ANNUAL REPORT 2024 - Working with others

Working independently but interdependently with the wider higher education (HE) regulatory framework is one of our key objectives. During 2024, the financial sustainability of the sector across the UK became an increasingly pressing concern and this set the agenda for much of our collaborative work. We brought our knowledge of student complaints into sector-wide discussions exploring what the impact of financial challenges may be upon students’ experiences.

We have continued to meet and engage with key sector stakeholders. We worked with a range of organisations, including the Department for Education (DfE), the Welsh government, the OfS, Medr, UUK, NUS and the Quality Assurance Agency , among many others. We contributed at the Quality Council for UK Higher Education and had regular joint meetings with DfE, the OfS and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

During 2024, we responded to several consultations and engaged in discussions around key areas for the governments, including the use of agents in student recruitment and investigation into student finance for study at franchised higher education providers.

The wider financial context has led us to build on our earlier work towards our longstanding aim that there should be appropriate protection in place for students in the event of a provider closure.

We have engaged with OfS on wider market exit scenarios and with the DfE’s financial sustainability team. Throughout 2024, we have been involved in relevant taskforces and have continued to engage with a small number of providers who have recently exited the market, with the aim of improving outcomes for students. It can be beneficial for students and for the providers that are closing to address students’ concerns without the need for each individual student to pursue a formal complaint and to then bring a complaint to us.

We have also contributed to policy work and discussions in this area, and to thought pieces and presentations, drawing on our knowledge of the impact of closures on students. Our call to interested parties to join us in exploring possible solutions received a good response from providers, sector groups, specialist consultants and insurance practitioners. This has led to a piece of research with higher education consultancy SUMs consulting – taking learning from providers, student representative bodies and others impacted by closures we have worked on. We anticipate the outputs of this work will be published in 2025. This potentially important and far-reaching area of work gives us a lot to consider, in terms of our early intervention role, its funding, the political landscape and other organisations we need to work with.

In the first half of 2024, we prepared for the commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and the parallel OfS complaints scheme, which was due to come in to force on 1 August 2025. In July the newly elected government decided to pause implementation to review the impact and implementation of the Act. In early 2025, they announced their intentions to implement, amend and remove some parts of the Act. The government intends to remove students from the jurisdiction of the OfS complaint scheme. We welcomed this amendment as we believe it gives clarity for students and providers and a fair route to independent review to all students impacted by these issues. We will continue to work with OfS, to try to ensure clarity where there is potential for overlap, considering any regulation and guidance when reviewing complaints and sharing information on systemic issues and possible breach of regulatory conditions.

We also engaged with the Department of Business and Trade on the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 which amongst other aspects, has an impact on how Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) bodies are regulated. As an established ADR scheme with legislative underpinning, we have been exempted from these requirements.

Meanwhile we continue to work towards our goal that all HE students should have access to independent redress by continuing to engage with providers and awarding organisations who wish to join the scheme voluntarily. In June EM Normandie joined the scheme voluntarily before being added to the OfS register (therefore becoming a ‘qualifying institution’) in early 2025.

A key part of our work with others is to bring our expertise to areas we think can benefit students, student organisations and providers. For example, in 2024 we continued to work with the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. The Taskforce aims to improve mental health support for students in higher education and reduce the impact of mental distress. One of the priority areas for the taskforce was compassionate communications and the development of more sensitive policies, procedures, and communications by providers guided by a statement of good practice principles. We contributed to the Compassionate Communication Statement of good practice principles drawing on our well-established kindness work. We also provided further input to ensure it is in line with the Good Practice Framework. The Compassionate Communications Commitment was launched in November 2024 and is now owned by ARC, and we will be taking it into account when reviewing complaints.

As well as our work within the HE sector, we are also part of a wider community of complaints and ombuds organisations. We are active members of the Ombudsman Association, which facilitates valuable discussion about good practice in complaints handling. We are also members of the European Network of Ombuds in Higher Education.