepared for the future and equipped with the skills they need for the jobs of today and tomorrow. These benefits are increasingly shared by students from a diverse range of backgrounds.

But good experiences are not universal and where problems arise the risk to students can be great. Students invest heavily in their education and many will face challenges in the coming years. The cost of living continues to rise, their economic futures are uncertain, and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns remain with us. In exchange for their investment, students rightly expect high quality experiences leading to fulfilling lives and careers.

Yet students are studying with institutions that are facing increasing pressure on a number of fronts. They are managing constrained finances against a global backdrop that is increasingly volatile, uncertain and complex. The value of UK undergraduate fees has fallen in real terms. Trends in both UK and international student recruitment and ongoing cost pressures exacerbate funding challenges that are unlikely to abate in the short term.

Global macro-trends introduce further uncertainty for the sector to navigate. Technological change, including rapid developments in artificial intelligence, will facilitate new models of teaching and learning. Demographic and migratory trends, combined with the changing demands of the labour market, will affect demand for higher education as well as the types of higher education people want. At the same time, geopolitical volatility exacerbates institutions’ exposure to a range of possible shocks. Together, these forces – and many others – are reshaping the environment in which institutions operate, both in the UK and internationally. The challenge for higher education institutions, and higher education regulation alike, is how to respond to these global and domestic trends in a way that is ambitious for the sector and for students.

It is clear that the resilience of the higher education sector will be tested over the next strategy period. Yet the importance of a high-performing higher education sector, equipped to harness talent and drive economic growth, will continue to increase. Within this context, we need to be an agile, resilient regulator, able both to support and challenge institutions to deliver for students and society more broadly.

Our strategy for 2025 to 2030 will guide our work to protect students’ interests in this uncertain environment and sets out the changes we will make to do this effectively. We will continue to make improvements to our core functions as we learn and mature as a regulator. These iterative changes will support more efficient and effective delivery of our regulatory objectives. But recognising the volatility, uncertainty and complexity facing the sector we regulate, we must also enact a programme of more significant change, ensuring our regulation keeps pace with the changing realities of the world around us.

Our agenda for change is set out in Sir David Behan’s public bodies review of the OfS. This identifies four interrelated priorities:

These priorities are reflected in the strategy that follows – both in our re-articulated purpose and in each of our strategic goals.

In the context of change, our regulatory focus on students’ needs remains steadfast. Over the next strategy period, we will ensure that students from all backgrounds benefit from high quality higher education, delivered by a diverse, sustainable sector that continues to improve.

Students’ interests are central to our thinking and actions. And while students are and always will be the most direct beneficiaries of our regulation, the impact of higher education on our economy, culture and society means that our work delivers important public benefits.

Beyond the benefits that flow from an educated population and the contribution of individual graduates, universities and colleges produce world-leading research and skilled professionals for public services, such as schools and the NHS. They create opportunities that lead to a more equal society, push the frontiers of scientific discovery and establish partnerships with industry that support local and national growth. Our regulation will support institutions to deliver these wider public benefits by recognising the importance of institutional resilience and sustainability, while also ensuring the proper protection of public money. At the same time, we will ensure that regulation enables the innovation and growth from which we all benefit.

We regulate primarily in the interests of students. And as financial pressures bring change to the sector, it is more important than ever that we explicitly identify those interests and place them at the centre of our work. Engagement, polling and other forms of insight-gathering have sharpened our understanding of what students want and need from higher education, strengthening our ability to do this effectively.

The student interest is not fixed. The diversity of higher education students brings a diversity of views about their interests. And we would expect the nature of students’ concerns and priorities to evolve across the strategy period and beyond. But the insights we have gained from students have helped us to identify the essential building blocks of positive higher education experiences.

