In the interest of Fairness

Professor Hall has responded to some of the criticisms made of his Kafkaesque blog entry with the following tract of rebuttals:

"Eric states that the right to anonymity does not assume the right to defame. This is my point, which Howard misses by eliding personalised abuse with the right to challenge institutional authority. Decisions on the interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act are made by the Information Commissioner, and not on the interpretation of email comments. Decisions on the boundary between, on the one hand, hate speech, defamation and harassment and, on the other, legitimate public interest are made ultimately by the courts; one of the reasons why this issue needs to be opened up for discussion is so that generally accepted codes of practice can be developed that avoid litigation. I did not criticise the protection of sources by journalists, which is fundamental to press freedom. “Dodgy journalism” here referred to deliberate misrepresentation and abandonment of basic codes of professional practice; since Barry is a lecturer at two universities, he should know such codes of professional practice well. J. Smith casts me as a “benevolent dictator” intent on closing down freedom of speech. It is widely accepted that hate speech, bullying and intimidation close down the public sphere that is essential for freedom of speech; again, my point."

The Social Contract

"And if we are to glimpse a social contract leading neither to tyranny nor to chaos, then I prefer at first to consider it simply as a fraction of a larger delusion. And the Greeks had a word for it: Hubris." - Robert Ardrey, The Social Contract

Professor Hall, having dedicated his until-now quite objective if ultimately rather pointless blog to rather lighter affairs, has finally turned to testing the hypothesis of whether or not he possesses an eloquent back side.


The responses to his self-serving drivel have been far from complimentary. Barry Turner, Lecturer in Media Law and Public Administration at Nottingham Trent University, had this to say:

"The protection of sources is a fundamental ethic in journalism and it is not ‘dodgy’ for journalists to keep sources of information from those who would retaliate, usually in the most spiteful manner. Legitimate criticism is not harassment even if it is repeated over and over again."

Whilst 'J. Smith' - presumably an anonymous posting - went a little further:

"I conclude that the Vice-Chancellor’s article comes off as the work of a benevolent dictator and, in the end, as another assault against freedom of debate. People who are criticized or “attacked” online need to learn that the appropriate thing to do is simply to rebut the criticism. If the claims are not true, that should be easy enough to prove. Give a little credit to readers, too, who are generally intelligent enough to discriminate between pure “nastiness” and legitimate complaints."

All of this has proven a little academic, however (no pun intended). A fellow blogger by the name of Erin Baldwin - who we had never heard of before today's events - has revealed a rather interesting fact. After Hall's high-brow bullshit about the evils of "disaffected individuals with personal grievances who hide behind anonymous blogs and e-mail pseudonyms," it turns out that individuals within his own University are actually doing exactly the thing he is railing against others for.

This might yet be compounded by the on-going legal proceedings to trace the source of anonymous comments left on the Times Higher Education website - themselves libelous and authored by somebody with knowledge of the University of Salford's internal data records.

The Greeks did indeed have a word for it. The Americans have a phrase for what might follow - 'humble pie'.

Where to start?

Professor Hall's lid has finally blown, and today he has thundered during one of his blog-posts about the dangers of internet harassment and libel. We have a sneaking suspicion he might have had certain websites in mind whilst composing his diatribe.

So what did he have to say for himself?

"As a University, we have our own share of cyber-bullies and harassers. They are invariably disaffected individuals with personal grievances who hide behind anonymous blogs and e-mail pseudonyms. They are often neither students or [sic] staff. They make unverifiable claims for mass support (sometimes aided by dodgy journalism) and exaggerated claims to be speaking truth to power, or revealing corruption in the public interest."

Fair enough...

"They misuse rights of access to information through serial claims under false identities."

We presume this might relate to Freedom of Information Requests submitted under false names via the WhatDoTheyKnow website. It is not permitted under the Act to submit requests under false names, and the University were quite right to refuse these. However, there are many requests on the website which were seemingly submitted by genuine requestors, and if the University had any doubts in this regard it is permitted to request proof of identity from the claimant.

"Their postings are peppered with defamatory attacks on individuals which may be xenophobic, sexual or just downright nasty."

Oh dear... Although we hasten to point out that whilst defamation is a civil offence (very rarely a criminal offence), abuse is perfectly legitimate.

"Because these postings are always anonymous, those defamed have no easy recourse. And because of the nature of the internet, these toxic shards hang around for ever, popping up along with the victim's name as a virtual doppelganger."

Oh dear! Although this is slightly misleading since the vessel against which the University (and Hall) are currently bringing libel proceedings (the Rat Catchers of the Sewers blog) has been shut down and is inaccessible to the public.

We hasten to add that District Judge Smith read all of the accusations made against the University, its staff and Professor Hall specifically, in open court. Thus any reporting on it attracts qualified privilege and we would be quite within our rights to repeat on this blog all of the defamatory allegations made against Professor Hall. Some may care to reflect upon that.

Then come the real fireworks:

"an institution (and particularly a University) that acts to defend itself and its staff against defamation and criminal harassment will, in so acting, shut down legitimate criticism."

