Katherine Griffiths‘ article in Bloomberg has reignited press interest in bullying & harassment at UK Universities.
The 21 Group has zero sympathy with the predicament of Oxford University. They should have acted on the earlier allegations in al Jazeera’s series ‘Degrees of Abuse‘. They didn’t. It’s no surprise to us that the problem has returned.
We also know that there are more cases of sexual harassment pending at Tribunals, and — shamefully — there are more victims being pursued by Oxford University’s hyper-aggressive lawyers. We look forward to these stories breaking.
We will break them ourselves, if need be.
The 21 Group works with MPs of any party to end bullying & harassment at universities. Given the revelations at Oxford University, we applaud Layla Moran, the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, for her proactive stance. She is reported here as seeking answers from Vice Chancellor Irene Tracey over the never-ending sexual abuse cases.
By contrast, the MP for Oxford East, Anneliese Dodds, has maintained a conspicuous silence, despite being a former female academic and a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College.
We have written to Layla Moran MP thus:
Dear Layla Moran MP
We are writing in light of the recent revelations of entrenched sexual harassment at Oxford University. These incidents are not isolated, nor are they surprising. Across many UK universities, misconduct and outright violations of the law are allowed to flourish because the systems meant to prevent abuse are designed to protect institutions — not people.
We applaud your strong stance on these matters, as reported in Bloomberg. The Vice Chancellor of Oxford should be pressed to explain why her institution did nothing effective over earlier abuse allegations (for example, the harassers exposed in Al Jazeera’s ‘Degrees of Abuse).
At Cambridge, we have witnessed firsthand that behind the glossy PR statements and empty commitments to change, the university’s real priorities are simple: secure student fees, research overheads and donor money while shielding its own reputation at any cost.
Do not be taken in by empty promises of reform from Vice Chancellors. These are not steps toward accountability; they are cosmetic gestures meant to pacify scrutiny. Our universities — especially Oxford and Cambridge — have a long record of defending its senior, predominantly male, staff while deploying public money on high-priced lawyers, gagging orders, non-disclosure agreements and reputation managers. The so-called complaints procedures are not mechanisms for justice; they are instruments for burying problems.
The reality is clear: internal systems will never hold themselves to account. What is urgently required is an entirely independent supervisory authority and a legally enforceable right for students and staff to speak out without retaliation.
We are campaigning for an external Ombudsman to take over the investigation of serious abuses in Universities. It is part of a series of changes needed to ensure proper governance structures in UK Higher Education.
Thank you for your strong stand on these matters
Prof Wyn Evans for the 21 Group
We encourage all Cambridge victims to contact our MP, Daniel Zeichner. We will be writing to him with details of some of the serious abuses that have occurred at Cambridge University over the last few years.
Let us strike while the iron is hot.
56 Comments
GreenMan · 24 November 2025 at 19:27
There are ~30 MPs who used to be academics, many Labour and elected for first time in 2024
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/will-uks-new-academic-mps-help-fix-higher-education
This Govt has done next to nothing for Higher Education. Bullying & harassment is a cross-party issue, it should be easy enough for Anneliese Dodds MP to speak up.
If Labour MPs in University seats won’t act, the 21 Group should contact their opponents. Recent polls show the Greens breathing down the necks of both Dodds and Zeichner.
Magdalen(e) · 24 November 2025 at 19:53
Great work taking the lead. We need complete solidarity with our colleagues at Oxford and to pool resources and networks to secure justice for scholars facing harassment and abuse. Their fight is our fight: The struggle to end sexual misconduct, retaliation against whistleblowers, abuse of vulnerable students or scholars, and above all, longstanding systems of redress that have been shown to favour secrecy over transparency, wealth over decency, and which have failed, time and time and time again, to uphold fairness and justice for all. Next stop: Westminster.
SPARTACUS · 24 November 2025 at 20:23
The problem at UCam(and almost for sure at UOx) is that the most serious bullying and unlawful acts are not committed by non-oligarchy individuals! No! The most serious bullying and the most egregious unlawful acts are committed by the institution itself! This is what makes it so scandalous and so dangerous! These Universities are worst than the Post Office and VCs are the new Paula Vennells! Deborah Prentice MUST GO! With her the whole top management! The Chancellor needs to act!