What we heard from students can be grouped into two broad categories:

• What students want from their day-to-day experiences of higher education while studying.
  Students assume their education will be high quality. They expect fair treatment from institutions that listen to them, respond when things go wrong and set them up to succeed. They want tailored learning experiences that meet their particular needs and access to academic resources and support, delivered in supportive and enriching environments.
• What students expect from higher education in the longer term.
  Students want to acquire knowledge and develop skills that open doors to well-paid and rewarding employment or other types of future opportunities. They expect higher education to have a positive and enduring impact on their lives and careers.

In other words, students care about choosing and experiencing a high quality education in the short term. And in return for their investment of time, money and hard work they expect that education to continue to provide value into the longer-term, including in ways that they may not be able to anticipate while they study.

These interests are not a surprise, but a deeper understanding of students’ priorities and perspectives now sits behind them. They have shaped our goals set out in the section below.

Students have talked less about the need for institutions to be financially resilient and well run. They assume this to be the case. But financial pressures and wider uncertainty facing institutions will interact with the student interest in a range of ways, creating new risks and uncomfortable trade-offs.

Serving the student interest, therefore, means extending our focus beyond the specific factors students identify as important. Our regulation must also support a sustainable, financially resilient and innovative sector equipped to navigate the challenges of today and tomorrow. These considerations have also shaped our goals.

To help us regulate in the interests of students we have identified three strategic priorities: quality, the wider student interest, and sector resilience, which encompasses financial sustainability and effective governance. These reflect what students have told us matter to them and take into account the wider pressures and challenges facing both students and institutions. They give effect to the four strategic priorities identified in Sir David Behan’s review.

Equality of opportunity is integrated throughout our work, recognising and reinforcing that it is fundamental to our purpose and the way we regulate. Quality and equality of opportunity are mutually reinforcing. Extending equality of opportunity without ensuring quality will not lead to positive student outcomes. Protecting quality without extending equality of opportunity, meanwhile, prevents students who could have benefited from higher education from doing so. Our work to promote the wider student interest will help create environments that support all students to succeed, with our attention focused on those most exposed to risks to equality of opportunity. Within our focus on the sector’s resilience, we will seek to ensure that in the face of financial pressures, choice and opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and underrepresented groups continue to expand rather than reduce.

Quality is at the heart of what students want and expect from higher education. The assurance and improvement of the quality of higher education is central to our purpose. From insight-gathering and engagement we know that students expect high quality teaching, academic support and access to the resources they need. They want to obtain credible qualifications that enrich their lives and help them secure and succeed in good jobs. Students emphasised that institutions must serve the students they recruit to a particular course, underlining the importance of choice and of responsive tailored provision, delivered by a heterogenous sector that meets students’ diverse needs. Students want institutions to listen to them, communicate and adapt their practices as necessary.

Student surveys consistently report that a significant minority of students are dissatisfied with core parts of their academic experiences, with course organisation and assessment feedback often identified as areas of concern.⁵ While student outcomes are strong in aggregate, examples of poor continuation and completion rates can be identified across different modes and levels of study, in different subject areas, and for students with different characteristics.⁶

Looking to the future, digital technology and artificial intelligence will precipitate potentially transformative shifts in teaching, learning and assessment, accentuated by a demand for lifelong learning and the changing skills needs of the economy. As these forces reshape higher education, regulatory agility will be needed to manage emerging risks and exploit new opportunities.

Most provision in the higher education sector in England is already excellent. We know this because the highest TEF ratings were awarded to all types of institutions in all parts of the country.⁷ But where quality falls short, the risk to students is significant.

Where provision is already high quality, we know that many institutions want to improve further. As they embark on improvement, they will face significant headwinds and difficult decisions in the coming years. We will work with the institutions we regulate to promote high quality education for all students against a backdrop of countervailing pressures, ensuring that:

1. Students receive a high quality education that has a significant and enduring positive impact on their lives and careers, delivered by institutions that continue to improve the quality of their courses.
2. Prospective students have a range of high quality options and are well equipped to exercise informed choice about what, where, when and how they study.

5. The National Student Survey 2024 reported that 72.7 per cent of students responded positively when asked about the role of assessment feedback in improving their work, while 74.2 per cent responded positively when asked about the organisation of their course. These are among the lowest student satisfaction scores identified by the survey. See OfS website, National Student Survey data 2024.

