Ombudsman?

The title of a recent article in THE proclaimed that ‘Investigating serious abuses must be taken out of universities’ hands’. I couldn’t agree more. Professor Neil Wyn Evans, the author, then went on, within the article, to argue for the appointment of a University Ombudsman Service (UOS) saying ‘all complaints by staff should be reported to the UOS so that statistics can be monitored. The university is then given four months to resolve the matter. At the end of this, if the matter is still not fixed, then the UOS takes over the investigation’. This is a very interesting idea, and I would recommend any reader to visit the web hub that has been set up by Cambridge University staff to offer advice and peer-to-peer support on bullying.

So, is a University Ombudsman Service the right answer? It probably depends on what the question is. An ombudsman service could certainly play a significant role, and therefore be part of the answer, but there are several practical questions that I think still need to be answered.

First there is a question of role. Is the ombudsman service to be the collector of statistics and, as Professor Wyn Evans also suggests, the publisher of reports on the investigations it undertakes. This would make it primarily a source of information and a guarantor of openness, transparency, and perhaps of consistency across the sector? Or is it primarily an ‘independent investigator’ taking the role of investigation out of the hands of the university such that, as Professor Wyn Evans says, ‘neither the whistleblower nor the university owns the investigation’?

An ombudsman is generally seen as a final arbiter. Professor Wyn Evans suggests a four-month window for the university to do its work, meaning that the UOS would only deal with the most serious cases. However, this still raises the question of the role of the university’s own HR processes.

The student focused Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) only steps in once all the internal university processes have been exhausted and is essentially a review of those processes. In the protracted political debates around free speech, one of the most heated discussions revolved around whether legal redress should only be possible once all internal processes have been completed. What, therefore, is the relationship between the OUS and the internal university processes, not to mention the wider legal processes, including tribunals (which like the OIA tend to assume the completion of an internal process and review that process rather than the case per se)?

My second question relates to the scope of the UOS. Professor Wyn Evans is concerned primarily about bullying and whistleblowers. This is an important and significant issue, as the email response to his previous articles on the subject have shown. However, to establish an independent investigatory body we probably need to be clearer about what is, and what is not, included within its remit, not least because I can see no value in establishing a whole series of UOS structures to deal with the wide range of grievances that HR departments face.

There have been calls in Australia for an independent body to oversee complaints relating to research misconduct many of which also relate to the role of, and protection of, whistleblowers, but not all of which concern bullying. There are also debates within the UK sector about sexual misconduct, again not all of which can be labelled as ‘bullying’, even though we do tend to talk of bullying and harassment in one structure. What should the UOS investigate and what, we need to ask, is going to be off limits, thrown back to the responsibility of the university?

Finally, we must recognise that there are usually two sides to any investigation, and very often two processes that, in one way or another, happen alongside each other. A complaint about bullying is not simply a complaint against the institution, who have the responsibility to keep all employees safe, it is also, very often, a complaint against an individual (or group) who is perpetrating the bullying. In all such cases, therefore, as well as a grievance and investigation, there will also be some kind of disciplinary process to consider (not to mention those cases, surprisingly common in my experience, where the one bringing the grievance is also the subject of some level of disciplinary investigation). If the UOS has responsibility for the grievance and investigation, who manages the disciplinary element of the process?

None of these are easy questions and I have no doubt that Professor Wyn Evans, his colleagues and others who have considered the ombudsman option have reflected on these and will have perfectly reasonable answers. I am not offering any of this, however, as a criticism of the idea, which I think should certainly be explored. If we are to move this proposal forward, it is the detail around these kinds of questions that will need to be addressed, and which will no doubt lead to protracted disputes and the splitting of hairs.

The UOS, therefore, is a long-term solution, but one that should be explored. I would be very happy to join Professor Wyn Evans and his colleagues in doing this. In the meantime, I would suggest, if we are clear that, as the title of Professor Wyn Evans article says, ‘investigating serious abuses must be taken out of universities’ hands’, then we need to recognise that it may already be possible to increase the level of independence, through drawing on investigators from outside the institution and in other ways, and these should be explored and implemented while we wait for the UOS to be established.