Iron Lady · 24 November 2025 at 20:27
Time to end the old boy’s club. This is a cross party issue and I bet plenty of MPs have their own experience of it firsthand
JJ · 24 November 2025 at 20:38
At UCam, I certainly agree that the Director of HR and the pro Vice Chancellor for Community and Engagement have lost the confidence of swathes of the University. It’s difficult to see how they can continue for much longer, especially as things are getting worse.
How deep is the Vice Chancellor in the gumbo? She seems barely engaged with anything in the University. So she probably has next to no idea what is going on and relies on reports from the proVC.
IMAGINARY · 24 November 2025 at 20:51
“How deep is the Vice Chancellor in the gumbo? She seems barely engaged with anything in the University. So she probably has next to no idea what is going on and relies on reports from the proVC.”
Answer: being the American Queen is no excuse! Being CLUELESS does not exonerated you! Protecting a corrupt Head of HR and rogue characters like Prof Smallman, Prof Teflon, Prof Crookery, Prof Drinkalot and Prof ViciousWoman is a total dereliction of care! Prentice out!
FreeComment · 24 November 2025 at 21:45
How can VC not be aware when almost every other member of the university knows what is going on
No one in a global place of learning can be that dedicated to the pursuit of ignorance and somehow succeed
Jay · 24 November 2025 at 22:10
She’s like a princess living out a fairy tale.
Snow White and the Seven Pro Vice Chancellors ?
Doc · 24 November 2025 at 22:44
My god that is genius! And just like the real Disney Land, the way this place actualy runs is no fairytale…
TheResearcher · 24 November 2025 at 22:17
To be clear, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice is at the very least aware of my situation. Even if she did not read the correspondence sent directly to her by me and others about my situation, including whistleblowing disclosures, safeguarding referrals based on detailed medical evidence and a formal representation under Statute AIX—which she is expected to review and did not do it yet—the Senior Tutor of our College confirmed to me in writing that he met her and that she does not accept my allegations. But guess what, no one managed to show that the evidence I submitted was incorrect or misleading. The data I sent was simply ignored. I asked to be present in these meetings, and the request was ignored.
I will be writing to Daniel Zeichner MP tomorrow. Please consider doing the same as this circus needs to stop ASAP. Hopefully, Prof. Prentice will have the opportunity to explain to MPs what exactly she does to address the degrading state of UCam, namely when it comes to the systematic and organised retaliation against whistleblowers and others who report misconduct in the University she is responsible for.
WeAreFine · 24 November 2025 at 23:00
I recommend taking a look at Michaelmas All Staff Meeting on SharePoint. It isn’t reassuring
Chair: “And Debbie, as we’ve got you, questions have been asked, referring back to, to the recent post, we updated the university on senior leadership positions at the university and the question asks, and this is one for you, is the senior leadership under stress noting the message that was recently posted.”
VC: “I mean, we have some vacancies.
So in that sense, the people, you know, there are people are people are shouldering the load of, of people who are out.
We’re down at PVC.
We’ve, you know, had, had some vacancies.
I, I, so yes, there’s, I would say there’s stress in the system in that sense.
It’s not, it’s, it’s manageable and we have interim arrangements in place and, you know, people have stepped up and we’re being very careful to not burn out the people who are in fact stepping up and stepping in.
I mean, it’s like, it’s like all over the university, right?
But I, I, I need to emphasise that, that actually the, the, the, we’re not in crisis or anything like that.
I mean, I, I think we’re, we’re, we’re fine.
We’re all working very hard.
We’re running a search now to, to fill the vacant PVC position.
We will eventually hire a, a new CFO, but it’s important to get these to sequence the, the positions right, to get the, the right descriptions in, to get the structure of the organisation right as you’re doing it.
I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s administrative things like that, that were the, the, the reason for the decision not to move forward with the CFO position at this time.”
Chair: Thank you for that.
TheResearcher · 24 November 2025 at 23:19
“We’re all working very hard”
This reminds me her answer in BBC Private Passions a few months ago when she was asked about her salary (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002jfys). Her answer was that she was well paid but worked very very hard, to which the broadcaster answered “I am sure you do!”
Obvi · 25 November 2025 at 08:06
Well if she’s due to appear for cross examination in court then methinks she’s definitely aware of at least one case. There’s simply no way she hasn’t asked her legal chief – how many of these goddam cases are there and who’s responsible?