6. See OfS website, Student outcomes: Data dashboard.

7. See OfS website, TEF 2023 ratings.

To serve the student interest, we must work with students to understand their priorities and concerns. Most students benefit from high quality experiences, but our research and engagement identified specific features of the higher education system that are not reliably serving students well. Areas of concern extend beyond teaching and learning, underlining the importance of ensuring the wider student experience enables students to thrive.

Students deserve to receive what they are promised by their institution when they choose their course. Many students express this as the most basic condition of fair treatment. The National Student Survey shows that most students have positive experiences of higher education. Overall, students tell us that the teaching they receive is engaging, that they are well supported and that they can access the resources and facilities they need.⁸

However, the growing number of complaints submitted to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator supports evidence from our student insight work that not all students benefit in the ways they expected.⁹ Unclear or unfair contractual terms and conditions, extra charges and misleading information can compromise students’ experience of, and ability to engage in, higher education. Students invest their time, effort and a significant amount of money in higher education, and when things go wrong, they expect to have their concerns heard and addressed.

Non-academic features of higher education play an important role in shaping students’ experiences. Accommodation, the cost of living, mental health and wellbeing, and harassment and sexual misconduct featured prominently in our discussions with students and representatives from institutions. Published research and our engagement with students suggests that across all these domains, the student experience has become more challenging. The effect of these challenges falls disproportionately on those with fewer economic and social resources to draw on in response.

An established trend towards paid employment while studying underlines the impact of cost-of-living pressures on the student experience, with implications for access, participation and progression.

This trend is driven, at least in part, by rising costs of student accommodation, which low-income students are least equipped to absorb.¹⁰ Record levels of mental ill health in the general population are reflected in an increasing proportion of undergraduates disclosing mental health conditions to their institutions.¹¹ OfS research found that 20 per cent of students have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour, with women more than twice as likely to experience sexual harassment than men.¹²

We heard positive examples of individual institutions seeking to respond to the changing realities of student life. But we also heard from students frustrated by perceived institutional inertia. Institutions, meanwhile, told us that financial constraints limit the support they can offer students. In relation to mental health in particular, many higher education institutions believe they are being asked to fill gaps in the delivery of public services.

Institutions should be innovative and bold in their work to deliver positive student experiences, but we acknowledge that the sector’s response to these issues needs to be considered in the context of constrained finances and wider pressures on public services.

To secure positive experiences for students that equip them to succeed, we will work with institutions to ensure that:

3. Students receive the higher education experiences they were promised.
4. Students benefit from rich and rewarding wider environments that help them to make the most of their time in higher education.

8. OfS website, National Student Survey data: provider-level data for 2024, all modes of study.

9. OIA, Annual report 2023.

10. HEPI, Student Accommodation: The State of the Nation in 2024, February 2024.

11. House of Commons Library, Student mental health in England: Statistics, policy, and guidance, May 2023.

12. OfS, New OfS condition to address harassment and sexual misconduct, July 2024.

Financial sustainability is the most significant, growing challenge for the sector and an increasing number of institutions will need to make significant changes to their funding models in the near future to avoid a material risk that they can no longer operate. Effective leadership will be critical in navigating this environment and ensuring the proper protection of both public money and student fees.

In response to a continuing decline in the real-terms value of income from UK undergraduates, institutions have increased their reliance on fee income from international students, heightening the sector’s exposure to geopolitical uncertainty. While the sector’s performance in aggregate does not reflect the picture for all individual institutions, our latest projections show that the number of institutions expecting to report deficits or low operating cash flow is significantly increased.

Financial challenge was the risk most frequently cited by representatives from institutions during our engagement sessions. While students are unlikely to take a direct interest in their institution’s financial position day-to-day, the impact of financial pressure on students’ higher education experiences could be profound – ranging from reductions in course quality and diminished choice through to the closure of an institution and the disruption that would entail. Signs of unmanaged financial risk could also affect confidence in English higher education more broadly, with potentially wide-ranging consequences for students. Managing financial risks is therefore critical to protecting the student interest. It is also critical in safeguarding the wider public interest that universities and colleges serve.

