Today, we have submitted our response to the Office for Students’ consultation on proposals for a new approach to consumer and student protection. The proposals also include new requirements for providers to publish key information about contracts, complaints, course changes, refunds and compensation.
We strongly support the objective of ensuring students are treated fairly and receive the experience they were promised. However, we do not believe the proposals, as currently drafted, are the right way to achieve that aim.
The proposals would create a more complex, duplicative and uncertain regulatory framework without clear evidence that they would deliver better outcomes for students.
Our response highlights five key concerns:
- The proposals introduce a broad and undefined fairness test that extends beyond existing consumer protection law, creating significant legal uncertainty for providers.
- They risk duplicating and diverging from the new consumer protection framework introduced through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, creating overlapping regulatory requirements.
- Important aspects of the proposals, including ancillary services, apprenticeships and third-party providers, are not sufficiently clear or workable in practice.
- The proposed implementation timetable does not reflect the scale of contractual, legal and operational changes providers would need to make.
- The proposals could have unintended consequences, including increased risk aversion, reduced innovation and more legalistic engagement with students.
Instead, we recommend that the OfS work with the Competition and Markets Authority to update existing guidance, strengthen enforcement of existing protections and introduce any additional requirements in a targeted, evidence-based and proportionate way.
Commenting on our consultation response, Vanessa Wilson, CEO of University Alliance, said:
“Students deserve clear information, fair treatment and confidence that universities will deliver on the commitments they make. We support the OfS’s ambition, but these proposals risk creating greater complexity without delivering better outcomes for students.
“The focus should be on strengthening existing protections and targeting poor practice, not introducing a broad new regulatory test that creates uncertainty for students and universities alike.”
