Queen Loses University Role "The Times" June 14, 2000

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June 14 2000 BRITAIN

Queen loses her role as university arbiter

BY DAVID CHARTER, EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT

Appeal to the highest level

THE Queen is to lose her role as the ultimate arbiter of complaints
against many traditional universities, a system dating from medieval
times.
The role of Visitor, which she and other members of the Royal Family
carry out for various universities and Oxbridge colleges, is "doomed",
a conference on student complaints was told yesterday.

Baroness Blackstone, the Higher Education Minister, agreed yesterday
that it was no longer "appropriate" for the Royal Family, dukes and
bishops to act as Visitors for universities. The Queen is Visitor of 17
universities, including Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, as well as
for several Oxford and Cambridge colleges. In practice, petitions
brought by students are dealt with by the Privy Council.

The Duke of Edinburgh is Visitor at the University of Manchester
Institute of Science and Technology and eight colleges at Cambridge,
where he is Chancellor, while Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother is
Visitor at one Cambridge college: Girton. Many Oxford colleges look to
their Chancellor, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, or to the Archbishop of
Canterbury.

Lady Blackstone yesterday welcomed plans by vice-chancellors to consult
on the idea of an independent ombudsman to deal with the growing number
of complaints that cannot be resolved by universities' appeal
procedures.

Speaking at the Quality Assurance Agency conference yesterday, she
added: "It is time for a modern, open, transparent system. She agreed
with Graham Zellick, Vice-Chancellor of London University, who told the
conference that the Visitor system was "doomed".

Asked if the system had fallen into disrepute, Lady Blackstone
added: "Having a whole lot of different figures, some of whom have
connections with higher education, some of whom don't, must lead to
some people asking questions about whether this is any longer a modern,
appropriate way of operating."

Universities are also considering a system of regional appeal panels in
advance of the Human Rights Act becoming law in October. The Act would
introduce a right to trial which, it is widely believed, the Visitor
system would fail.

However, Professor Zellick called for the immediate introduction of a
national ombudsman. "There are various bishops, archbishops, lords,
dukes and others who carry these functions without, I suspect, the
faintest idea of what their real role is," he told the conference.

He also criticised those former polytechnics that insist that their
governing body can hear the final independent appeal. "You cannot have
it both ways. Governing bodies of institutions are not independent of
the institution."

Margaret Beckett, as Leader of the Commons, oversees the complaints
that reach the Privy Council on behalf of the Queen. Alex Galloway,
clerk of the Privy Council, said that his office had seen complaints
rise substantially in recent years. But, as neither he nor the deputy
clerk was a lawyer, he called it "amateur justice".

Appeal to the highest level

One of the most notorious cases brought before the Privy Council on
behalf of the Queen came in the early 1990s, when it upheld Bristol
University's ruling that Francis Foecke must have cheated to gain near-
perfect marks in his 13 mathematics finals. Mr Foecke is waiting for
his case to be heard in the European Court of Human Rights, after
losing a libel case against the university in the Court of Appeal. The
Privy Council has 24 cases pending. It sends successful petitions back
to the university to reconsider. Few cases are decided in favour of the
student and even fewer result in the university changing its decision.
It recently asked a university to hear an appeal against a degree
result on the ground of exceptional personal circumstances. When the
university heard the appeal, it threw it out.

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