Effective leadership and accountability mechanisms reduce students’ exposure to the consequences of risk. This applies to financial risk and broader strategic risks generated by heightened volatility and uncertainty in the world around us. As risk in their operating environment increases, institutions will need different capabilities to manage challenging circumstances and affect positive change. In an environment of heightened risk, effective governance is therefore critical to serving the student interest, and critical too for ensuring universities and colleges are secure guardians of the public funding they receive.

Recognising that a well-governed and financially sustainable sector necessarily underpins both high quality courses and positive student experiences, we will work with institutions, government and others to ensure that:

5. A financially resilient sector delivers high quality higher education and student choice in the context of constrained finances.
6. Effectively governed institutions successfully navigate an environment of increased financial and strategic risk, enabling students to reap the benefits of higher education while giving taxpayers confidence that public funding is used appropriately.

Our strategic goals set out our priorities. They give life to the driving purpose of our work for the period from 2025 to 2030. They also structure our activities to secure positive experiences of higher education for students that continue to deliver value in the longer term.

Our strategic actions set out improvements to our core work, building on what we have learned, alongside more fundamental changes to how we perform our role. We will transform our approach to regulating quality, developing an integrated approach that drives continuous improvement across the sector, strengthen our role as a champion of the student interest and reshape our relationship with institutions and government partners, enabling more active collaboration across the wider, higher education ecosystem.

This strategy will likely cover a period of significant change for the higher education sector, and so we will need to be agile and flexible in how we progress towards our goals. Each year, we will set out our planned activity in an annual business plan calibrated to reflect the resources we have available. The actions set out below may, therefore, be subject to change, and in delivering them we will retain the ability to adapt as the external environment continues to shift.

The OfS must be driven and directed by what matters to students. But we do not have regulatory levers to intervene in all the areas that students tell us matter to them. As such, successful delivery of our priorities will at times involve working less formally, including by giving an honest and open account to the sector and to government about the state of students’ experiences and their likely impact on student outcomes. Delivering our goals will in all cases rely on close working with students and institutions, and in many cases with national and local government.

Quality

1. Students receive a high quality education that has a significant and enduring positive impact on their lives and careers, delivered by institutions that continue to improve the quality of their courses.

• We will transform our approach to quality assessment, including where we assess quality for degree awarding powers, working with institutions to develop an integrated approach that drives continuous improvement across the higher education sector, benefiting all students.
• Equality will remain central to our approach to regulating quality. Quality assessment will continue to hold institutions to account for the experiences and outcomes of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and those from groups underrepresented in higher education.
• We will continue to incentivise excellence through the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). TEF will be the core of our new integrated approach to quality, with assessment activity becoming more routine and more widespread to ensure that institutions are delivering high quality academic experiences and positive outcomes. Assessment reports will describe features of high quality education, alongside identifying areas for improvement, helping institutions to better meet students’ needs. And we will seek opportunities to involve students directly in our quality assessment activities, building on the important role that engagement with students already plays in our assessment of courses and the student academic experience.
• Where institutions do not address issues, or where we have particular concerns about quality, we will use the full range of our powers to protect students from provision that falls below the requirements set out in our conditions of registration. This enforcement activity will be focused on the small number of institutions with unacceptably weak performance. Predictive and lead indicators, alongside more effective use of qualitative intelligence, will help us anticipate, identify and respond quickly to emerging risks.
• We will publish a Quality Risk Register to orient our regulatory activity around the most significant risks to high quality academic experiences and positive student outcomes. We will update this regularly and ensure that it works in tandem with our Equality of Opportunity Risk Register.
• We will encourage and protect freedom of speech within the law and academic freedom, including by reporting on the outcomes of free speech complaints, to support institutions to safeguard the robust exchange of ideas that provides essential underpinning for a high quality education.¹³
• As higher education delivered outside the UK becomes an increasingly important element of many universities’ strategies, we will fold transnational education courses into our integrated approach to quality, ensuring students benefit from high quality courses wherever they study.
• Working with the sector, we will explore options for alignment with European standards for quality, including bringing clarity to the choices and trade-offs that may entail, including in terms of regulatory burden.
• We will work with the sector and with experts to ensure our regulatory approach continues to safeguard quality in the context of rapid technological change, while also giving institutions confidence to take advantage of the opportunities new technologies present.