Jay · 25 November 2025 at 08:27
Wicked Queen (Disguised as University Legal): Oh, dear … such a tired face. You’re looking wan. Perhaps you are working too hard? Surely a bite of this apple will brighten your cheeks.
Snow White: I am tired. I’m down a Pro Vice Chancellor and a Registrar. I do work so hard. The apple does look delicious. You’re very kind to offer it.
Wicked Queen: Kindness is all I have. Go on — just one bite.
Snow White: (She hesitates, then smiles politely) Thank you, good lady. I’ll take it.
Wicked Queen: (Voice tightening with hidden glee) Yes, yes — take it. A gift from my heart to yours.
Snow White: (Lifts the apple, admiring its gleam) It’s perfect … almost too perfect.
Snow White: (Laughs softly.) Very well. Just one bite—
terms and conditions · 25 November 2025 at 08:43
“how many of these cases are there and who’s responsible?”
“YOU ARE”
“THAT’S YOUR JOB”
Anon · 25 November 2025 at 09:05
“I need to emphasise that, that actually the, the, the, we’re not in crisis or anything like that… We will eventually hire a, a new CFO, but it’s important to get these to sequence the, the positions right, to get the, the right descriptions in, to get the structure of the organisation right as you’re doing it. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s administrative things like that, that were the, the, the reason for the decision not to move forward”
Sounds like cross-examination is going to be a train wreck. What are they hiding? Surely it cannot just be the money being burned in the attempt to quash whistleblowers? Or is there off-balance-sheet spending on things like the MyHR fiasco, consultancy contracts, construction companies, travel and related goodies? If they are asking us to cut back on teaching hires then I think we need better answers that this.
Regent · 25 November 2025 at 10:41
These are all reasonable lines of inquiry based on what is known to date, but if there is any desire to end such guesswork, the simplest response must be to open up the books to show nothing is amiss. Otherwise it simply feeds the rumour mill while continued opacity and vagueness only fuels it further.
Anon · 25 November 2025 at 13:48
Did an external auditor sign off on the accounts? Correct me if wrong but I thought standard operating procedure to have this.
Lawyer · 25 November 2025 at 09:22
My thoughts exactly. She is used to deferential, softball interviewers.
“Can you tell us a bit about your background? How does it feel to reach this high point in your career? What excites you most about the future?”
And tbh, even these are a bit of a struggle for her.
OurBoxingCorrespondent · 25 November 2025 at 16:46
Snow White and Nurse Emily
Were quarrelling—what a sight!
Emily barked, Snow White snapped,
Both bristling for a fight.
Then Snow White spun—a twirl and swirl—
And with a powerful punch!
She knocked Nurse Emily clean away,
Down she went with a crunch.
OurLegalCorrespondent · 25 November 2025 at 23:13
The new CFO was to have the Finance Division report directly to her. But this is at variance with the Statutes & Ordinances where the Registrary controls the Finance Division. It looks as though the new arrangements might be construed as amounting to the constructive dismissal of Registrary (or at least altering Terms of Employment). So they had to be paused.
Now look at what the VC said: “We will eventually hire a, a new CFO, but it’s important to get these to sequence the, the positions right, to get the, the right descriptions in, to get the structure of the organisation right as you’re doing it.”
The endpoint of this story is obvious.
TheResearcher · 25 November 2025 at 23:58
But there are not enough reasons to sack the Registrary yet? How is that even possible? Cambridge is burning, Ms Rampton is the “principal administrative officer,” but she has nothing to do with it? Oh wait, that would require that the senior management would have to assume that Cambridge is indeed burning. Let’s instead pretend that it is not and move on!
Hmm · 26 November 2025 at 07:06
What I don’t get is how they are perfectly happy to engage in acts of constructive dismissal of people trying to uphold accountability at the university (as per MacKenzie case widely discussed) as well as totally fabricated internal charges too – but suddenly get all uppity whenever it comes to holding someone to account who has genuinely ballsed up
MrUppity · 26 November 2025 at 07:55
” ..suddenly get all uppity whenever it comes to holding someone to account who has genuinely ballsed up”
I think Our Legal Correspondent is saying that they are of this view too, but they need to take care that what they are about to do is legally watertight.
MUSKETEER · 26 November 2025 at 09:51
Disarray at the top! UCam oligarchy in what appears to be fraternicyde infighting. Only one solution now: complete clearing of the top leadership!
jj · 26 November 2025 at 10:34
Sororicide, no?
