How we regulate further education colleges

We work with the Department for Education (DfE) to regulate further education colleges delivering higher education.

Our role

Colleges offering higher education courses can choose to register with us to access certain benefits, such as access to funding.

As part of the registration process, we consider whether colleges are meeting requirements relating to areas such as quality, standards, student outcomes, student protection, data and transparency, as set out in our conditions of registration.

Colleges do not have to meet all of our conditions of registration. Some depend on whether the college is also applying for degree awarding powers. Find out more about registering as a college and the conditions that colleges have to meet.

After a college has successfully registered with us, we monitor compliance against relevant conditions of registration on an ongoing basis.

The Department for Education’s role

The DfE oversees colleges more broadly. They regulate colleges’ further education courses, financial sustainability, governance and wider accountability arrangements.

How we work together

We work with the DfE to ensure effective oversight of higher education in further education colleges.

Working together allows us to reduce duplication. We recently decided to disapply some of our conditions of registration for colleges in areas that already had DfE oversight, recognising that many regulatory risks are already managed through their framework.  

Both organisations will share information where necessary. This may include:

• sharing information we receive about a college through notifications and reportable events, where relevant to the DfE’s oversight
• the DfE sharing information with us about a college’s governance or financial position where it is relevant to our regulatory decisions, such as assessments for registration or for degree awarding powers.

Information sharing will support each organisation’s responsibilities; it does not replace the independent regulatory role of either body.