Anyone reviewing Office for Students’ CEO Susan Lapworth’s recent appearances at sector conferences should conclude that higher education in England is beset by increased risk.
At her contribution to the Chartered Association of Business Schools annual shindig, Lapworth argued that the regulator can see a range of them – rising costs as a result of inflation, challenges in maintaining and improving facilities and buildings, competitive pressures for UK students, and reliance on income from international students.
She said that looking at the risks in the environment just now, for a small number of institutions the financial picture is “particularly worrying”. She said that quality, financial sustainability and protecting public funding are all areas she would expect to see on institutional risk registers.
In a similar speech to AdvanceHE’s Governance Conference, she asked governors to reflect on financial pressures – and to ask if their universities are doing early thinking about radical options for transformation, new business models and different ways of doing things. Maybe there’s some fat left to trim – but it’s more likely that Lapworth means “portfolio reviews”, pathway and course closures, and the reduction of professional service levels to students.