2. Prospective students have a range of high quality options and are well equipped to exercise informed choice about what, where, when and how they study.

• We will deepen our understanding of the factors that shape student choice and assess how students use the information available to them, ensuring that OfS tools and the information published by institutions support informed decision-making. By promoting TEF outcomes and communicating more routinely on the features of high quality provision, we will help students to understand the range of high quality options available across different modes and levels of study.
• We will continue to focus institutions on the work needed to reduce risks to equality of opportunity, so that choice is not limited by prospective students’ background, location or characteristics. We will encourage continuous improvement in initiatives to widening access through rigorous evaluation of access and participation plans and a focus on activities to raise attainment in schools.
• We will work with government and Skills England to develop a shared understanding of the extent to which the higher education options available to students will deliver the national and regional skills needed to support economic growth.
• We will support the introduction of the lifelong learning entitlement, responding flexibly as skills needs and employment patterns change.
• As institutions take difficult decisions in response to financial challenges, we will work to understand the aggregate impact of these decisions on student choice, across subjects, geographical areas and for different groups of students, sharing our developing understanding of these issues with the sector and with government. We will continue to support validation arrangements where this protects choice for geographically less mobile students.
• Working with the sector we will seek to understand whether regulation presents an inappropriate barrier to institutions gaining OfS registration. We will ensure that our regulatory tests are appropriately calibrated to protect students and taxpayers while facilitating efficient entry to the regulated sector for high quality, sustainable and innovative institutions.

The wider student interest

3. Students receive the higher education experiences they were promised.

• We will gather and analyse data and insights from students, institutions and others to improve our understanding of the extent to which students’ reasonable expectations of higher education are being met in relation to their academic and wider experiences.
• We will enhance and protect students’ consumer rights, working with the sector to develop a model contract that sets out students’ rights and obligations, alongside the obligations of institutions.
• Working with government, we will seek to secure the powers we need to further champion the student interest and intervene as appropriate to ensure that students get what they were promised. In the meantime, we will continue to refer cases to National Trading Standards and the CMA as appropriate, where we identify concerns about an institution’s compliance with consumer protection law. We will publish the outcomes of this work to build a bank of case reports to improve understanding across the sector and support all institutions to improve the contractual terms that govern their relationship with students.
• We will work with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator to secure reciprocal sharing of intelligence, ensuring prioritisation of our work is informed by a robust understanding of where students’ experiences of higher education are falling short.

4. Students benefit from rich and rewarding wider environments that help them to make the most of their time in higher education.

• A strengthened understanding of students’ experiences and concerns will underpin all our activity. We will seek student’s perspectives to develop our understanding of the changing barriers students face as they seek to make the most of their education, and share what we learn with institutions, government and others.
• We will continue to work with institutions to reduce risks to equality of opportunity, recognising that the overall experience of higher education is becoming more challenging and many of those challenges are concentrated among particular student groups. We will expect institutions to continue to improve the support they offer to ensure that students from all backgrounds are able to succeed in higher education where they have the ability and the desire to do so.
• We will use a range of approaches to promote positive wider experiences for students, recognising the diversity of issues that students tell us affect their ability to benefit from higher education. We will consider carefully where we can achieve change by working less formally, particularly where we do not have the levers to generate change directly. This may include drawing attention to the issues that matter to students, publishing information and supporting effective practice, rather than using our more formal powers to set and enforce requirements.
• We will work collaboratively with the sector to improve students’ experiences, leveraging our platform and our expertise to drive positive change. For example, to improve support for students’ mental health and wellbeing, we will work through sector networks to embed evidence-led practice and encourage robust evaluation of support for students experiencing mental ill health.
• We will regulate to prevent harassment and sexual misconduct in higher education and ensure that institutions respond effectively when incidents do occur. We will continue to collect and publish data that shows the prevalence of sexual misconduct to ensure continued focus on this issue and to measure the impact of our regulation and the steps institutions are taking.
• We will consider an enhanced focus on good governance as a means of ensuring that institutions effectively discharge their responsibilities to students, including in relation to the issues that matter most to students.

