Free speech complaints
Recommendations
If a complaint is found to be justified or partly justified, we may recommend that the institution you are complaining about does, or refrains from doing, something. We will expect the institution to comply in full.
Our aim is to:
- put you back in the position you would have been in before the circumstances of your complaint occurred, if this is appropriate and possible;
and in addition to a, or as an alternative where a is not appropriate and possible: - ensure that the issues that led to the breach of the free speech duty or any adverse consequences you may have suffered as a result of it are addressed, and therefore decrease the likelihood of a similar situation reoccurring.
The complaints scheme is not aimed at providing financial redress. Where we do recommend compensation for inconvenience and distress suffered, any such compensation is not intended to determine a monetary value for what you have suffered. This aspect of potential recommended compensation is intended to strengthen the institution’s acknowledgement of the adverse consequences that you have suffered.
Combined with any potential recommended compensation for incurred costs and financial loss, and most importantly, any other recommendations that we make, we believe this will represent a meaningful restitution for adverse consequences suffered as a result of a free speech duty breach.
Having understood what our scheme is intended to achieve you should carefully consider whether submitting a complaint is the best option for you.
Types of recommendations
If we decide that your free speech complaint is justified or partly justified, we may make individual recommendations. In some cases, we may also recommend monetary compensation or recommend changes at an institutional level.
These recommendations will not involve financial compensation. Instead, they recommend that the institution does, or refrains from doing, something to make things right for you. For example, this may include:
- making an apology
- correcting a record
- reinstating a talk or research project
- reconsidering a previous decision.
In some cases, we may also recommend monetary compensation. Compensation may be recommended for:
- Inconvenience and distress: We may recommend compensation for inconvenience and distress in proportion to the level of adverse consequences up to a maximum of £5,000. Compensation will not normally be recommended where there are no or only trivial adverse consequences. In exceptional circumstances, we may recommend more than £5,000. This compensation is not intended to place a precise value on the distress you may have suffered, but to reinforce the provider’s acknowledgement of its impact.
- Costs incurred in pursuing your complaint: We may recommend reimbursement of reasonable costs, such as travel to a hearing. We will not normally recommend that a provider contributes to legal costs, but we may make an exception if an institution’s approach to complaints handling (either the internal complaints procedure, or approach to the free speech complaints scheme) is excessively complex or legalistic.
- Financial loss: Exceptionally, we may recommend compensation for financial loss where there is clear evidence that it resulted directly from the free speech issue and the institution’s actions or inactions. We will not generally recommend compensation for financial loss unless there is strong evidence that a specific opportunity was lost as a direct result of the issue.
Any sums we recommend will be determined on a case-by-case basis and will require that you evidence your claims. We will also take into account any sums already recommended or awarded by other organisations or processes, for example as a result of legal action or an internal complaints process.
We may consider that there are structural or sustained issues at the institution, which raise a risk of a similar situation occurring again.
For example, we will consider whether the circumstances of your complaint were caused by an institution’s policy as opposed to, for instance, a set of circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated.
In these cases, we may decide to recommend action at an institutional level. This may include, for example:
- changing a policy
- providing training for staff.
The aim of these institutional-level recommendations is to ensure that your experience is not repeated.
How will we decide what to recommend?
We may consider factors such as:
- our general duties set out in the legislation, and our duty to promote the importance of freedom of speech and academic freedom
- whether a likely breach was a single or repeated issue
- the impact and duration of the consequences
- whether the breach has affected one or multiple people
- the response of the provider, or constituent institution, to the issues being raised initially
- any steps that have already been taken to address the issue, including previous engagement in relation to the freed speech duty
- whether it is possible to put the complainant back in the position they were in before the issue occurred
- whether actions could prevent the issue from occurring again
- whether there were circumstances outside of the control of the provider or constituent institution which aggravated or mitigated the impact.
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