Bullying at University of Leicester:: Office of Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA)

**"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." (Leonardo Da Vinci)**

The above pictures are referred to Robert Behrens (Chief Executive) and Felicity Mitchell (Deputy Adjudicator).

The OIA is defined as follow:

The OIA is an independent body set up to review student complaints.
The service is free for students.
The OIA has the duty to investigate complaints in an impartial approach.

The OIA should investigate complaints that fall in the following list;

Any final decision of the university
A service provided by the university
Teaching and facilities
Student accommodation
Research supervision
Welfare
Discrimination - race, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation or religious belief
Bullying and harassment
Placements
Maladministration
Procedural irregularities
Inadequate supervision/tuition/equipment
Poor communication or misinformation
Unfair practices
Disciplinary matters, including plagiarism
Fitness to practice issues

The OIA does not investigate the following matters;

Admissions
Academic judgment

Student employment
Matters which have already been considered by a court or tribunal and where the
proceedings have been concluded
Matters which are being considered by a court or tribunal where the proceedings have not
been stayed.
Matters which we consider have not materially affected the complainant as a student
Matters which the OIA has already dealt with
We will not normally look at complaints where the main issues complained about took
place more than three years before the complaint is received by the OIA

Is the OIA an independent and impartial body?

There are just too many areas where there are conflicts of interest between the OIA and Higher Education Institution (HEI), for the OIA to be a fair and independent adjudicator.
Furthermore, the OIA plays its part in being misleading in its representation of its performance.
Emerging evidence from a variety of sources, suggests that the OIA is not as independent as it appears when adjudicating between a complainant and an HEI.
Consider my case as clear evidence.

How independent, transparent and fair are the decision-makers at the OIA?

The OIA is entirely funded by the HEI's that a student can complain about!
The OIA, trains HEI's on how to handle complaints, whilst only offering tips on their website to complainants.
Each year the OIA finds approximately 3 in 4 student complaints to be unjustified (75% unjustified complaint). Tests show these results to be a statistically significant figure in favour of HEI's.
The OIA controls which student feedback examples they publish through their own website and in doing so, only publish a small sample of which are picked by the OIA.
The OIA's website feedback presentation creates a misleading picture, not only because it disproportionately presents a greater ratio of positive examples (i.e., given the 3 in 4 complaint failure rate), but potentially disguises what the majority of complainants think about the OIA.
Why are the previous negative feedback comments from complainants being kept hidden from public view instead of being published or otherwise made available to potential complainants or indeed the courts?
Why do the OIA not publish 3 negative feedback comments for every 1 positive feedback comment that they receive, as this would more accurately reflect the pattern of the results created from their decisions, as evidenced by their published results?
How many other negative feedback comments do the OIA receive? What is the nature of those comments?
Every single complainant that we have found who has independently published their feedback regarding the OIA, or who has sent their comments directly to this site has been stinging in their criticism of the OIA.
In particular, it is observed that each of those complainants particularly criticise the OIA for ignoring important evidence; failing to insist that the HEI produces evidence to support its claims and counterclaims; ignoring evidence of malice or dishonesty derived from the way the staff members of that given HEI treated the complainant before and during the OIA involvement and making decisions that do not follow from the evidence but favour the HEI's that fund the OIA.

The problem for complainants with the OIA method of reviewing complaints.

The complaint 'file' system is the principal method used by the OIA for reviewing complaints.
The OIA asks the HEI for a copy of the complaint file, which the HEI would have compiled during their internal handling of your complaint. However, the file's contents are open to manipulation in that the HEI can omit or include any materials it chooses as there are no strict criteria imposed by the OIA. Therefore, the OIA leaves it to the discretion of the HEI, to decide on what materials to include or omit from the file (i.e., clearly it is to a complainant's great disadvantage, the HEI has carte blanche on what materials the HEI can include or omit from the file). Although you may think that there is something you can do about it, actually there is not and even if you could force the HEI into full transparency of all the evidence, the OIA still has the backing of the courts, to use their own discretion to review or ignore any evidence it chooses. The OIA usually chooses to review and ignore materials that allow the OIA to justify supporting the HEI's case and not yours, as you can clearly see about my case and by the OIA 's annual results for reviewing complaints and by the feedback examples that the OIA does not want you to be aware of.

The complaint file system lacks completeness on the merits of the HEI's internal investigation.

The OIA does not require the HEI to substantiate any notes (sometimes handwritten, updated, and/ or unsigned) which are included in the file. They seem content to accept unsupported claims which the HEI make in relation to its defense against your complaint when directly corresponding with the OIA. This means that the HEI can say that it consulted internally about how best to address the complaint and show some superficial notes relating to this, without having to show all of the materials which support your claim, even when there are clear gaps and missing materials that you would expect to see if the HEI had looked at your complaint fairly as it claimed to.

The complaint file system lacks transparency regarding the HEI's audit trail relating to their internal investigation.

Nor do the OIA requires the HEI to disclose a complete list of advisors it claims to have consulted, or the brief given to the advisors or all of the advice received back, or a complete audit trail of what materials the internal advisors were shown and not shown, following any of the advisor's 'advice' or 'comments' that were included in the complaint file.
Furthermore, the OIA makes no insistence that the HEI provides a complete audit trail of materials that show how it came to its internal conclusions about the complaint or the complainant. You can see how easy it is for an HEI to generate a complaint file contents that superficially look like they have made an effort to sort out your complaint when in fact they have arranged the contents of the file to discredit you and/ or your complaint, albeit unfairly.

The complaint file system lacks accuracy by allowing HEI's to attack the character of the complainant without actual evidence.

In addition, the OIA, do not insist that the HEI, only include the materials that it relies upon to defend its position to the OIA, so HEI's, are allowed to include any materials of an irrelevant but derogatory nature towards the complainant, without questions or criticism from the OIA for that material's inclusion or accuracy.

