UK sector prepares for more agent regulation

Enroly conference panelists said they expected the government to introduce tighter agent regulations following the MAC review. Photo: The PIE.

The MAC review, released on May 14, found no “significant abuse” of the Graduate Route, but it raised concerns about recruitment agents providing “misleading information” to students, sparking speculation that further agent regulations will be announced by the government this week.  

“We shouldn’t take this lightly and think we’re out of the woods”, Charley Robinson, head of global mobility policy, UUKi, told delegates at the Enroly Conference on May 15.  

“I think we can certainly expect the government to want to do something on agents following the MAC findings. We’re not exactly sure what that will look like, but we should be prepared for them to go beyond the existing voluntary agent framework and to stipulate something mandatory. 

“We have done a huge amount of work and preparation in this area, and we are ready and geared up to respond to that”, said Robinson.  

She added that the “heavily political decision” is expected from the government before May 23 when the ONS is expected to publish a fresh set of net migration data.  

In the review, the committee recognised the work of the sector’s independent Agent Quality Framework – which has 23,000 registered agents, and 8,703 certified (as per the British Council’s live count at the time of writing) – but recommended that this be replaced by a mandatory government registration system for international agents and subagents. 

“Whilst we recognise that the sector has introduced a voluntary framework to address these concerns, based on experience of voluntary schemes within the immigration system there is insufficient evidence that this voluntary code will prove effective against deliberate poor practice.  

“Agents simply do not have the same incentives as universities,” it read. 

"We shouldn’t take this lightly and think we’re out of the woods"

Charley Robinson

“We’re all clear on the fact that the Agent Quality Framework is only in its infancy, but it’s important to note that the MAC has identified it as a model for good practice”, Jacqui Jenkins, global lead for international student mobility, British Council, told the conference.  

“We, the partners in the AQF, would like HMG to endorse the British Council training as the national (UK) training and make sure all agents sending students to the UK have the UK’s certified training”, she added.

Launched in December 2023, the AQF is jointly led by the British Council, BUILA, UUKi and UKCISA and provides training and certification to individual agents.  

Further regulations proposed by the MAC included “a requirement for universities to submit which agent has been used in an application for a Certificate for Acceptance of Study, allowing for UKVI to collect comprehensive data on agents.”  

It also recommended requiring universities to publish data on their spend on international recruitment agents to improve transparency.

The report went onto say that given the compressed timeline for the review, the committee has not received “comprehensive evidence to evaluate all possible options for addressing these concerns about agents”, noting that the “lack of reliable data” about agents was a cause for concern.  

The importance of having more agent data, and the work already done by third-party providers like Enroly providing the MAC with quantitative evidence of a 57% year-on-year drop in international student deposits for 2024’s September intake, were the subject of much discussion at the conference.  

“We are used to being regulated, and I think we can welcome a bit of belt and braces on the other side of the equation if this is perceived to be a problem. 

“The evidence is not always there, and it is perception that is driving a lot of this, so it’s that lack of data and lack of robust evidence over a longer period of time that is a gap that we need to fill,” said Roisin McEvoy, head of admissions and access at Queen’s University Belfast. 

Panellists and delegates were frustrated by some sections of the MAC report that were seen to be driven by “perception” rather than “evidence”, particularly when it came to student testimonials of bad practice by agents which is not representative of the broader picture, they said.  

BUILA is already having conversations with UKVI and the government about getting stronger agent metrics such as agent names and agreeing a risk framework around agencies and sharing more quantifiable data, according to executive member of BUILA, Francis Glover. 

As Jenkins pointed out, the kind of data sets that third parties like Enroly have made available are changing the game for how institutions and private companies can share and use information.

“At the moment, it’s been about promoting self-regulation and encouraging data provided by third party providers – be that Enroly, be that ICEF – to enhance the information providers need on good practice”, added Jenkins.  

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