What's that? Criminal harassment? This being the type that attracts jail terms? Very serious stuff to allege there. Perhaps he's been spending time at the Sir Peter Scott school of law, the latter being a Vice-Chancellor who pissed away well over half a million quid of his University's money trying to bring a criminal case for harassment against a former employee, only to fail miserably.

"To use the argument of free speech to defend actions that so evidently abuse individuals, is a betrayal of the essence of the right to freedom of expression."

See above - there is no criminal or civil law prohibiting verbal abuse of one individual by another.

Whilst we sympathise with the overall thrust of Professor Hall's post, we would draw emphasis to the following:

1) There is a right of reply on this blog. Anybody is open to dispute its assertions or request material be removed or amended. We are amenable to such requests.

2) It may be expedient to call it "dodgy journalism", but material from this blog has been used in national and international publications by renowned journalists. It has filtered in to the legal, Higher Education and the general press. It has been nominated for the George Orwell Prize for Blog Writing and has proven eminently popular since its inception. It cites all the facts upon which it bases its assertions, excepting in instances where those facts may breach the anonymity of the source. It has been accepted as a work of reliable journalism with a public interest focus.

3) The University of Salford have repeatedly broken the law with respect to the Freedom of Information Act. This is not an area of discretion - they have broken the law. This has been acknowledged by the Information Commissioner in writing. It is simply not true to say that all statutory requirements with regards to the publication of information are met or exceeded. It is a statutory requirement to respond promptly to requests - one which has persistently been broken. It is a statutory requirement to provide details of a publication scheme on request - one which was broken.

4) We know that Martin Hall is personally asked to approve refusal notices for Freedom of Information requests. We also know that some of these requests the University have eventually decided (without recourse to the Information Commissioner) are perfectly valid.

5) We know that disclosure is being sought in the High Court against the Times Higher Education for personally identifying data for comments left on news articles, comments which are defamatory and are in breach of the Data Protection Act. We will leave it to the reader to consider the relevance of this to the above.

No work of serious journalism has ever committed social harm - although plenty of social harm has been committed by those who seek to stifle legitimate criticism. The balance between unsupportable fact, and comments based on identified facts, is a fine one - indeed, one on which Courts of Law do not always agree.

There have of course been allegations made against the University of Salford and its staff which a Judge has already ruled are 'arguably defamatory', and we respect that judgement. But such judgement was not levelled against UoS and we take great care to make sure any comment is supported by facts, and that the facts upon which a story is based are reliable and accurate. Most importantly, these facts are accessible to the reader.

Any dispute over this we are happy to listen to representations upon.

Loads-A-Money!

The ever brilliant Salford Star are reporting this week that management at Salford University are throwing other people's money around like there's no tomorrow, handing a staggering £42,362 to the Manchester-based 'community engagement' group, People's Voice Media.

People's Voice Media describe themselves as "a not for profit community development organisation" that specialises "in using social media as a community engagement tool."

Their latest Annual Accounts reveal that People's Voice Media have a total income pushing £600,000 per annum - so why they need another ~£50k from a cash-strapped University, which is itself legally recognised as a charity, is anybody's guess.

Those same Annual Accounts reveal, rather tellingly, that Salford's Professor James Powell is a member of the Board of Directors. They also tell us that the Charity's revenue stream is divided into 'restricted' and 'unrestricted' funds - it would be interesting to try and delineate whether Salford's contribution came with any strings attached.

Whilst we are sure that People's Voice Media undertake commendable work, it is worth noting that not all of this is Salford-centric (indeed much of it is not). But the bigger question surely is whether Salford University's educational objectives - legally enshrined in their Royal Charter - are served by throwing money at community groups? Less we forget, £42k is roughly equivalent to 14 people's tuition fees. Is this - if it were to have been taken from existing budgets - a justifiable diversion from the funding of teaching at a time when University budgets nationally are facing almost impossible overstretch? [edit - see below, there is some debate about the actual source of this money]

If this is any indication of the sort of activities submerged within the murky headings of 'Other Fees and Expenses' in the University of Salford's Annual Accounts, it becomes all the more enticing to learn what other activities moneys are being diverted toward. Time will tell.

[Edit]

A little more research adds a little more confusion in to the mix.

Salford Star are reporting that this money was provided to People's Voice Media as part of "Salford University's Transformation Fund". The only reference we can find to a "Transformation Fund" was one initiated within Peter Mandleson's tenure as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

This was a £20m fund designed to initiate informal adult learning at the community level. BIS's own website describes how just £1m of this was given directly to community engagement groups, with the remaining £19m handed over to the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, who took responsibility for administering a competitive tendering process for the remaining money.

Unfortunately NIACE are describing themselves as both a "Company and a Charity", and neither their Annual Report nor their Financial Statement give any indication of the detailed fate of the £19m.

Salford's own website reveals that a 'consortium' involving the University, People's Voice Media, CSV Media, Salford Arts Theatre, Voice of BME Trafford, Chapel Street Business Group, MediaCityUK Public Sector Partners, the BBC and Peel Media successfully bid for a £300,000 'slice' of the Transformation Fund. The website claims that this came directly from the Government but obviously, in light of the above revelations, it is perfectly possible that it actually came from NIACE administering Government money.

