Regulatory case report for University of Buckingham

This report confirms that the Office for Students (‘OfS’) has found that the University of Buckingham (‘the provider’) has breached ongoing condition of registration F3 and that the OfS has decided to impose a monetary penalty on the provider. This report summarises the key aspects of this case.

The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (‘HERA’) gives the OfS enforcement powers to use if it appears to the OfS that there is, or has been, a breach of one or more conditions of registration. These powers include imposing a monetary penalty – a fine. Regulations made by the Secretary of State set out the factors to which we must have regard when deciding whether to impose a monetary penalty and its amount. These regulations also set out the maximum penalty we can impose for each breach, which is the higher of 2 per cent of a provider’s qualifying income or £500,000. The OfS has published guidance about our approach to the calculation of a monetary penalty in regulatory advice 19.

On 21 June 2021 the OfS made a final decision that there had been a breach of ongoing condition F3 by the provider because it failed to meet the deadline for submitting its signed audited financial statements for the financial year ending 31 December 2019. The OfS found that this breach had existed from 1 February 2021 until 21 June 2021 and that non-compliance was ongoing at that date. On 4 February 2022 the OfS made a further final decision that the breach had existed from 22 June to 30 September 2021 and that non-compliance remained ongoing at that date.

General ongoing condition of registration F3 allows the OfS to compel the production of information on specific occasions and on an enduring basis. It requires providers registered with the OfS to ‘Provide the OfS, or a person nominated by the OfS, with such information as the OfS specifies at the time and in the manner and form specified’. We specify the information to be provided in an ‘F3 Notice’ issued to providers. Condition F3 sets an absolute requirement for compliance – in other words, providers must meet the deadlines set out in an F3 Notice and it is not enough simply to attempt to do so or take reasonable steps to do so.

This regulatory case concerns a requirement to provide the OfS with signed audited financial statements on an annual basis. This information assists with assessing a provider’s financial viability and sustainability. Condition F3 is also often used by the OfS for other important purposes, for example to investigate or monitor a provider’s compliance with other conditions of registration, such as quality, student protection and management and governance.

On 27 September 2022, the OfS made a final decision to impose a monetary penalty on the University of Buckingham to address the regulatory harm caused by this breach of condition F3 which arose as a result of its failure to provide audited financial statements by the applicable deadline.

For the purposes of determining this penalty, the provider’s qualifying income was £37,230,717. We have imposed a monetary penalty of 0.1 per cent of the provider’s qualifying income, which is £37,231.