Consultation on the future approach to quality regulation

Background

25. Our current approach to regulating quality for providers registered with the OfS aims to secure a minimum level of quality for all students, and to drive improvement above this level. It involves the following activities:
    1. We set requirements for quality and standards, expected of all providers and courses (known as the B conditions of registration). These were defined through consultations from 2020 to 2022. When registering with the OfS, providers are tested for their readiness to meet these quality requirements. In summary, the ongoing B conditions for providers registered with the OfS set out requirements for:
       1. Condition B1: Appropriate course content that is effectively delivered.
       2. Condition B2: Sufficient resources, staffing and academic support to enable students to succeed; and sufficient engagement with students in the development of provision.
       3. Condition B3: Sufficiently positive outcomes for students in and beyond their studies.
       4. Condition B4: Effective and reliable assessment that maintains the credibility of awards over time.
       5. Condition B5: Appropriate setting and application of the standards for awards.
    2. We carry out targeted quality assessments, if we identify potential concerns about a registered provider continuing to meet these requirements. We take a risk-based approach to prioritising these assessments, which are currently of two types:
       1. Qualitative assessments through targeted visits to providers to assess the experience students receive on the ground. We have to date completed 11, focused on particular subject areas.
       2. Quantitative assessments that focus on positive student outcomes. We have completed 12 of these.
    3. The Teaching Excellence Framework incentivises excellence above the requirements of the B conditions. Following consultation in 2022, we ran a TEF exercise in 2023. This rated providers for the quality of the student experience and student outcomes, focusing on undergraduate provision. Assessments were desk-based, using data alongside provider and student submissions. Condition B6 required all providers with more than 500 undergraduate students to participate; smaller providers could choose to take part. The published ratings cover 227 providers and last for four years or until the next exercise supersedes them, whichever is the longer.
26. The independent public bodies review of the OfS recommended that these quality assessment activities should be brought together to form a more integrated assessment system.^[2] It also recommended a stronger focus on driving improvement in quality across all providers. Since that review we have engaged with provider and student groups to discuss options for an integrated quality system. Our proposals have been informed by that engagement, as well as evaluations of our existing approach.
27. A summary of the public bodies review’s recommendations, feedback from our engagement, and findings of our evaluations that have informed these proposals, is at Annex C. The matters to which we have had regard in developing our proposals are set out at Annex D.
28. The proposed assessments would be carried out under the OfS’s statutory powers set out in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA), Section 23 (Assessing the quality of, and the standards applied to, higher education) and Section 25 (Rating the quality of, and the standards applied to, higher education).

Notes

[2] See Gov.UK, ‘Fit for the future: Independent review of the Office for Students’.