Following a review by Sir David Behan, the OfS have today announced a number of temporary changes they will be making to their operations over the next academic year in order to prioritise work on the financial sustainability of the sector, including monitoring conditions, managing exits, and mitigating exits where possible. This means that a number of activities the OfS undertakes will be paused until August 2025. 

GuildHE’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Brooke Storer-Church responded below to the announcement and on 13 December wrote to Susan Lapworth at the Office for Students to express concerns about the announcement to pause DAPs, University Title and OfS registration application processes. The letter explains the effect on GuildHE institutions and requests that OfS reconsiders the decision, commits to working with GuildHE to support affected institutions, and provides clarity in early 2025 on the next steps for improving systems and resuming application processes from August 2025. Read our letter to the OfS.

“We appreciate the OfS responding to the current funding crisis in the sector by prioritising its energies on identifying emerging risks and mitigating the worst outcomes such as institutional closures.

 

“However, pausing or closing the gateway through which our institutions evolve their business models and reshape their identities and offers is introducing additional barriers to finding a secure and sustainable footing for our members. While we understand some pragmatism, this represents a further challenge to our institutions who are working tirelessly to consider how to mould themselves into increasingly tight notions of what a fit-for-purpose institution looks like in 2024.

“We welcome ongoing engagement with the OfS and government throughout this pause to ensure they’re briefed on how this is impacting institutions and to ensure we provide necessary insights to unlocking the levers needed to ensure our sector is able to deliver the promise of education to as many as possible alongside the Labour government’s ambitions.”

Dr Storer-Church’s response was quoted in the Times Higher Education (THE) article “OfS pauses all new registrations to focus on finances” (2/12/24) and in the latest article by THE “OfS register pause ‘will make sector financial problems worse” (6/12/24) she highlights the severe repercussions of pausing DAPs and RDAPs awards by the Office for Students and raises the issue of steep increases in validation fees from partner universities.