The Department for Education is hiring a policy expert whose job will include developing its position on ¡°potential intervention¡± if an English higher education institution risks going bust, acknowledging in the job advert the ¡°considerable risks¡± facing the sector.

That the for a ¡°policy expert on higher education financial sustainability¡± ¨C whose job will include leading for the department ¡°on how insolvency arrangements work for HE providers¡± ¨C?may be seen as signalling?a growing recognition of the possibility that institutions face the risk of collapse.

The new post, with a salary of between ?48,000 and ?60,000, also appears to be an acknowledgement by the DfE that the former Higher Education Funding Council for England¡¯s role monitoring sector and institutional financial health is no longer being performed by its successor organisation, the Office for Students ¨C and that this gap must be addressed.

The DfE job advert says that the policy expert role will include ¡°understanding the OfS approach to its functions¡±, as well as ¡°considering whether the department¡¯s concerns about risks might vary from the regulator¡¯s¡±.

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The role will also include ¡°developing the departmental policy position in relation to potential intervention in face of the risk of provider financial failure (where OfS as regulator is the primary actor)¡±.

The OfS was created by former universities minister Jo Johnson via the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act.

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Since then, however, a significant number of institutions have seen their financial positions worsen ¨C with the impact of the government¡¯s decision to abolish student number controls often cited as a key factor. This means that the regulatory system envisaged by Mr Johnson, which saw a regime allowing for ¡°market exit¡± as necessary to the functioning of a proper market, is now operating in a very different context.

As the DfE acknowledges in the job advert, ¡°there is a considerable range of income and cost pressures and risks facing the HE provider sector currently and over the coming years¡±.

That was underlined last week by Higher Education Statistics Agency data revealing that 32 out of 134 English higher education institutions posted a deficit in 2017-18, up from 24 the year before and just 10 in 2015-16.

Meanwhile, the University of Cambridge has warned staff that it is on course to post a ?30?million deficit this year, citing the freeze in undergraduate tuition fees and a real-terms decline in quality-related research funding.

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In the DfE¡¯s job advert, the?department says that it is ¡°seeking to develop [its] own comprehensive understanding of HE provider financial sustainability issues¡±.

The advert continues: ¡°This insight in to financial sustainability will be very significant in a policy context that currently involves a major government review of post-18 education and funding and is likely soon to involve a full government spending review.¡±

Andy Westwood, professor of government practice at the University of Manchester, said that this expressed ¡°an expectation that these [the post-18 review and the spending review] are likely to make things worse for those institutions already suffering in the current regime, but also perhaps a tacit admission that a different regime is on its way¡±.

The OfS¡¯ ¡°uber regulatory-market model always looked slightly out of place the minute that Theresa May started talking about reforming post-18 [education] when she became prime minister¡±, he added.

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After?the post-18 review, the future policy landscape is likely to involve more direct public funding and will be ¡°much more reminiscent of Hefce than of anything envisaged for OfS in HERA¡±, Professor Westwood said.

A DfE spokeswoman said: ¡°The role being advertised is a routine matter of ensuring suitable capacity in the policy team which deals with these topics.¡±

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john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com