Dogwaggler · 26 November 2025 at 11:05
If they have switched from scapegoating whistleblowers to scapegoating an insider that is definitely an improvement. But it still leaves the issue of who knew what and when – and if not, why not?
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 11:57
I think there are two elements that need to be in place to turn the organisation around.
I think the first element is proof that when the organisation makes an employment error like it did in the case of Dr Catherine MacKenzie that it is willing to correct its error and deliver any effective remedy made available to the person by the courts in that situation. When an unfair dismissal is scrutinised in the courts and a reinstatement/re-engagement is recommended as a remedy this implies that the unfair dismissal is substantive i.e. the person should not have been fired and not procedural i.e. the organisation got the dismisssal process wrong but the decision to dismiss the person was the right one. If the organisation is not further contesting that judgment in the courts, what was then the basis of not complying with the re-engagement order.
It’s not possible to rely on the breakdown of trust and confidence in that situation because the person is asking for a reinstatement/re-engagement which means that the breakdown is not irretrievable on their side and they are the wronged party based on the judgment. This means that it is possible that trust and confidence could be restored if the organisation improved its treatment of the person. It is possible that the relationship between the person and the organisation could be restored. It is also possible that the re-engagement doesn’t work and the person leaves in a controlled manner with whatever remedy is judged suitable at the time. If the organisation never tries to re-engage it will never know if the breakdown in trust and confidence was irretrievable. In making that remedy option available, which is a rare event, the judge is giving the judgment that if the organisation remedied the employment error in that way it is possible that trust and confidence could be restored and the working relationship could then continue on in future with any further problems. If the organisation complies with the re-engagement order then it has done everything it can to deliver an effective remedy in that situation.
Catherine MacKenzie has already done all the legal work, the case has been through the established channels so the organisation could start working on something more positive straight away – fixing the mistakes that have already been through the courts and where everyone can have confidence that all interests including the organisational and public interest have already been weighted in offering the remedy to the person in that situation. This is a chair of the board of scrutiny doing something for the organisation, showing everyone in the organisation they won’t be alone in should they experience an employment errors, there will be others also working to maintain the organisation in a state where it is less likely to make employment errors going forward. There will be people identifying effective remedies in different situations and doing everything in their power to get one. This is then the organisation doing something for the person in return, delivering an effective remedy in the situation.
I think the second element that needs to be in place is more complex. I think the organisation needs to be able to trust that if someone in the organisation raises a work-related stress health and safety concern that the person has respect for their own health and the health of others, that if the organisation takes action to regulate work-related stress in that high-risk situation and is fair and reasonable to the person that this will be reciprocated. The organisation needs to trust that a person in this situation is capable of conditional forgiveness, the conditions being reciprocal acknowledgement of mistakes made, reciprocal fairness and reasonableness in the situation and that the person will not suddenly turn around and start taking legal action that is unfair and unreasonable in that situation and put others in the organisation in their own high-risk situations.
If the organisation unintentionally put someone in a position they shouldn’t have been put in and that leads to the organisation being put in a position that it shouldn’t have been put in, the organisation needs to trust that the person raising the health and safety concern does have health as their primary concern and that concern is not limited to their own health it extends to health of others in the organisation. I think the important thing to understand here is that the longer a high-risk situation goes unresolved the more emotional pain that it generates and in some cases a close to infinite pain spike can be generated. It is possible to close a close to infinite pain spike but it’s very difficult and this is what someone could have to do to forgive an organisation in one of these high-risk situations. Forgiveness is a much more difficult and complex action that you would think especially when it comes to forgiving an organisation. I could give unconditional forgiveness to Cambridge because that option is available to me in this situation and whilst I think this would relieve some of the organisational pressure and that would have a positive impact for the health of people in the organisation short term I think it would have a detrimental impact for the health of people in the organisation in the longer term. I think a better proof of the fact that people are not alone in the organisation in these high-risk health situations would be to make forgiveness conditional. Conditions such as :
The university complying with its outstanding re-engagement order and delivering an effective remedy in that case. That organisational action would restore the integrity of both the grievance processes and the concerns processes and kickstart of a culture of delivering effective remedies in a situation and fixing significant employment problems should they occur. It would also restore the integrity of the concerns process because it would be an admission that the safest organisational way to block the judicial review would have been to acknowledge the problem that was generating the concerns – an effective remedy was not given – despite that not being the basis of the application for the judicial review and to move to re-engage when the application for judicial review was made.
