The new OfS free-speech complaints scheme: getting your complaint right
From 1 September 2026, academics and other eligible complainants will have a powerful new route for challenging restrictions on lawful speech and academic freedom. But getting a free-speech case right can begin long before a complaint reaches the OfS. Find out what is changing, why involving CAF as early as possible can matter and how we can help you navigate the process.
1 The new OfS complaints scheme – what is changing?
From 1 September 2026, the Office for Students (OfS) will operate a new statutory free speech complaints scheme under Schedule 6A to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA).
The scheme will allow eligible complainants – including current and former university staff, applicants for academic posts, visiting speakers and non-student members – to ask the OfS to determine complaints that they have suffered adverse consequences as a result of action or inaction by an OfS-registered higher education provider, or one of its constituent institutions, which is alleged to breach its statutory duty under HERA to secure “freedom of speech within the law”. For academic staff, that statutory duty includes the duty to secure academic freedom.
For the first time, the sector regulator will be able to uphold individual free-speech complaints and hold universities to account where they have breached their statutory duties. Where a complaint is found justified or partly justified, the OfS can recommend concrete redress, including an apology, a change of policy, reinstatement of a research programme, the restoration of an invitation to speak, or even financial redress in the form of a specified payment to the complainant.
2 When does a free-speech complaint really start?
A free-speech case does not begin when you submit an OfS complaint.
Where an internal disciplinary, grievance, complaints or appeals process is capable of considering the issues, the OfS will normally accept a complaint only once that process has been completed or 90 days have elapsed since it began.
This means the issue will usually have emerged much earlier – often at the first sign that your speech or teaching is being restricted, or that your lawful beliefs are becoming the subject of institutional action. For example, when:
- your university introduces a new policy telling staff not to communicate material that others might find “offensive”;
- you are required to complete training that will not let you proceed unless you assent to a particular contested proposition;
- somebody asks you to alter your teaching because its content conflicts with an institutional policy or value;
- you are called into a meeting to explain a perfectly lawful social-media post; or
- complaints about the expression of a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010 turn into an HR investigation.
CAF can help at any of those stages. We can advise on the underlying academic-freedom and free-speech issues, help you work out what needs to be put on the record, draft correspondence and, where appropriate, fund specialist legal advice. The first objective is always to stop a problem escalating unnecessarily.
If it does escalate, we can stay with the case. If an investigation begins, we can assist you to respond to it. If an adverse decision is made, we can help you decide whether to make a grievance or appeal. If issues of discrimination or harassment arise, we can help identify how they interact with the free-speech issues. And later, if necessary, we can help determine whether the right route is an employment tribunal, another legal process or the new OfS complaints scheme.
The aim is not to steer every academic-freedom dispute towards the OfS, let alone litigation, but to identify the right issues early, put them clearly to the university and give the institution an opportunity to resolve the problem before either becomes necessary.
3 Why involve CAF early?
The scheme creates two particularly good reasons for enlisting CAF’s help at an early stage.
First, a university dealing with an internal grievance is no longer simply deciding whether its position can survive its own procedures, or whether a difficult issue can quietly disappear once those procedures are complete. It must now reckon with the possibility that the decision it reaches, the evidence on which it relied and the way it handled the case may subsequently be placed before the specialist regulator.
Faced with the prospect of external scrutiny and meaningful redress, a carefully framed intervention can put the university squarely on notice that it is dealing with a complainant who has identified the precise free-speech or academic-freedom issues, that it therefore has very little wriggle room in avoiding them, and that its interests may be better served by correcting course before the matter reaches the OfS.
Second, given the potential complexity of the issues involved, the rules governing the new scheme expressly allow complainants to appoint a representative to deal with the OfS on their behalf. And getting the case right matters. The OfS may dismiss as frivolous or vexatious a complaint that “does not clearly identify issues or matters that are the subject of the complaint”, or where the complainant “continually change[s] the substance” of it.
