I think it's really helpful in Wales that we have, for us, a very close working relationship with the eight institutions that we regulate. That enables us to work with them on an individual basis. If we had hundreds of providers, as in England, we wouldn't be able to have that kind of close relationship in, perhaps, the way that we can afford to have with eight institutions. That, for us, is really important, because it helps us understand the challenges that they're facing, the strategies that they're adopting, and also their individual circumstances. The circumstances and the challenges affecting Bangor, whilst, in the greatest context, will be similar, are very different for the institution to some of the challenges perhaps facing Cardiff, as examples.
We have to do this, though, recognising, as Simon said, that they're autonomous organisations. I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment, but they do need to make their own decisions about how they're going to operate within the financial context we've outlined. So, they have to go through their governing bodies and make those decisions themselves. But, as a regulator, what we try to do is foster open, transparent dialogue, operate on a no-surprises basis. We work really closely, as Simon said, with not just the senior leadership teams of institutions, but also student bodies, and, of course, their governing bodies as well in understanding some of the challenges and opportunities that they face.
Particularly around financial health, we deal with highly commercially sensitive information. Part of our role as a trusted regulator and why I think, sometimes, people may be a bit frustrated with us about how open we can be about individual institutions is because we are dealing with really commercially sensitive information. You've heard from Simon about the market forces that drive student choice. The last thing that we would want to do as a regulator is undermine confidence in a particular institution. So, one of the reasons why we work so closely with them to understand it and then synthesise that to the sector is to understand the risks, if you like, across Wales, as well as within individual institutions.
We also work really closely with Universities Wales, which I think, as a sector representative body, again, gives a different perspective across the national picture. So, as a regulator, we have many different interactions. We've definitely enhanced our monitoring and led to increased activity in working with institutions since our operational date nine months ago, not least because of the financial context, but also, actually, our role as a regulator now goes beyond what we inherited, if you like, from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. So, we work with institutions right across the tertiary education sector as the regulator in different ways.
In all of that, dialogue and that kind of information exchange with the Welsh Government is really important. So, we occupy, if you like, the space between those individual providers who operate in the sector. We try to understand the challenges and the strategies that they're taking and then report on a sector basis—both sector and institution basis, actually—through to the Welsh Government on what those challenges are and, indeed, what some of the pressures are and what some of the mitigations might be. I mentioned some of the participation numbers earlier as an example, if you like, of us reporting through the sector to the Government about what some of those pressures might be.
As a regulator, in terms of our current role—I'll probably say a little bit more about our future role in a moment based on the new legislation—our current role is to monitor compliance with higher education institutions' fee and access plans. These are really important for institutions because, essentially, they enable students to access the student finance system. So, as a regulator, us understanding what their plans are to enhance the student experience, to promote equality of opportunity in higher education, as well as then to access student finance, is really important. At the moment, that is our primary responsibility, to monitor their compliance with those plans that they publish.
We also have a role in assessing the quality of the education provision, and working closely with the student body, for example, in understanding student satisfaction, learner outcomes, and also monitoring, crucially here, compliance with the financial management code—so, making sure that they're financially sustainable in the context of the challenges that they're facing.
Alongside that, we consider strategic direction, so the medium to long-term plans of the institutions and the strategies that they're taking not just to be financially sustainable, but, I think, to address some of the points that Cefin made in terms of the contribution they make more broadly to economy, society, and culture in Wales. There's governance and management, so how organisations are run. I mentioned students and quality, but it's also looking at estates, research and innovation. So, we look at quite a broad range of factors when we assess and work with institutions in our role as a regulator, all within the context, as I say, of those existing regulatory powers to look at fee and access plans.
We've talked quite a bit about universities and the need for them to make their own decisions to make sure that they're financially sustainable, but I think one thing that's missed—. Whilst they have to operate as businesses, it's also important to note that they're charities. The governing bodies of institutions are charity trustees, in essence, and they have a responsibility under the legislation to ensure the long-term sustainability of those institutions in line with their long-term mission. And again, I think that plays to the mission of the institution. It's really important that they do both of those. So when they're having to make some of the difficult challenges now, they have to do that in line with their legal responsibilities as charity trustees as well.
We've talked a bit about our powers of respecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and they're really clear that we don't interfere in the detailed running of universities, and that's so important both from that charity and business perspective, but also from our role as a regulator. Therefore, what we do in this space, particularly around financial monitoring, is to understand the position of universities, their current contextual challenges, but also, crucially, their forward plans—so, their forecast for student numbers, where they're coming from, their forecast for any changes they're making to their business models. What we're seeking to do is gain assurance to provide to our board, essentially, and then ultimately to Government, that the processes they're following will make them financially sustainable.
A really important part of our role as a regulator, I think, is that feedback loop. So, when we've had that information, we've considered it, we've engaged with the senior management teams of institutions, we then do feed that back to the governing bodies to give our own assessment, if you like, of some of the challenges they're facing and some of the actions that we'd expect them to make. So, that kind of feedback loop from us as a regulator to those institutions is really important.
So, that's a bit of a summary of our current regulatory role. I thought it might be useful just to pause there before I might talk a bit about our future one, because things are changing quite significantly here. The powers that we're currently operating in relate to legislation passed over a decade ago, but we've just opened our consultation on a new system, so the committee may be interested to hear a little bit about that in a moment.