Written evidence from the University of East Anglia, UEA (WOS0057)

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a UK Top 30 university (Sunday Times, Guardian, Complete University Guide) and is ranked in the UK top 20 for research quality (Times Higher Education REF2021 Analysis). It also ranks in the UK top 10 for impact on Sustainable Development Goals and UK top 25 in the Graduate Outcomes Survey. Known for its world-leading research and good student experience, its 360-acre campus has won six Green Flag awards in a row for its high environmental standards. The University was awarded Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework and is a leading member of Norwich Research Park, one of Europe’s biggest concentrations of researchers in the fields of environment, health and plant science. www.uea.ac.uk   

UEA welcomes this Committee’s inquiry. It is a timely opportunity to reflect on the development and success of the OfS and its impact across the whole of the UK HE market. We welcome the Committee’s scruitiny of the role of the regulator and the financial sustainability of the sector. We would urge the Committee to recommend a change to government policy by replacing anti-competitive performance indicators with alternative metrics that promote fairness, equity, and evidence-based performance in the sector.

Like many universities in the UK, UEA’s financial sustainability has been affected by a combination of cost pressures including the impact of the pandemic, the freeze in home tuition fees, the lifting of the student number cap, A’ level grade inflation, the fluctuation in the international student market, the inflation in the cost of living and our infrastructure investment requirements. UEA has been impressed by the response of the OfS in respect of our current financial position. In our experience, the OfS has struck an appropriate balance between information requirements and pragmatism.

Remit, Capacity and Performance of the OfS

Whilst the statutory duties of the OfS are generally clear, since 2018 the OfS has developed its role very significantly without much meaningful consultation with the sector about the rationale for expansion.
In our view, details about approaches to regulation have been communicated sporadically and without a clear timetable, which has made it challenging for providers to engage. Consultations have been launched at short notice, and the OfS has taken a long time to respond (for example, on Teaching Excellence Framework). The outcome of these consultations have not always addressed the responses of providers.
Furthermore, it is frustrating for providers that the OfS often misses its own deadlines. One example of this relates to condition B6 (Teaching Excellence Framework) guidelines which were published a week later than planned, without explanation or apology. Providers are also still awaiting the results from the first assessment of providers B3 (Student outcomes data) which was due to be completed and published by the end of January 2023.
Providers are dealing with significant and increasing complexity in the data driven aspects of the revised regulatory framework without a clear rationale about the value this data has to student experience or improving standards. Some of the metrics are used by all 3 data driven conditions, e.g. in A1, B3 and B6, where the completion metric is monitored by all 3 conditions. This creates significant administrative burden for providers and this has cost impacts for providers.
The OfS’s approach to universities is to challenge robustly their provision. There are various ways in which the OfS might seek to intervene in a provider:

1) If the university fails to meet the need to have processes to monitor quality (as exemplified in condition B7)

2) If the university materially fails to meet the established data-related benchmarks and requirements for quality (for example those for student outcomes set out in condition B3) and

3) If the university needs to report an event set out in regulatory advice 16.

The OfS charges a fee to institutions that are subject to investigation. This creates a perverse incentive for the OfS to extend/increase the number of investigations. However, it should be noted that the OfS has just launched a consultation on this.

UEA has praised the OfS for its approach to understanding unequal opportunities and outcomes in the sector. The very recently published Equality of Opportunity Risk Register looks genuinely innovative and the support UEA has received from the OfS in response to queries around Equality of Opportunity has been very good. We do have concerns that the OfS may not be sufficiently resourced to implement this robust process though, as timelines on this work have been moved several times. This was mirrored in the OfS’s approach to the Teaching Excellence Framework, where there were initial delays.
UEA would like to suggest that the Committee inquiry should consider whether the OfS should work with other stakeholders - such as the Department of Education or other government bodies - to drive improvements in the sector. In our view, the OfS should have a role in championing and campaigning for the sector, if it is to meet its duties as set out by the Higher Education Research Act. This is critical if the OfS’s mission to provide value for money for students.
Positively, the new proposed approach to regulating equality of opportunity appears to be moving in this direction with the creation of the sector Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR). UEA hopes this will acknowledged the risks wider than the performance of individual institutions, as well as suggest actions to mitigate these risks.
In terms of further expansion of the OfS’s powers, it would be useful for the OfS to clarify its intentions with regard to the designated quality body. It appears that, through the recruitment of assessor panels, the OfS intends to take on the assessment of quality itself (as set out in a briefing note dated 26.1.23) but these remain, it seems, ‘interim’ arrangements.
With regard to the OfS’s expertise, we have some concerns. There is confusion over the definition of “blended learning”. The report on Blended Learning (published in October 2022) requires institutions to review their approach in this area with regard to conditions B1 and B2. The OfS seems to have inadequate insight into the related pedagogical concepts, not least because the report is based on a small sample of providers (six).

Requirements of the Regulators’ Code

In our view, the OfS fails to meet some of the requirements of the Regulators’ Code. The OfS approach is characterised by a heavy-handed and complex approach to regulation. The impact of this on providers is compounded by multiple inaccuracies and frequent failures to meet its own deadlines.
Section 1.2 of the code calls for regulators to improve confidence in compliance and provide greater certainty. Problems with the presentation of the revised framework make it difficult for confidence and certainty to develop for the following reasons:

It is long and complex, a total of 220 pages, up from 166 in 2018)
It has not been fully or consistently updated, for example paragraph 30 refers to the data futures project and 2018 in the future tense, although the new data arrangements have been in place since 2022.
In places it seems to be out of date, for example paragraph 33 mentions the Quality Assurance Agency as the designated quality body, although it was established months before the publication of the revised framework that this relationship would end.
It is confusingly presented, for example paragraph 44 is simply missing, whereas paragraph 363 has 28 subclauses.

