Conflict-seeking OfS vows to reset engagement with universities

The English sector regulator has promised to “refresh” its engagement with universities after an independent review found that it was perceived as hostile, high-handed and too led by ministerial directions.

Many higher education providers also claimed that they were “confused by the complexity of some [Office for Students] processes, communications and consultations”, with missives described as “lengthy and difficult to unpick” and containing “regulatory requirements [taking] up a significant administrative resource”.

“Long forms requiring the same information to be inputted multiple times, and extremely short timescales for the return of documents followed by long waits for a response or for clarifications which could hold up a process for many months” were also identified as problems by the report from Shift Learning, a consultancy that interviewed 32 senior university leaders about the OfS, which was created in 2018 with the aim of providing “light-touch” regulation for established institutions.