The University's website then goes on to explain "the partners have additionally pledged a further £100,000 from their own resources to support and ensure sustainability of the development."

So is this where the £42k hand over to People's Voice Media comes in? Did the University bid for the £300k devolved Government grant on the pretext of further administering it to community groups, this being the source of the £42k? Have the University simply 'passed on' a restricted grant or is this indicative of their pledge to match the grant with their own resources?

Of course, all of this could be answered by a Freedom of Information Request - but we know how Salford University feels about those.

Taking Information Seriously

Remarkable revelations on Freedom of Information website 'WhatDoTheyKnow' today as the University of Salford gave us an indication of the sort of information requests they believe "lack any serious purpose or value".

Yes, the primary question the Information Commissioner expects a public authority to consider when considering applying the Vexatiousness exception to Freedom of Information Requests is that of whether or not the request lacks any serious purpose or value.

And so in response to two FoI requests recently submitted to them, the University thought nothing of applying the Section 14(1) exception when asked to provide information about the Procurement of Legal Services and Incidents of Bullying and Abuse by SLT Members.

How a public authority could make the deduction that the procurement of legal services, or allegations of bullying or abuse against their own Strategic Leadership Team, lack any serious purpose of value seems to defy conventional wisdom.

Departing for pastures new

Whilst junior staff at the University of Salford's Business School may struggle to contain their devastation, others might well have a glint of pride in their eyes at today's announcement that Professor John Wilson - Head of the Business School - will be departing from the largely impoverished concrete jungle that is Salford in order to take up a new post at, urm, the largely impoverished concrete jungle that is Glasgow.

Yes, Professor Wilson will henceforth be known as Executive Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the School of Business, Law and Social Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University.

As you'd expect, news of his departure prompted a stream of "land of milk and honey" commentary from the University's top brass, with Professor Hall providing this gushing praise:

"This is an excellent promotion for John and I am very pleased for him and wish him every success in his new role."

And then the real cracker:

"Thanks must go to him for his leadership of the Salford Business School and the energy he has shown in building the school's reputation."

Perhaps by "leadership" and "reputation" this is referring to terrible staff morale and a collective sense of ire which probed championship heights, such that even the notoriously disclosure-averse Martin Hall was forced to agree to an independent inquiry - the full results of which are still being collectively policed by the University and the Unions for fear that its less than positive revelations might spill in to the public domain.

Or perhaps he is referring to the eight-month suspension of a member of staff? Or the confiscation of staff PCs in response to claims of damning evidence against management being stored on them? Or the on-going libel claim being brought in the High Court (in which Professor Wilson is one of the named claimants)?

On that note, we wish Professor Wilson the best of luck too...

Freedom of Information

When they're not busy instructing solicitors to issue libel proceedings against former employees, another activity pursued by some at the University of Salford is to totally cock up the handling of Freedom of Information requests.

The Office of the Information Commissioner has now spent upwards of seven months investigating the University of Salford's application of Section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act (exemption on the grounds of vexatiousness), which they have so far used as the basis for refusing to supply great swathes of information ranging from the activities of senior management, to a more detailed breakdown of the expenditure contained within the sub-headings of the Annual Accounts (including the much loved £297,000 of 'Household Expenditure' declared in last year's accounts).

So why has there still been no movement on disclosure? For the simple reason that the University of Salford's reasoning for its application of Section 14 is one of the most convoluted yet conceived.

They are not arguing that the requests are vexatious - they are, in fact, arguing that the requests have only been submitted because a group of individuals have been in collusion, trying to think up dastardly ways of diverting the University's precious resources (presumably away from things like 'Household Expenditure') in order to meet the costs of compliance.

How did they arrive at such a fantastical notion? Well, apparently, because the requests were submitted over a period of months (described by the University as a "short period of time"), this is proof that the requestors MUST have colluded...

This line of argument has been somewhat complicated by Matthew "Accident" Stephenson's revelation in Freedom of Information correspondence that the University are treating requests from specific individuals as vexatious, in spite of the fact that the Information Commissioner's guidance on the application of Section 14 explicitly states that:

"It is the request and not the requestor that must be vexatious in order for the exception to apply."

So where is all of this likely to lead? It is hard to see how this fantastical application of Section 14 could possibly succeed, especially as the Information Commissioner very rarely grants applications for exemption under this rule even when the arguments in favour are ostensibly quite strong.

What the University of Salford may not have realised is that witholding details about expense accounts will inevitably give rise to the question of whether or not they contain impropriety. The legal position does not look at all encouraging - as this recent test case between a requestor and the Cabinet Office, which tried to apply the Section 14 exemption, seems to confirm.

As we look ahead to the new year, it will be interesting to see how these crucial events unfold. The expense accounts, the position of Ian Austin as Chair of Audit and the unfolding libel case over the Rat Catchers of the Sewers Blog might drown out the University's grand ambitions for MediaCityUK.