Image: Office for Students
Susan Lapworth says regulator is focusing on carrying out quality role beyond the short term
There is no problem “in principle” with the Office for Students remaining as England’s Designated Quality Body, and it expects to do so for at least the medium term, the regulator’s chief executive has said.
The OfS assumed the position of DQB in April after the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education relinquished the role of assessing quality in course provision. The QAA said it could no longer continue since the English system is at odds with European standards, but the OfS has since said that it planned to recommend the removal of the QAA as DQB anyway.
Giving evidence at a Lords inquiry into the OfS, its chief executive, Susan Lapworth (pictured), said she did not believe it was an “in-principle problem” that there was no designated body, since the Higher Education and Research Act states that, in the absence of a DQB, the functions revert to the OfS.
“It makes things easier for us to practically operate…We can make sure that there is a really clear, shared view of what the regulatory system needs from that activity,” Lapworth said on 9 May.
She added that there was no “obvious body” to take up the role, and that the OfS was focusing on “standing up the work that we need to deliver to pick up the activities from the QAA, and that is our focus for the medium run”.
“We’re acting within the boundaries of the legislation,” Lapworth continued. “As we look across the sector, there is no other body [that could take on the role]. The sector could design another body, or the QAA could fundamentally change its approach and the way it works in a way that would resolve our concerns, although…that feels unlikely.”
In previous sessions of the inquiry, both the QAA and the University Alliance group of universities questioned whether the OfS was capable of carrying out the DQB role in addition to its existing responsibilities.
Independence day
Elsewhere in the session, OfS chair James Wharton addressed concerns about whether the fact that he holds the Conservative whip as a sitting member of the House of Lords might jeopardise the political independence of the regulator. The Industry and Regulators committee, which is conducting the inquiry, said it had heard “repeated concerns” about the potential conflict of interests.
“I act as an independent chair,” Wharton said, citing the appointment process and the pre-confirmation scrutiny of the Education Select Committee as examples of how his independence had been tested.
“To the best of my knowledge, in fact I’m confident, [I have] never allowed the fact that I sit as a Conservative peer…to sway or influence a decision that I would make in my role [at the OfS].”
Wharton then said that while it might be “cheeky or flippant” of him to do so, he wished to observe that the members of the committee he was giving evidence to also carried out their work with “all different political affiliations and none”, and were able to do so in an independent and sensible manner.
“That’s what I do in my role as chair,” he added. “It isn’t a statutory requirement…that the chair resign any political affiliation.”
Labour peer Thomas Lyttelton was not impressed by the comparison between Wharton’s role at the OfS and that of Lords committee members.
“The comparison with the committee is specious,” Lyttelton said. “This is a committee of Parliament and you are chair of a regulator. I’m curious [as to] why you don’t think it would be helpful to the OfS for you to conform to the tradition of chairs of bodies becoming non-affiliated during the period of their term of office.”
Wharton said that while some people may choose to suspend their political affiliation, he believed that not all did. Resigning the whip would be “window dressing”, he added.
“I am not required to do it and I don’t intend to do so,” Wharton said. “If Parliament had intended it to be a requirement, it could very easily have included that requirement in the act.”
A version of this article appeared in Research Fortnight