All the organisational pain has already been incurred in this case so this case involves a reduction in organisational pain, an effective remedy to a situation is finally being delivered, the organisation can work together on something positive that will improve the health of the organisation and the health of people in the organisation in future.
The cultural shift is one of respecting your own health and the health of others in an organisation in any high-risk situation that emerges in the organisation. The need to protect organisational health places limits on how fast the organisation can deliver effective remedies. If people can trust that an effective remedy will be delivered at some point in time I think that will make it possible for people to accept that organisational speed is limited by the need to protect the health of staff so the organisation can stop generating new cases & ensure that the existing cases are dealt with as quickly as possible. As the cultural shift kicks in health in the organisation will improve and the organisation will pick up pace in delivering effective remedies in the situations that have already emerged and preventing new situations from emerging.
Help will emerge from all over the organisation, all levels, Cambridge people won’t give up just because a problem is difficult and challenging, they are capable of stepping up in a complex learning challenge, the only difference in this situation is that they need also to protect their own health in the difficult and challenging situation so as not to generate any further problems for the organisation whilst it deals with the existing ones. Some cases could be going through courts, the speed of the legal processes will place a further limit on the rate at which effective remedies can be delivered.
As a result of what was done in the Catherine MacKenzie case it was clear to me that the standard grievance and concerns processes were temporarily not an option because there was an organisational processes integrity breach, I could see the risks generated by how that case was handled, so I went to the health and safety regulator in that high-risk health and safety situation because that is the organisation I feel safest in dealing with in any high-risk health and safety situation – that was the organisation with the highest probability of getting an effective response right in that high-risk health and safety situation right. I feel safe dealing with health and safety regulators, mistakes might be made but those mistakes won’t be intentional, you can trust that a health and safety regulator will correct any mistakes it makes and learn from any mistakes it makes. It was the best regulator response, the most human regulator response but it was also the most constrained regulator response, it is a regulator that has to be sure of its response and these high-risk situations and this is something that takes time to get right.
Having made these statements about the health and safety regulator I personally think Cambridge is capable of regulating its own internal affairs, it is capable of high levels of organisational self-regulation. It is possible to internally self-regulate and be transparent with national regulators about what is done to fix a problem. When I look at the combination of Catherine MacKenzie’s and Wyn Evan’s actions from the University Board of scrutiny, it’s clear that the university is trying very very hard to internally regulate on employment and on work-related stress health and safety – to restore integrity in the organisational grievance and concerns processes – but that the blockage to restoring organisational integrity is the non-compliance with the re-engagement order in the case of Dr Catherine MacKenzie, a blockage the university itself could remove with any further external legal process because that employment situation has already been checked in the courts. The Board of Scrutiny is on the very cusp of restoring organisational integrity here – performing its role for the university – at which point the university is back on track and can start dealing with it’s backlog of cases and delivering effective responses.
This is nothing like the post office. Had I been in the post office I would have looked at Paula Vennells and it would not have been clear to me whether there was a problem with the leader or there was an organisation fault. To be sure there was an organisational fault I would have wanted to see a change of leadership to compare the organisational handling of the problem before and after that change to establish there was an organisational fault.
In that situation, where there was a query over organisational criminal prosecutions which generates a reciprocal risk for the organisation of an organisational criminal prosecution I would have wanted someone in that leadership role with a background in the criminal justice system and not marketing because those working in the criminal justice system understand the importance of presenting the facts as accurately as possible as they have already done all the learning in how to handle life-altering process. Those working in marketing have a different skillset, they understand how to make something look good enough to get it sold to the public, they look for leeway in representation, which if you are dealing with something like the newest fashion craze has very little real impact on peoples lives but if you are dealing with criminal prosecutions that is a disaster because it can lead to long delays in handling life-altering processes. If there was a query over organisational prosecutions I would have accepted the risk of going to jail to get the right leader in place to resolve the query over the prosecutions and restore the integrity of the organisational prosecution processes because that is the only way to minimise the risk of all the people impacted going to jail unnecessarily in that situation.