Sector resilience

5. A financially resilient sector delivers high quality higher education and student choice in the context of constrained finances.

• We will continue to work with institutions to ensure our understanding of the financial challenges they, and the sector, are facing is accurate and up-to-date.
• We will improve our approach to data collection, enabling us to collect financial data more frequently and flexibly while minimising regulatory burden for institutions. To support robust planning and effective student protection, we will work with the sector to improve financial management, including the approach taken to understanding and assessing risk, the credibility of institutions’ forecasts, and the scenarios they plan for in their forecasts.
• The financial challenges facing the sector mean that we will need to increase our engagement with an increasing number of institutions on their financial position. We will aim to build trust and encourage institutions to be open and transparent as we work together in the interests of students.
• We will maintain an up-to-date assessment of market exit risk for individual institutions and require those facing material risks to have credible and deliverable plans to minimise disruption and protect outcomes for students, with a particular focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We will continue to work with government to address the gaps in the system that mean that students cannot be adequately protected if their institution can no longer operate.
• We will help to build capability across the sector, signposting institutions to sources of information and support. We will share intelligence with government, UK Research and Innovation and other relevant partners to support a joined-up approach and effective decision-making across the whole higher education system.
• We will monitor and communicate the impact of financial pressures on student choice, as institutions make difficult decisions about the size and shape of their provision. As part of this, we will identify potential risks to the supply of critical skills at a regional and national level.

6. Effectively governed institutions successfully navigate an environment of increased financial and strategic risk, enabling students to reap the benefits of higher education while giving taxpayers confidence that public funding is used appropriately.

• We will ensure that our initial and ongoing regulatory tests are appropriately calibrated to protect students and taxpayers, recognising the level of risk inherent in different business models. We will ensure that tests for institutions seeking registration effectively identify those not yet ready to enter the regulated system, and that our regulation of established institutions can facilitate swift action wherever management and governance issues arise.
• We will work with the sector to support a stronger understanding of our management and governance requirements, equipping institutions to assess and improve their own capabilities to the benefit both of students and taxpayers.
• We will adopt a focused approach to monitoring and compliance where management and governance risks are most acute and work with institutions to identify and address barriers to strengthened governance more broadly, supporting improved governance across the sector at a time of increased financial and strategic risk.
• We will increase the regulatory requirements placed on institutions engaged in significant partnership activity and continue to work with the Department for Education and Student Loans Company (SLC) to mitigate risks to SLC funding where possible. We will work with government on legislative solutions where these are needed to allow more rapid intervention where public money is at risk.
• We will expand our data audit programme to identify and address areas of concern, shaping our guidance to institutions and informing our assessment of risk.
• Working with government, we will seek to become a prescribed body for whistleblowing, enabling us to give whistleblowers the same assurance and protection as other regulators.

13. Pending the outcomes of Government’s review of the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.

Throughout the strategy period we will need to continually adapt how we work if we are to deliver our strategic goals. This section sets out the core elements of our approach.

The significant challenges facing the higher education sector mean that we will need to work with ambition and pace over the coming months to ensure our approach to regulation remains effective. The early phase of this strategy will therefore see us setting out in more detail how we plan to take forward our strategic goals. For example, in early 2025 we will begin to discuss with students and  institutions how our new integrated quality model should take shape. We will explain how we plan to secure the more real-time data a modern, agile regulator needs to be effective. And we will publish proposals for reforming the approach we take to registering new institutions, smoothing the pathway into the regulated system for those that will offer high quality and innovative education to students.

