New tighter controls of subcontractual courses to protect the interests of students and taxpayer money

A subcontractual arrangement is where one university or college (known as a lead provider) contracts another organisation to deliver all or part of a higher education course on its behalf (known as a delivery provider). After a rapid expansion of these partnerships in recent years, the OfS has warned of the increased risks to students and taxpayers arising from poor oversight of some of these courses.

Following a consultation, the OfS is introducing a new ongoing condition of registration, which will apply to any lead provider that has, or expects to have, 100 or more students registered on relevant subcontractual courses during a given academic year.

To increase transparency, eligible lead providers will be required to publish information about the proportion of student tuition fees they retain from these arrangements, as well making clear their strategic rationale for engaging in subcontracted delivery.

These lead providers will also need to ensure they identify and address risks to students and taxpayers arising from its relevant subcontractual arrangements. To support this, they will be required to maintain a subcontractual information source explaining how they oversee these partnerships.

The new condition will apply from 31 March 2026.

Director of Regulation at the OfS, Philippa Pickford, said:

‘We have been raising concerns about the poor practices that have been exposed in some subcontractual arrangements for some time. Today, we are taking action to protect students and taxpayers by ensuring all registered universities engaged in these partnerships have appropriate control over their delivery partners.

‘Our new ongoing condition of registration should give students, the public, and the sector confidence that we remain vigilant to the risks associated with subcontractual arrangements.

‘These new requirements – along with the Department for Education’s (DfE) upcoming requirement for delivery partners with at least 300 students to register with the OfS – will help safeguard students’ experience and outcomes, while assuring taxpayers that public funding is being used appropriately. We’re also asking universities to be transparent about the proportion of tuition fees they retain from these arrangements, which will help students to make informed decisions about the value for money they receive in return for the financial investment they make in their education.

‘Our view remains that high quality and well-managed subcontractual partnerships can offer benefits to students. It’s right that lead providers are fully responsible for the provision of education to students registered with them and we're confident that universities that already do this well will find our requirements straightforward.

‘I’d like to thank everyone who responded to our consultation. This is a complex issue and it’s important that we and the sector work in collaboration to ensure students are getting the high quality higher education experiences they deserve, wherever or however they choose to study.’

Notes

1. The Office for Students is the independent regulator for higher education in England. We are striving to deliver exemplary regulation in the interests of students. Find out more about our new strategy.
2. Read our response to the consultation.
3. The new ongoing condition of registration will be numbered as condition E10 (rather than E8 as included in our proposals) because of the addition of new conditions E7-9 following the OfS’s reforms to registration requirements. For any lead provider not in an exempted category, the provisions of condition E10 will take effect and apply automatically when the provider has, or intends to have, a total of 100 students studying through subcontractual arrangements at any point in an academic year. A lead provider would come into scope of the condition if it increased student numbers beyond that threshold at any point in the future. The exempted categories include arrangements where the delivery partner provider falls under one of the following (or, where there are multiple partner providers, each of the partner providers falls under one of the following):
   1. is a state-funded school, a further education corporation, a sixth form college corporation, a designated institution, a provider of National Health Service services (including an NHS trust as defined in section 25 of the National Health Service Act 2006), a local authority, a mayoral combined authority, a police and crime commissioner, the armed forces, or a government department;  
   2. holds an authorisation given by or under an Act of Parliament or Royal Charter to grant taught awards or research awards;
   3. is engaged in the joint delivery of fully accredited medical or veterinary degrees, or the provision of an initial teacher training course accredited by the Department for Education.
4. The condition does not apply to courses delivered through transnational education (TNE).