Why is that important? Suppose the real problem is a failure to secure academic freedom, but the internal grievance and appeal are framed instead around victimisation, contractual unfairness or procedural failings, without clearly identifying the underlying free-speech issue. The university responds to that case. Six months later, it simply is not possible to recreate the contemporaneous response the university might have given to a statutory academic-freedom argument that nobody clearly put to it.
There is, of course, plenty CAF can still do if you come to us after an investigation or appeal has concluded. But early involvement gives us the opportunity to understand exactly what is alleged, identify the relevant policy and legal or regulatory issues, preserve the right evidence and help formulate a response that can be built on coherently if the dispute develops.
4 What can CAF do for you?
CAF specialises in academic freedom and freedom of speech in higher education. For cases in England, that means understanding not only the new OfS complaints scheme, but the statutory duties underpinning it and the way they interact with employment law and equality law, including the Equality Act 2010.
Our casework ranges from advising academics and drafting correspondence with universities, to accompanying them as a friend or supporter at internal hearings and appeals, making regulatory interventions and, in the most serious cases, funding specialist legal advice and instructing solicitors to act on an academic’s behalf.
We can assess what has happened, identify the strongest free-speech or academic-freedom issues, help determine the right route and draft the correspondence needed along the way. Where an OfS complaint becomes appropriate, we can help prepare and present a clear, properly evidenced case.
Where a case may ultimately be suitable for the OfS, we can help ensure that the relevant facts, evidence and legal issues are identified from the outset and carried consistently through the correspondence and internal procedures that follow. Where the OfS is not the right route, or where another legal remedy may be stronger, we can help identify that too.
And if CAF is not the organisation best placed to take your case forward, we will not simply send you away. We will give you as much initial guidance as we reasonably can and, where possible, help point you towards trusted lawyers, campaign organisations or other sources of specialist support.
We are not promising to turn every disagreement into an OfS case. Quite the opposite. Our role is to provide specialist triage and continuing support so that problems can be identified and resolved as early as possible. Where that cannot be done, we can help ensure that a case which does need to reach the OfS gets there in the strongest possible form.
You do not need to have completed – or even started – an OfS complaint.
Could the OfS free-speech complaints scheme apply to you?
CAF’s quick and easy-to-use tool will take you through no more than nine questions about your case. At each stage, we’ll explain why the question matters. At the end, you’ll receive an initial indication of whether the OfS scheme may apply, any issues you may need to consider, and when it may be worth contacting CAF.
Understanding the legal framework behind the OfS scheme
If you want to understand the statutory and regulatory framework behind the new complaints scheme, the guide below explains the principal duties that underpin an Office for Students (OfS) free-speech complaint.
It’s important to remember, though, that those duties do not operate in isolation. Depending on the facts, a case may also engage employment rights under the Employment Rights Act 1996, as amended by the Employment Rights Act 2025, and an academic’s contract; protections against discrimination because of religion or belief, harassment related to religion or belief, and victimisation under the Equality Act 2010; or the Prevent duty under section 26(1) of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which relevant higher education providers must discharge with particular regard to their statutory free-speech duties and the importance of academic freedom under section 31(2). Other statutory and regulatory requirements may also be relevant.
You don’t need to work any of this out before contacting CAF. Part of our role is to help identify the legal and regulatory issues relevant to your case, work out the most appropriate route, and, where necessary, fund specialist legal advice or instruct solicitors to act on your behalf.
The statutory duty: securing freedom of speech and academic freedom
Section 1 of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) amended the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA) by inserting sections A1–A3 in a new Part A1. Sections A1 and A2 came into force on 1 August 2025.
Section A1(1) requires the governing body of a registered higher education provider to take “the steps that, having particular regard to the importance of freedom of speech, are reasonably practicable for it to take” to achieve the objective specified in section A1(2): “securing freedom of speech within the law” for the provider’s staff, members and students, and for visiting speakers.