The complaint file system lacks fairness regarding the HEI's audit trail relating to supporting materials for the character attacks on the complainant.

The HEI does not have to submit materials that would support the HEI's claims about what the HEI alleges to have 'come across' regarding the complainant during their internal investigation (e.g., unsubstantiated materials designed to undermine the complainant). This in turn means that the complaint file system becomes a vehicle that is open to abuse, dishonesty, and malice towards the complainant from the HEI staff who choose to behave in that way. This is facilitated by the materials that the OIA allows HEI 's to omit or include without question, particularly from the 'generated' (sometimes unsigned and undated handwritten notes) or 'unsubstantiated' type, which are used to unfairly undermine the complainant.

The problem with the OIA rules and OIA decision making.

The OIA drafted its own rules (with the assistance of Eversheds, a firm of solicitors reputed for representing HEI's), which were based along the lines of deciding on the outcome of a complaint depending on whether the HEI followed its own rules or not when deciding on a complaint internally.
The OIA does this primarily by reviewing the contents of the complaint file and without seeking full disclosure of how the contents were compiled.
Furthermore, as the OIA must realise, there is no independent body deciding on whether the HEI's internal complaint rules are fair to start with.
The OIA has absolute discretion on which individual items of evidence they consider or not when reviewing a complaint.
In light of this unregulated complaint file system, the opportunity for manipulating the complaint file's contents is vulnerable to extreme abuse by HEI's, both in terms of the HEI's claims about its handling of the complaint and about any attacks it chooses to make regarding the complainant's character or motives, both for making a complaint to the OIA and the initial complaint to the University.
The independent multiple negative feedback comments available so far, suggest that this abuse is widespread (See the 'Speak Out if you Dare' Guardian publication, dated 17^thFebruary 2009).
Just as the OIA mislead students who wish to make a complaint to the OIA about their HEI, into believing that the OIA uses a fair and independent process, the OIA misled the WebHost company of this site into removing the domain name from the site owners account and placing it into a newly opened account which the OIA controlled. From there, the OIA then re-pointed the domain name to a page that could access their own website, resulting in this website being down for a period of time.

Conclusions:

The OIA and the HEI 's that fund it, have overlapping interests in not making visible the feedback views of the majority of previous OIA users or in revealing the evidence of how some HEI 's treat some students who make complaints.
In short, the OIA is compiled from individuals with successful careers since graduating, some of whom are former high-ranking HEI staff members whilst others are currently serving.
The HEI 'funded' OIA, drafted its own rules with the assistance of Eversheds, a firm of solicitors reputed for representing HEI's. These rules allow the OIA to exercise the widest possible range of discretion in terms of what evidence it reviews or ignores.
Furthermore, the OIA does not consider academic or professional judgment issues and only considers whether the HEI followed its own rules or not during the internal phase (and most of the time even this aspect is disregarded). This so-called 'review' is conducted through the OIA's principal method of a complaint 'file' system, which has the OIA has been made aware, is open to abuse by HEI's, in that the OIA allows HEI’s to control and manipulate what information is omitted or communicated to the OIA (which can include: - dishonest and fabricated materials) regarding the HEI's claim regarding how it handled the complaint internally, as well as unsupported malice materials aimed at the complainant. The outcome of this remarkable arrangement is that complaints are found to be in favour of HEI's on a statistically significant number of occasions (p<0.05; approximately ¾ of all cases annually).
The OIA refuse to make visible the feedback comments of the majority of complainants, whilst publishing a few examples, which they 'hand' pick, thus a misleading picture of the OIA's role is presented. However, the overwhelming number of feedback examples that have been published independently of the OIA, converge on the same point (i.e., that the OIA ignore the evidence against HEI 's on issues of substance, which in turn can serve to justify decisions in support of HEI's, against the weight of that ignored evidence). This is facilitated through the unreliable contents of the complaint 'file' system, which is an unregulated audit process, in combination with the discretion of the individual decision-making at the OIA.

Do you still think that the OIA is an independent and impartial body?

Well, it is, it is independent of the Law Society because although the majority of complaint reviewers are trained in the law, they are not practicing law and so fall outside of the Law Society's remit, in terms of their conduct as reviewers. Neither is the OIA a public body, so they do not fall under the remit of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), in respect to the 'Freedom of Information Act' and therefore are not required to disclose information about the OIA that they do not wish to disclose to you. A convenient arrangement for the OIA and the HEI's that fund them?

Judgment from the Administrative Court brought against the OIA;

Decisions of the OIA are subject to Judicial Review, but the scope of any Review will be limited and it is unlikely that many claims will get through the permission “filter” stage. The Administrative Court will be “very slow” to interfere with the exercise of judgment leading to a decision that a complaint is Not Justified. "The Court of Appeal also decided that the OIA has a broad discretion to determine the nature and extent of its own reviews".

The above is extracted from the OIA’s web site.
It makes the OIA feeling so confident about their decision taken, in it appears that the OIA itself is protecting Universities from student’s complaints.
There is a large number of judicial reviews but most of these cases have been rejected by the Administrative Court without providing an appropriate trial has it could be expected, my case is one of those.
Questionable, why most of the cases of a judicial review brought by students against the OIA are repeatedly dismissed by the Administrative Court?
Why my case was dismissed despite the evidence in which there is a clear breach of the law?

Cases against the OIA;

Only 13 cases reached the Administrative Court for judicial review against the OIA in front of the thousands of complaints brought against the OIA. Only 2 cases were upheld by the Administrative Court, in front of a large number of cases dismissed or rejected from the Administrative Court's filter system before reaching the court hearing.

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Office of Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA)

"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." (Leonardo Da Vinci)