Here, we take a look at the role of external companies called into universities to assist in HR matters. B3Sixty is a Human Resources (HR) consultancy firm that focuses on investigations, mediation and resolving workplace issues. The firm is led by senior HR practitioners (usually former HR directors) with backgrounds in Read more…
The Streisand Effect refers to the phenomenon whereby attempts to suppress information instead amplify it. For Barbra Streisand, it arose from a privacy claim over a photograph of her Malibu residence. Image 3850 (shown) of the California Coastal Records Project had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand’s privacy lawsuit, two of those Read more…
During any appointments process, candidates should disclose any current or pending Employment Tribunal proceedings in which they are a party where such proceedings could reasonably be considered relevant to their prospective employment or to the interests of the organisation.
This week, the growth of Human Resources (HR) has been in the news because of a publication from the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange. Its report on the growth of HR has received widespread attention, eg in The Times and BBC Radio 4. The most striking claim is that the Read more…
Dear Editor The Financial Times’ recent ranking of the UK’s “Top 400 Employers” has been greeted with interest and puzzlement. Several results appear curious. For example, the strong performance of organisations facing well-reported financial and governance difficulties or even near-collapse, including the University of Dundee, is striking. The generally high Read more…
This image is taken from the listing of “Fellows of the Colleges” published in The Reporter here on 19 January 2026. Following an investigation by Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor of The Sunday Times, it was admitted that Ann Limb’s claims on her cv that she had an MA and a Read more…
The Financial Times (FT) yesterday provided a list of the top 400 employers here. It is based on a joint survey carried out by themselves and Statista. It placed the University of Cambridge at the very top. Statista is a market research/data aggregator company. Statista itself describes its rankings as Read more…
Dr Bernhard Fulda is a College Teaching Officer (CTO) at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He is also Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of History. In 2023, he applied for a permanent University Teaching Officer (UTO) position in Twentieth-Century German History in the Faculty of History, but was not appointed. (The successful candidate was external to the College system). Read more…
The UK government’s decision to remove the statutory cap on unfair dismissal compensation is one of the most important structural reforms affecting accountability in higher education in a generation. For decades, Universities have operated within a legal framework that placed an upper limit on the financial consequences of unfair dismissal. Read more…
Before 1988, academics in permanent posts in the UK could only be dismissed for serious wrongdoing or failure to perform their duties. This gave them strong protection comparable to tenured professors in North America. The Education Reform Act of 1988 changed this by permitting redundancies on standard ’employment law’ grounds, Read more…