Section 9 — Mandatory transparency condition for certain providers

(1) The OfS must ensure that the ongoing registration conditions of each registered higher education provider of a prescribed description include a transparency condition.

(2) A transparency condition is a condition that requires the governing body of a registered higher education provider to provide to the OfS, and publish, such information as the OfS requests in relation to one or more of the following—

(a) the number of applications for admission on to higher education courses that the provider has received;

(b) the number of offers made by the provider in relation to those applications;

(c) the number of those offers that were accepted;

(d) the number of students who accepted those offers that completed their course with the provider;

(e) the number of students who attained a particular degree or other academic award, or a particular level of such an award, on completion of their course with the provider.

(3) The information which the OfS may request in relation to the numbers mentioned in subsection (2) includes those numbers by reference to one or more of the following—

(a) the gender of the individuals to which they relate;

(b) their ethnicity;

(c) their socio-economic background.

(3A) [F1 The OfS must not request information relating to modules of full courses by virtue of a transparency condition more frequently than it requests information relating to full courses by virtue of the condition.]

(4) “Prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.

Amendment notes

1. F1 S. 9(3A) inserted (12.5.2026 for specified purposes) by Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 (c. 21), ss. 16(2), 36(3); S.I. 2026/498, reg. 3(1)