The Cambridge case is completely different because the organisation is not sending 100s of people to jail, a reciprocal criminal prosecution risk is not then at play, a reciprocal work-related stress regulation risk is what is at play. Cambridge is struggling with a completely new type of organisational regulation, work-related stress regulation, because it is genuinely difficult to get that type of organisational regulation in place in an organisation and working in every individual case. Cambridge is always lead by academics, academics understand the importance of presenting facts are accurately as possible so it doesn’t have that problem with its leader. In Cambridge it was clear that the problem wasn’t with the leader and that there was an organisational fault at play without having to see another leader in the role but now having seen two in the role it’s even clearer there is an organisational fault.
The post office could prosecute people and put them in prison without the police. I wouldn’t have worked under Paula Vennells in that particular organisation in that particular role whereas I might have worked under Paula Vennells in another organisation e.g. a charity in another role, that is no disrespect to Paula Vennells because the post office is surprising complex as an organisation and that was just the wrong organisation at the wrong time for Paula Vennells to have held that particular role in. That organisation had an unusual set of powers and there were an unusual set of organisational risks in it and the consequences of getting things wrong can then be both unpredictable and extreme. I have never met Deborah Prentice but the one thing I would say is that if you make an effort to understand Princeton Culture then the fact Princeton put this person in positions of responsibility and left them in those positions for long periods of time means something. It means this person cannot be compared with Paula Vennells. It is highly unlikely that they share the characteristics that are really going to make a difference in dynamically handling one of these organisational fault situations in an optimal way to restore integrity at the organisational level.
The situation in Cambridge is completely different to either the post office or Dundee University because to analyse the organisational fault requires breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough in thinking about the problem in order to work out how it could be fixed. The whole organisation is having to generate parts of the solution from within. I was internally funded by the organisation and it’s that combination of encountering one of these high-risk situations and realising there is an organisational problem to be probed and fixed, having a legal obligation to do something to fix that problem and having been internally funded by the organisation to do something useful for society that is generating one part of the organisational solution. There were many people in Cambridge who did care about what happened to me and I care about what happens to them. This was another fact that made it clear that I was dealing with an organisational fault. At one stage I had two Senior tutors who cared and two heads of House who cared which just goes to show that the integrity of the colleges grievance and concerns processes could be in tact but this is not necessarily sufficient to restore the integrity of the university grievance and concerns processes if they are really blocked like they currently are.
If a chair of the board of scrutiny goes to the effort of getting their employment checked in the courts to ensure an independent judgement of any errors in their own employment is made and comes back with a reinstatement and/or re-engagement order that the university is not contesting I don’t see how HR/Legal/Registrary has the option of saying no to a Chair of the Board of Scrutiny on their choice of an effective remedy made available to them in the courts in that situation, they have selected a re-engagement remedy and the court agrees that is appropriate in the situation so the organisation is now complying with that order and looking at its organisational employment processes to see how that happened.
I think what may have happened is that how HR/Legal/Registrary treated this like any other individual employment case and failed to appreciate the potential impact of how that particular employment case was handled on the wider organisation. An error like that could mean that they lost sight of the fact that this is a person in the organisation whose role it is to scrutinise the operation of the organisation which includes employment processes. It’s not then a decision for council, it’s not a decision for Regent House, it’s not a decision for HR/Legal/Registrary as this person is a member of the Board of Scrutiny so they have already had their training in holding the organisation to account and the courts have checked their independent analysis of the situation to make sure its correct. All conflicts of interest – individual, organisational & public interest – have already been weighed in determining the range of remedies available so it’s up to this person to select one. The role of HR/Legal/Registrary in this situation is to listen to the member of the Board of scrutiny on the remedy and to work with the head of department on the organisational re-engagement. Council is kept informed, Regent house is kept informed but neither are taking decisions in relation to that particular situation.
The Board of Scrutiny is independent of council, it’s independent of Regent House, it’s role is to pick up any errors being generated in the organisation. A member of the Board of scrutiny went to the courts to hold the university to account on errors in its employment processes, they have identified both problems with the grievance processes and the concerns processes and problems with a department applying a probationary process. It’s an administrative problem – Registrary, HR, Legal. The organisation should never have been put in that position. How is anyone on the board of scrutiny supposed to scrutinise anything in the organisation when it is working in conditions where an unfair dismissal would not be rectified at the end of a court process? This doesn’t work, the organisation should never have been put in this position. If Registrary/HR/Legal want to deny the re-engagement in this case – since what is being scrutinised relates to them – the university has to contest the remedy through the courts – employment tribunals and then out to judicial review. I don’t see how a judicial review could be blocked in that case. If an organisation has got itself in this position that is the only way out of is through the courts, Registrary/HR/Legal cannot block the re-engagement internally and they can’t refer it to Council or Regent House for decisions.