For the purposes of Part A1, “freedom of speech” means “the freedom to impart ideas, opinions or information (referred to in Article 10(1) of the Convention as it has effect for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998) by means of speech, writing or images (including in electronic form)”. In this context, “the Convention” is the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
So far as section A1(2) relates to academic staff, section A1(5) provides that it also includes securing their academic freedom. Section A1(6) defines academic freedom as their freedom within the law “to question and test received wisdom” and “to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions”, without placing themselves at risk of losing their jobs or privileges at the provider, or of a reduction in the likelihood of securing promotion or different jobs there.
How will the OfS decide whether the duty has been breached?
The OfS explains how it will apply these duties in Regulatory Advice 24: Guidance related to freedom of speech (RA24). RA24 refers to the obligations imposed by section A1 collectively as the “Secure Duty”.
The guidance adopts a strongly speech-protective starting point, stating that higher education providers should have “a high tolerance for all kinds of lawful speech” and that there should be “a very strong presumption in favour of permitting lawful speech”. It then sets out the three-step framework the OfS will follow when considering whether a provider has complied with the Secure Duty.
The framework applies to “any measure or decision that might affect speech or types of speech” (para. 22), subject to the exceptional category of speech excluded from Article 10 by Article 17 of the ECHR:
Step 1: Is the speech “within the law”?
If yes, go to Step 2. If no, the duty to ‘secure’ speech does not apply.
Step 2: Are there any “reasonably practicable steps” to secure the speech?
If yes, take those steps and secure the speech. If the provider is nevertheless interfering with the speech in any way, go to Step 3.
Step 3: Are any restrictions “prescribed by law” and proportionate under the European Convention on Human Rights?
What does the OfS framework mean in practice?
Step 1 makes that speech-protective starting point explicit, stating that “[a]ll speech is lawful, i.e. ‘within the law’, unless restricted by law” (para. 27). For these purposes, “law” means law “made by, or authorised by, the state, or made by the courts” (para. 29). It does not include “rules made by a provider or constituent institution through contracts, its own regulations etc.” (para. 27). A provider is therefore not entitled to treat speech as falling outside the Secure Duty because it conflicts with its own policies, values or internal rules.
At Step 3, a contractual term, regulation or code of conduct may constitute “law” for the purposes of Article 10(2) of the ECHR, but only if it has a basis in domestic law and satisfies the requirements of accessibility and foreseeability. In particular, it must be “formulated with sufficient precision to enable the affected person to foresee the circumstances in which the law would or might be applied, and the likely consequences that might follow” (para. 126(c)).
Step 2 gives practical effect to that approach. The requirement to take reasonably practicable steps encompasses both a positive duty to take steps – which may include amending policies or codes of conduct that restrict or regulate speech – and a negative duty to refrain from steps that would restrict freedom of speech within the law. RA24 gives as examples of the latter “not having in place a policy that restricts the range of ideas that may be expressed” and “not cancelling a visiting speaker event because the speaker’s views are unpopular” (paras. 57–58).
Where a reasonably practicable step exists, the provider must take it. RA24 illustrates this by reference to a controversial speaker who has accepted an invitation to deliver a lecture. Permitting the lecture, rather than prohibiting it, is likely to be such a step and, if so, the provider “must permit it so long as the speech is lawful” (para. 60).
Step 3 applies where a provider interferes with lawful speech, including where it has taken reasonably practicable steps to secure the speech but some restriction remains. The factual considerations relevant at Steps 2 and 3 may therefore overlap. Step 3 does not confer a broad residual discretion to restrict lawful speech. Rather, it asks whether the interference is “prescribed by law” and proportionate under Article 10(2) of the ECHR. RA24 states that Article 10 of the ECHR places a “ceiling” on any restriction or regulation that a provider may impose, while the Secure Duty may narrow the permissible scope for restriction still further (para. 19).
RA24 further states that “there is a high bar to interfere with any qualified Convention rights” and that, in practice, “it is difficult to restrict lawful speech” (para. 131). That reflects the Strasbourg Court’s longstanding recognition of the special importance of academic freedom and the university as a site of open intellectual contestation (e.g., Mustafa Erdoğan and Others v Turkey, Apps nos. 346/04 and 39779/04, 27 May 2014).