Universities found to have breached regulatory conditions will be forced to pay the costs of the investigation, under plans unveiled by the English sector regulator.
In a consultation document published on 9 March, the Office for Students (OfS) said it would charge fees if it found that a provider had breached an ongoing condition of its registration or, in the case of compliance, if it deemed the provider to be at “increased risk of a breach”.
The charges for OfS staff costs would be based on the amount of time spent on a specific investigation and charged at the total cost of employment of that member of staff for each hour worked.
Other costs, including work done through any external organisation contracted to the OfS, will be based on the actual costs incurred by the OfS, says the regulator, although it did not give an idea of the likely financial cost of its investigations.