That the ultimate responsibility falls on the leader of an organisation is a reasonable assumption in most cases but sometimes it falls on Registrary/HR/Legal and not the leaders because Registrary/HR/Legal get themselves and the whole organisation into a position that the leaders cannot get them and the whole organisation out of and that no one but Registrary/HR/Legal themselves can get themselves and the whole organisation out of. Catherine MacKenzie was there to rescue them from that situation at any stage, that was their barrister/chair of the board of scrutiny to the rescue option. That was their option to turn the organisational tables, to make it clear to the head of department that the university won’t put up with unlawful employment practices in the department because if the university does put up with unlawful employment practices from a department all it will get is more unlawful employment practices emerging in that same department and that will increase Registrary/HR/Legal workload and also burn the organisational resources that Registrary/HR/Legal are in charge of administering. Registrary has control of the university chest.
If Department/Registrary/HR/Legal were confident in the administration of the organisational employment processes then they had to go into a court and defend the organisation from an unfair dismissal claim by a chair of the Board of Scrutiny and if they can’t do this then they just have to accept that a chair of the Board of Scrutiny is the one telling the organisation what to do in that situation. It is clear that Catherine MacKenzie was chair the Board of Scrutiny in July 2013, and then in Dec 2013 was unfairly dismissed, three months notice – decision is being taken in September 2013 – it is likely the employment processes that lead to the unfair dismissal started running while in that role as chair of the board of Scrutiny.
It starts off a Department/Registrary/Legal problem, the department controls approval of probation, the Registrary controls accessing the finance necessary to get legal advice and the head of Legal controls the legal advice necessary to ensure that accessing the finance for legal advice is legal. Initially it’s not a HR problem but the longer that situation persists the more stress that accumulates in the organisation and at some point that generates a safeguarding problem and then the head of HR as the safeguarding lead is also dragged in to the problem. At which point another member of the Board of Scrutiny Wyn Evans starts trying to offer a fundamentally different type of rescue option to Registrary/Legal/HR but they also won’t listen to him and now he too is off to the courts. Wyn Evans is on the board of Scrutiny, I think he and the Board of Scrutiny have a key role to play here in determining what to do in this situation. Something has gone wrong in the organisation and everyone impacted by that needs to be treated fairly and reasonably by the organisation including the Registrary/head of Legal/head of HR team themselves and that doesn’t seem to be happening with the current Registrary/head of Legal/head of HR team in place in the organisation.
The organisational fault is in place before the pandemic which means the organisation goes into the pandemic without any effective regulation of employment processes, the leads to an accumulation of stress in the organisation and the emergence of the safeguarding fault at which point work-related stress regulation is recognised as important enough for regulators to create a new health and safety legal obligation to regulate it and the organisation is the dealing with an organisational health and safety regulation problem.
Something that might not be immediately obvious in these high-risk situations is that if a person is asking other people to really care about in one of them and that is what it means to ask for help in one of these high-risk situations – really caring, really paying attention to detail – then that is creating a reciprocal obligation to care about the other people being asked for help. If someone is asking people to care for them in one of these situations and are unable to recognise any reciprocal obligation to care for others in that high-risk situation then they are asking to set up a caring arrangement that is comparable to that which exists between a patient and a medical professional.
If I approach my MP and ask them to really care about what is happening to people, then I have to really care about what happens to my MP as a person. That doesn’t mean I have to stop holding them to account because that is a core part of that role or that I need to vote re-elect my MP because an MP can lose in an election and go on to even greater success, but I have to really care about what happens to my MP as a person. It’s that same reciprocal care obligation that enables organisations to cope in the full range of bullying/harassment situations – a subset are situations where a person could be given a chance to learn how to care about other people in a more reciprocal way.
The university needs to understand what it is dealing with here. I asked people in the health and safety executive to really care in a high-risk situation so I have to really care about what happens to the people in the health and safety executive that I asked to really care in that high-risk situation. This is in addition to be in the same position with the University. I am sitting in a position of being an organisational stress buffer between the University and a Health and Safety regulator. I am currently in this organisational stress buffer role between the university and not just the health and safety executive but all its national regulators. This means that the university is in a position to self-regulate.
