Northern Irish and Scottish providers

The designation rules are different for authority funded and non-authority funded providers.

Authority funded (public) providers are maintained or assisted by recurrent grants out of public funds. These providers are automatically designated for all domiciles.

Alternative providers are any providers of higher education courses that:

• are not maintained or assisted by recurrent grants out of public funds
• do not receive any other form of direct annual public funding (for example, from a local authority or the Secretary of State for Education)
• are not further education colleges

According to the regulations, courses run wholly or in part by alternative providers are not automatically designated. They will need to be specifically designated so that students may access student support.

Scottish alternative providers must have specific designation from the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS).

Northern Irish alternative providers must have specific designation from the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland (DfENI).

If you are an alternative provider and want to offer courses to students under other designating authorities, you must seek specific course-level designation from the relevant authority. We can request this on your behalf for Northern Irish and Scottish students. If you wish to seek designation for Welsh students, you must contact the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) directly.

English students will be automatically designated for Welsh and Northern Irish alternative providers if the home designating authority has designated the provider. Scottish alternative providers will need to be designated for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

We will administer course details on the Courses Management Service (CMS) on behalf of alternative providers. Only the domiciles for which they have specific designation will be available.