Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with bodies representing the universities sector on the (a) effectiveness and (b) direction of the Office for Students in the period since 25 October 2022.

The department regularly engages with the higher education (HE) sector representative bodies, and a variety of individual HE providers, to understand the issues facing the sector and the impact of policy proposals. We have also engaged directly with sector representative groups since October 2022.

Matters relating to the role of the Office for Students (OfS), as the independent regulator of the HE sector, are raised at those meetings.

The department strongly supports the OfS’s ongoing work to ensure students get the high-quality, value for money HE that they have paid for.