With students’ interests driving our strategy, now more than ever we need to make sure our systems and approaches to student engagement are working well. We will deepen our understanding of students’ perspectives, building on the engagement that has underpinned the development of this strategy. We are transforming our interactions with current, former, and prospective students to embed their perspectives in our work. Throughout the next strategy period, student insight will inform the prioritisation and delivery of our regulatory work; student input will shape our understanding of the breadth of issues that matter to students. We will develop and share more frequently better insight on how well students’ interests are being served in different parts of the sector and explain where we think improvements need to be made to reduce the risks to quality and equality that students are facing. We will create a student interest board as a formal committee of the OfS board, putting the student voice at the centre of our strategic thinking.

Similarly, our ability to regulate effectively in the interests of students depends on having a robust, two-way dialogue with the institutions we regulate. We will continue to improve our relationships with institutions and with the sector more broadly, increasing opportunities for discussion, debate, and feedback. We are aiming for relationships based on respect, confidence, trust and reciprocity, accepting there will be issues on which we disagree, but that we all want the same thing: high quality education delivered in the interests of students and the country more broadly. We will publish information that helps institutions understand and improve their own performance, recognising that there will be common challenges in the coming years, while also supporting a shared understanding of issues beyond the remit of the OfS.

In an uncertain environment, we will routinely engage with the sector on the major risks we see in the system. We will do this through our annual financial sustainability report, setting out our independent view of the financial condition of the higher education sector and its resilience to financial challenge. We will do this through our Equality of Opportunity Risk Register, ensuring access and participation plans are informed by the latest intelligence on risks to access, participation and completion. And we will do this through a new Quality Risk Register, developed with the sector and students, which will orient our activity towards the most significant risks to high quality academic experiences and positive student outcomes for all students.

Against a backdrop of change, we must have access to timely data that tells us what is happening today and what may happen tomorrow. We will develop predictive and lead indicators that allow us to regulate boldly and confidently, anticipating, identifying, and then responding rapidly to areas of emerging risk. Recognising that data will only ever provide a partial picture, however, we will simultaneously increase our engagement with the universities and colleges we regulate, to establish a more rounded picture of the changing sector landscape informed by those who know it best. Our renewed focus on effective governance in institutions will be an important conduit for developing this insight.

Heightened uncertainty underlines the importance of partnership working, not only with students and institutions, but across the wider system – with government departments, government agencies and other regulators. We recognise that successful delivery of our strategic objectives relies on these relationships working well, and effective collaboration is a theme that runs throughout this strategy. We will become a more active collaborator with our strategic partners, sharing our insight and expertise while learning from the experiences of others.

We will continue to ensure that our regulatory requirements are appropriate given the risks posed to students and taxpayers, mindful of the need to weigh the benefits of regulation against the impact of the burden it creates. We will use data and intelligence to minimise regulatory burden where possible, recognising that the institutions we regulate are often subject to multiple regulatory regimes. We will prioritise work with other regulators and agencies to synthesise data and avoid duplication, embedding the principle ‘collect once, use many times.’ Developing stronger relationships with regulators across tertiary education will support a regulatory environment which is easier for institutions for navigate.

We will consider our approach and our impact in the context of the wider economy. Our focus on continuous improvement will encourage excellence and innovation beyond minimum standards, supporting institutions and the sector more broadly to deliver the private and public good of higher education, for individuals, the economy and society.

We will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our systems and processes, with a focus on ensuring we deliver our core regulatory activities in a timely and rigorous way.

And finally, we need to keep learning as we go. We will continually evaluate our progress and look to other regulators, both at home and abroad, to inform our thinking as we seek ways to improve. An agile workforce, equipped with the right tools and technology, and the mechanisms and mindset to learn and improve, will enable us to respond and adapt as circumstances change while delivering the value that students, taxpayers and institutions rightly expect.