It is likely that the Labour government will carry out major reforms of the Office for Students (OfS). Whatever form these take, it is crucial that they should not remove or weaken the OfS’ new free-speech complaints scheme.
The manifesto of the Labour party states that “Higher Education is in crisis”, adding that one of the principal aims of the party, when in government, will be “strengthening regulation” of higher education. In England, universities are regulated by the Office for Students.
Bridget Phillipson is the new Secretary of State for Education, with overall ministerial responsibility for universities. She has stated in a speech to Universities UK, the principal representative body for UK universities, that currently the OfS is “politicised” but that it is “going to change”. Days after Labour’s election victory, the Chair of the OfS, Lord Wharton, a Tory peer and Boris Johnson’s campaign manager, resigned his post. Reform of the OfS appears imminent.
In September 2023, the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee published a highly critical report on the Office for Students. It claimed, among other things, that “the actions of the OfS… appear to be reactive and driven by political pressures”, and that the OfS “appears not to have prioritised the autonomy of higher education providers”. These are genuine concerns. University autonomy, and the independence of the university regulator from government, are important safeguards of academic freedom. However, the report goes on to state:
The OfS has now become involved in the micro-management of issues such as freedom of speech… these matters would be better dealt with by effective review of provider governance and disseminating best practice rather than through prescriptive regulatory requirements and time-consuming processes.
This passage is stunning. For a start, the report’s claim that the OfS is setting down “prescriptive regulatory requirements” with respect to freedom of speech is highly misleading. The primary activities of the OfS with respect to freedom of speech are:
- Publishing guidance on what the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act requires universities to do.
- Running a “free speech complaints scheme” whereby the OfS may take universities to court when they break the law on freedom of speech and refuse to implement necessary changes.
The OfS does not set any “prescriptive regulatory requirements” with respect to freedom of speech. It merely enforces the legal duty of universities to secure freedom of speech and academic freedom.
CAF has looked into the witnesses who appeared before the Lords Committee. It appears that none of those who spoke on freedom of speech were themselves victims of restrictions on speech. Moreover, none of the questions in the Committee’s “call for evidence” mentioned freedom of speech. It is therefore extraordinary that the Committee considered itself sufficiently well informed to claim that “issues such as freedom of speech… would be better dealt with by effective review of provider governance and disseminating best practice”.
This claim is in any case false. Universities have had a duty to secure freedom of speech since the Education Act 1986, yet because that Act provided no effective means of enforcing the duty, it has largely been ignored. CAF’s “threats to freedom” monitor and “cancelled voices” podcast series provide overwhelming evidence that universities have turned a blind eye to the harassment of staff and students with minority views, sometimes even actively contributing to that harassment. The new complaints scheme provides an effective means of enforcing free-speech duties, something which universities themselves have signally failed to do.
Phillipson is, in principle, supportive of academic freedom and freedom of speech. However, she appears to believe that there is no crisis of freedom in universities. Given this, and the dubious claims of the Lords report, there is significant risk that the government may attempt to undermine the OfS free-speech complaints scheme. It is essential for supporters of academic freedom to convince the Labour government that there is a crisis of freedom in universities, and that the complaints scheme is necessary to deal with it.