Part 5 of the Regulators’ Code calls for ‘clear information, guidance and advice’. We believe that the problems of clarity are compounded by the fact that the revised framework is too vague in scope. For example, paragraph 145 in the section about monitoring, suggests that the OfS can draw on information provided by ‘others’ and ‘any wider experience’. Essentially this means that all information from any source can be taken into account when deciding how to monitor a provider. As such, a provider could, it appears, be subject to scrutiny on any grounds from any source.
This vagueness is not helpful in building the transparency required under section 6 of the Code. The OfS has been reluctant to provide specific or helpful guidance, for example, the early versions of the Reportable Events framework were very vague and no parameters were set. However, providers were advised that reporting too frequently - or not frequently enough - could lead to trigger a concern.
With regard to the OfS’s engagement with students, we would encourage the OfS to engage more with students across a broader range of platforms and settings in order to access the diversity of the student population. The authenticity of student representation at OfS feedback/engagement events, such as consultative roundtables, may be curtailed by the availability of students, the time they can give and their willingness to volunteer for this activity.
In summary, the OfS is in danger of failing to meet the standards it sets for providers. Missed deadlines, vague, out of date and inconsistent information indicate areas where improvements are required.

Financial sustainability of the HE sector

There are many concerns within the sector about the efficacy and sustainability of the current HE finance system based on fees and loans. Whist the system is designed to require students to bear the cost of their education, in some subjects, a significant proportion of student debt is written off and imputed to fiscal expenditure in the government’s accounts. This means that there is still a significant – and often underappreciated – cost burden on the taxpayer.
The reduction in the real-terms value of income from home students fees is impacting the HE sector significantly. Many undergraduate courses barely break even. The continued approach to freezing the cash level of the maximum fee is leading to significant erosion through inflation (salaries, pensions, energy).

The UK HE market is disproportionately reliant on additional income from international students and therefore highly vulnerable to global events and policies that impact student migration, such as the pandemic, and debates about restrictions on international students. Even if there are no formal policy changes, adverse comments about the student visa route have impacts in the international student recruitment markets.

The increasing trend towards marketisation in the HE sector also raises concerns, both ideologically as well as in practical terms, such as the current DfE’s policy on Initial Teacher Training. There are legitimate concerns that this policy will impact the pipeline of teachers entering the labour market which will have cost implications for the public spending.
Institutions submit significant amounts of financial information as part of the annual financial monitoring processes. There is then a regulatory requirement to further submit data in the event that planning assumptions change significantly or there is a risk of breach of financial covenants (or there is a risk of insolvency). The procedure to follow in the event of financial difficulties is commendably clear and easy to follow. However, there is no funding available to the OfS to support a failing institution and there have been no significant cases of failure where the ability of the OfS to manage a failure have been put to the test.
Government policies can have a significant impact on the sector. In all probability, these are more likely to impact sustainability and prosperity of providers rather than the regulator. The OfS has a role to flag up risks, but, in the main, these are impacted more by government than the regulator.

Urgent policy change

In promoting the interests of students and considering the overall sustainability of the HE sector, the OfS should highlight, and seek to mitigate, structural concerns in the UK HE market, particularly where they are deliberately driven by government policy. One such area is the impact of DfE performance indicators for 16 to 18 years olds, that ask schools and colleges to measure successful applications to Russell Group universities and Oxbridge.

Schools and colleges apply this data for marketing and recruitment purposes, using their students’ progression to Russell Group universities as a measure of their success and reputation. This indicator is therefore driving a disproportionate application interest in Russell Group institutions. The relatively recent removal of the student number cap, and the grade inflation associated with teacher assessed grades, has compounded this disproportionate interest. As a result, Russell Group university numbers have swelled in recent years, at the expense of non-Russell Group universities like UEA. The increasing polarisation of wealth within the UK HE market is essentially driven by government policy. Many non-Russell Group universities have been forced to make cost savings as a result of falling income.

The Russell Group is a self-selecting, advocacy organisation that promotes only the interests of its paying members. It is not subject to any qualifying measures of quality. UEA is not a Russell Group member, but we outperformed eight of the Russell Group universities in our most recent Research Excellence Framework results. It is deeply flawed for the DfE to be (inadvertently) skewing the HE market by driving more applications to the universities represented by the Russell Group.

UEA is asking the DfE to make a small adjustment to the performance indicators for 16 to 18 years olds. Rather than recording how many students progress to Russell Group universities, the DfE should use independently verified, evidence-based measures of university success and reputation, such as the Times Higher Education rankings based on the Research Excellence Framework and the Teaching Excellence Framework. This small adjustment would mean that schools and colleges would no longer be incentivised to discourage applications to non-Russell Group universities.

Therefore, there is a substantial place-based impact of the DfE promoting Russell Group universities in this way. Cambridge University is the only university in the east of England that is a member of the Russell Group. Effectively the DfE is suggesting that all HE institutions in the east of England are of less value than any in the Russell Group. The DfE must re-rationalise this policy in the context of Lifelong Learning policies and apprenticeships which are likely to drive more local interest in flexible, short-term, non-residential university course offers.

UEA would welcome the opportunity to provide the Committee with further evidence in respect of this area of policy reform.

07 April 2023