The annual report and accounts of the Office for Students is a legislative requirement – as set out in paragraph 13, schedule 1, of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017.

This sets out the need for a report each financial year – and offers some requirements for what it should contain:

(1)The OfS must prepare a report on the performance of its functions during each financial year.

(2)The report must include the statement of accounts in respect of that year.

The report is here with the statement of accounts towards the back. There’s a lovely note on the various hoops that Susan Lapworth had to jump through to do it on page 124 – all of which is correct as of paragraph 12, schedule 1. It’s notable that we no longer get to see the level of income from DfE – grants are not directly counted as income.

OfS received 12 formal complaints this year – two were upheld (about changes to arrangement for recruitment) and a further two were partially upheld. Strikingly, staff turnover is now at 14.5 per cent, up from 12 per cent last year.

We also get a sustainability report, wherein we learn OfS is moving into the Sanctuary Buildings with DfE in London this month, alongside sharing Westward House in Bristol with Research England. This is despite the drive to return staff to office working, a plan that has trashed much of the progress OfS made on sustainable working during lockdown – with nearly every indicator showing regression. Waste to landfill is at record levels, OfS getting through 780 reams of A4 paper – I guess people have been printing those consultations out.

(3)The report must include a statement regarding how the OfS has cooperated with UKRI during that year.

This is present and correct on page 138. The accounting officer at OfS wrote to their counterpart at UKRI providing “assurance over the regularity of expenditure of UKRI grant funding to certain providers” – this is based on OfS’ own work on financial stability, and governance.

We also learn, perhaps to little surprise, that UKRI and OfS have worked together on everything from TRAC (via the UK Higher Education Regulators and Funders Group), to degree awarding powers, to IT procurement.

(4)If, at any time in the financial year to which the report relates, all of the OfS’s access and participation functions were not delegated to the Director under paragraph 11, the report must include a statement specifying—

(a)the period or periods in that year during which those functions were not delegated to the Director, and

(b)the reasons why they were not so delegated.

This is an incredibly specific requirement based on what happens when there is not a Director for Fair Access in post (or when OfS falls out with said Director). Happily for all concerned, this doesn’t appear to happen.

(5)The report relating to a financial year must be prepared as soon as possible after the end of the financial year.

The financial year ended on 31 March, it is now 20 June. Para 12 gives them till the end of August – I guess auditors gotta audit.

(6)The OfS must send the report to the Secretary of State.

(7)The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament

It’s not been laid before parliament yet, but I’m going to assume that Robert Halfon got the email.

Other requirements

There’s a couple of other statutory bits too. Section 38 subparagraph (1)(c) requires that the annual report

must include in its annual report a summary of conclusions drawn by it, for the financial year to which the report relates, from its monitoring under paragraphs (a) and (b)

With those two subparagraphs charging the regulator with monitoring the availability of student transfer schemes, and the extent to which they are used by students.

Despite all the noise made about credit transfer during the passage of the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill, it appears that the Office for Students hasn’t been bothered to do this. There doesn’t appear to be a particular penalty for not doing it – but it feels like a curious omission right now.

The Secretary of State can ask OfS to include stuff on “equality of opportunity” in the annual report (paragraph 37 of HERA)- it appears that he hasn’t asked directly, though there is plenty in the report: starting on page 36, with a great deal of reflection about the EORR. We learn that polling has shown OfS one in five students are considering dropping out of university due to the cost of living – and ONS data finds that three-quarters are concerned about the impact of the cost of living on their studies. Short of an insight brief and a general promise to feed this evidence into equality of opportunity work, it doesn’t appear that there is any action forthcoming.

There should also be a financial sustainability summary (paragraph 68). There’s a couple of quite general statements – but the heavy lifting here was done back in May. Some 250 providers are subject to OfS financial monitoring, with 21 of these subject to more intensive formal monitoring – and three facing a student protection direction (SPD).