Proposed OfS Covid powers could see student offers rescinded and universities handed back-dated penalties
Universities could be asked to withdraw unconditional offers and be hit with fines where students have already accepted places under the Office for Students’ emergency condition of registration. Meanwhile, as the regulator takes soundings on sweeping new powers, it has made its own discussions on coronavirus exempt from publication.
The regulator is consulting on a one-year registration condition to stop universities making unconditional offers or recruiting students in ways that “undermine students’ interests or threaten the stability of England’s higher education sector” during the pandemic.
Under its new powers—which would be backdated to 11 March, the day the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic—the OfS would be able to demand universities withdraw unconditional offers that students have not yet accepted. It could also fine universities where a student has accepted an unconditional offer.
It comes as part of the government’s bailout package for universities published on 4 May, which aims to clamp down on the competition between universities: "taking a form which would go against the interests of students and the sector". Although the powers retrospectively apply from 11 March, the government did not place a ban on unconditional offers until 23 March.
“To comply with the proposed condition, it may therefore be necessary for providers to withdraw offers that are yet to be accepted by students. The OfS considers that this would be legally possible because a contract would not be formed until the student has formally communicated their acceptance of the offer,” the OfS wrote.
But where an offer has been accepted and a contract made between the student and the institution, the OfS could hand out hefty fines of £500,000 or more. “For avoidance of doubt, the fact that a contract has been entered into would not prevent the OfS from reaching a judgement that the condition has been breached,” the regulator wrote, adding that where a breach had been made it “would expect to make use of our power to impose monetary penalties”.
The OfS told Research Professional News it was “more likely” it would look at withdrawing offers made on or after the start of the consultation, which opened on 4 May, although it could backdate penalties to 11 March.
Meanwhile, 16 March board papers published on 6 May explore how the regulator is responding to the coronavirus crisis, but most details have been barred from publication. OfS chief executive Nicola Dandridge warned that responding “to the threats that the virus poses is already absorbing a considerable amount of OfS capacity, and that will only increase”.
She added: “The board should therefore be aware that this will impact on our ability to deliver all our planned programmes of work to the timescales previously indicated.” But details of the OfS’s response to Covid-19 were included in Annex B, which has been made “exempt from publication”.
The board papers also revealed that three more institutions have been refused registration with the OfS, bringing the total to 16 up from the 13 listed in January’s board papers. One decision has been made but not yet published, while the number of institutions given a “minded to refuse” notice remains unchanged from 21. Since the start of the pandemic, the regulator has put a block on new applications to the register.
In March, the regulator won a landmark legal case against Bloomsbury Institute, after the institution—formerly known as the London School of Business and Management—took the OfS to court over its decision to refuse registration.
The OfS’s consultation on its temporary condition of registration closes at 12pm on 26 May.