OfS Consultation on the future approach to quality regulation

Summary

The Office for Students (OfS) is currently consulting on changes which it hopes will provide a coherent approach to assuring quality and standards. This consultation on reforms to quality regulation is open until 11 December 2025 and aims to incentivise institutions via what is claimed to be a simpler system which would combine the current relevant conditions of registration and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) that assesses and rates institutions in relation to the quality of their provision.

We are responding to the OfS consultation as an organisation with an active interest in HE and one which wishes to see effective regulation in the sector.

This blog provides a brief summary of our key concerns with the proposals but we will be making a more detailed submission to the OfS setting out some of our broader observations as well as looking at a number of the questions asked as part of the consultation.

If you would like a copy of this fuller paper to help inform your response then please do email Paul.Greatrix@shma.co.uk and we will forward it to you.

Key concerns

The stakes are high

The modified TEF as proposed is an extremely high stakes assessment carrying with it the prospect of punishment (including the loss of the ability to expand student numbers and increase fees in line with inflation) if the right rating is not achieved. The focus, as with league tables, is likely to become getting the best results from compliance with the system, not enhancing quality.

Single word judgements are a real problem

One-word judgements really cannot do justice to the richness, diversity and indeed unevenness of every institution’s educational provision. And where only two of the three principal ratings are in any way acceptable there really is a problem here. The Gold/Silver/Bronze medal system ends up being far too simplistic for what it is intended to cover and, even if the focus groups find it easier to understand than other descriptors, it remains potentially misleading for all.

Bronze is now “failing”

It seems from the consultation that achieving Bronze would now mean punishment in terms of negative reputational impact, limitations on student number growth and other regulatory interventions. It is argued that these penalties provide a new incentive for institutions to improve the quality of their provision. However, this shift from Bronze being a positive but lesser achievement to being a recognised public failure is a fundamental flaw in the proposals. In the real world, securing a Bronze medal in any event is still a remarkable achievement – in this consultation though it represents failure. This could therefore be misleading to many.

Few carrots, lots of sticks

There are plenty of sticks and very few carrots in evidence here as the OfS aims to encourage institutions to deliver “the highest levels of quality.” However, the incentives are all negative, and include not being permitted to expand student numbers, restricting new DAPS or DAPs extensions to higher, breach determinations and preventing inflationary fee increases. Quality enhancement, rather than maintaining a baseline, requires a supportive and developmental infrastructure, not punitive regulation.

TEF version 3

This will be the third iteration of TEF to operate and, by the time the first cycle of the approach is finished a decade will have passed since the first outing. Even if it is believed that benefits in terms of quality enhancement do emerge through TEF – and the evidence that it has actually resulted in improvements is rather limited at best – the constant change of methodology means there is simply no time for improvements to bed in or to be properly evaluated.

Adapting is costly

Adapting to a modified TEF will entail an increased regulatory cost for institutions in the first cycle. This also represents the third model of TEF to be implemented in seven years, a situation which must call into question whether we will ever get to the end of what is likely to be a very long assessment cycle. Even assuming we make it to 2030 according to plan it seems inconceivable based on previous experiences that changes won’t be made during this period which will extend the cycle further.

Scale and capacity

To date the OfS has undertaken 11 qualitative assessments through visits targeted at specific subject areas (business and management and computing) and desk-based quantitative assessments focused on student outcomes, 12 of which have been completed. Given the scale of the sector, with well over 400 institutions on the OfS Register, it is going to require significant and rapid expansion of the approach to assessments to deliver the aspirations for the integrated approach. Scaling up to 150 assessments a year, even if they are all desk-based, is a huge step up in activity.

Challenging autonomy

Determining through these assessments which institutions are able to make inflation-linked fee increases and recruit more students marks a significant restriction on institutional freedoms and choices and therefore autonomy. TEF as implemented is a rather different model to how it was originally conceived. This feels like an attempt to bring it back to closer to its original conception, using Gold/Silver/Bronze ratings as an instrument of control in relation to fees and weakening institutional autonomy in the process. The original TEF model was abandoned as unworkable in practice and it is not clear how these proposals resolve the issues which sank the fees-link back then.

Overall

Overall, trying to combine assessment, reward, student information, accountability, recognition, improvement using a combination of TEF and B conditions in a way which allows all registered providers to be covered in a single cycle is over-ambitious and just does not look like it will work. This will not represent meaningful integration, is not the way to improve quality and “continuous improvement” cannot be the standard for meaningful and objective regulatory judgments. The underlying assumption here, that you can somehow regulate quality improvements into higher education through fee-related incentives and penalties, is misguided.

Perhaps then this would be a good time for a rethink. The current OfS consultation and timescale provides an opportunity to review the English quality regulatory regime in the round and come up with a rationalised model and a more effective and efficient approach. We should take the time to get this right.

A further reminder that if you would like a copy of the more detailed response to the consultation then please do email paul.greatrix@shma.co.uk and we will forward it to you.