As franchising continues to expand, UK universities are rightly being challenged by regulators to demonstrate stronger oversight of their delivery partnerships.

The Higher Education Policy Institute’s recent made a valuable contribution to that discussion by suggesting an accountability framework, which involves some oversight from the Office for Students. Clearer accountability is vital to boosting confidence that students studying with partner organisations receive an education of equivalent quality to what they would receive at the validating institution.

However, reading the Hepi report prompted me to wonder whether we have become so focused on building assurance systems that we have overlooked something equally important: our capacity, as the provider, to lead improvement.

Higher education has become increasingly sophisticated at assuring quality. Annual monitoring, periodic review, governance structures, external examiner reports, risk registers and performance dashboards all have the potential to play an important role in helping universities understand how their partnerships are performing. And no one would argue for less scrutiny where students’ interests and public money are at stake.

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But assurance, by its very nature, is largely diagnostic. It tells us where we are. It identifies strengths and, most importantly, highlights areas for development. The more difficult question is what happens next. Too often, the response is simply to increase monitoring. Yet organisations rarely improve because they are monitored more frequently. They improve because they receive the right support, challenge and expertise at the right time.

My experience in both schools and universities suggests that sustainable improvement depends on several factors. One is clarity of purpose, with a relentless focus on impact rather than activity. Another is professional trust, combined with proportionate challenge. A third is a decision-making process informed by evidence and an understanding of root causes. And a fourth is access to people with the expertise and capacity to carry all this out.

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What universities need, then, is a coherent institutional framework that brings together various factors into a connected system: governance, risk management, professional expertise, developmental review, structured improvement methodologies and organisational learning. This improvement architecture does not replace quality assurance, but it ensures that assurance and improvement become mutually reinforcing.

At Bucks New University, considerable work in this area has taken place over the past couple of years. This has been a collective endeavour, drawing upon the expertise of colleagues across the university, but I want to focus here on the partner improvement strategy that I have led. It continues to evolve as we learn alongside our partners, and I certainly do not claim that ours is the only approach, but it provides a useful example of how some of these principles can be translated into practice.

Although higher education partnerships differ significantly from schools, one principle transfers remarkably well: improvement should be differentiated according to need. High-performing organisations require different forms of support from that required by those experiencing greater challenge. ߣߣ��Ƶ should therefore be deployed proportionately, informed by risk and organisational maturity.

This has led us to develop a four-tier framework. Most partners engage through a universal offer focused on collaboration, enhancement and professional dialogue. But some benefit from an enhanced offer where additional developmental support can accelerate improvement or respond to emerging priorities. Only a relatively small number require a formal priority improvement plan (PIP).

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These involve structured 100-day improvement cycles, with mid-cycle reviews used to explore implementation, identify emerging barriers and maintain momentum. They are complemented by end-of-cycle “floodlight reviews” that provide a deeper evaluation of impact, sustainability and organisational capacity through engagement with leaders, staff, students and other evidence.

The emphasis throughout is not simply on whether actions – new policy, staff development or revised process – have been completed. The question is whether they have resulted in demonstrable and embedded improvements to educational quality and student outcomes. This creates a very different process from an annual cycle of identifying issues, agreeing actions and returning 12 months later to establish whether they happened. It allows improvement efforts to be tweaked as we go along and creates opportunities to respond when implementation is not having the intended effect.

Perhaps the most significant shift, however, has been not so much procedural as cultural. Traditionally, partnership accountability can feel like something universities do to their partners. An improvement-led approach instead views it as something undertaken with them. It is built on constructive professional relationships, shared ownership of improvement and mutual accountability.

Within our model, academic partnership tutors, for example, are not simply compliance monitors. They act as improvement partners, helping institutions interpret evidence, challenge assumptions and intervene early enough to prevent relatively small concerns becoming significant issues. Assurance remains part of their role, but it is accompanied by a developmental responsibility.

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That, of course, requires investment – in people, expertise and organisational capability. And that is especially true at the beginning; the ultimate aim must be to build partners’ organisational capability so that they become increasingly self-improving over time. But this is what universities owe to their partners. More than that, it is what they owe to the students studying through those partnerships. And over the coming years, the universities that thrive will surely be those that recognise this.

Michael Green is head of quality improvement planning (partners) at Bucks New University.

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