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 13:24
The other thing that is different to the post office is that post masters did not use Paula Vennells writing to analyse the organisational fault and find a way to fix the organisational problem whereas here I read both the VCs academic writing and that helped me to understand different aspects of the organisational fault and possible ways to fix it.
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 13:28
It’s important not to overlook a potential source of high quality information in these situations, take all the help you can get!
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 14:37
I brought the Cambridge MP and those in neighbouring constituencies into the buffer zone.
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 17:15
I took the current VC to the national regulators with me, that was based on my judgement of the impact of the change of VC on the overall organisational response.
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 20:11
The approach to the regulators was tailored to the specific situation so it differed from a conventional approach to the regulators. I made the judgment calls on what I thought it would take to get the organisation into a position where it could deal with this specific type of organisational fault.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 12:44
Cambridge is almost entirely self-regulating and has very little play in the system to solve problems, you wouldn’t get that type of situation in Oxford because there is slightly more play in the system to solve a problem and Oxford would give slightly more weight to an external judgment.
In Cambridge people are being left at the mercy of the people who are generating the problem for the organisation for too long – i.e. people who generated a problem are being given a chance to fix it for the organisation (unguided opportunity to increase organisational self-regulation in the situation) – instead of the organisation adding someone into the situation who is capable of finding a solution to the problem to observe the situation and increasing the chance of the problem being fixed for the organisation (guided opportunity to increase organisational self-regulation in the situation).
As the Catherine Mac Kenzie case shows the people in the organisation who spotted an organisational error and got it checked in the courts to verify it was an organisational error are being left at the mercy of the people who didn’t spot the organisational error and get it verified. That’s not effective organisational self regulation. That’s not sustainable continuous maintenance of a meritocracy. The organisation appeared to have made an organisational error, the person got the situation checked in the courts to verify that an organisational error had been made, the person got a re-engagement order to a role, the person should then be back in that role in the department and everyone should be moving on, organisational problem over. Some people are capable of more forgiveness than others – forgiveness = double-edged sword – and will find it easier to cope in that particular situation, this is life, there’s no choice but to carefully move the organisation forward in these difficult organisational situations until the organisation is through one of them.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 13:17
Some of these situations for an organisation are like a person walking on an icy surface without the appropriate footwear – the person wants to be off that surface as fast as possible because it’s a less safe surface to walk on and they don’t have the appropriate footwear but the physical dynamics and constraints of the situation mean that the step size has to decrease to reduce the risk of slipping, not being able to walk and needing to be rescued. In some of these organisational situations the dynamics of the situation itself and the risks in the situation determine the step size in the case handling and the speed with which the organisation can handle a case and there can then be a variation in the organisational case handling times according to the situation that has emerged in the organisation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 13:23
And that is what the national regulators have done here, made everyone walk the ice to design the appropriate footwear to make it possible for everyone to walk the ice safely and at a normal walking pace.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 13:36
Some people are walking on a particularly slippery part of the ice – legal people – so the steps are smaller and progress is slower.
That is what national regulators have done by introducing this new legal obligation to regulate work-related stress.
Initiated the march of the penguins.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 13:48
The only way to get out of the situation to prioritise health, find the most effective ways to regulate work-related stress and build functional organisational work-related stress regulation in the organisation that is tailored to the organisation so that the organisation can start moving forward at its normal pace again but with increased resilience in the face of future organisational stressors.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 14:25
To be clear that is an operational problem, it is an extremely difficult operational problem and it is an extremely difficult operational problem that has been created for the organisational by national regulators because of the way in which they introduced a new legal obligation but nonetheless that is an operational problem and it is one that has been stacked on top of an existing operational problem.
The Board of Scrutiny was offering a way out of that existing operational problem and out of this new operational problem stacked on top of an existing operational problem. This situation cannot be blamed on Council or the VC because the way in which the existing operational problem arose meant that they could not intervene and that it was the Board of Scrutiny that was in a position to intervene on behalf of the organisation and members of the Board of Scrutiny including a chair were actively doing the work to intervene and those in operational roles would not listen to them and blocked them from effectively intervening in the situation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 15:02
The organisation had a barrister and a chair of the board of scrutiny and an employment judge giving it legal advice in an employment situation and it preferred to act on the advice of the head of department who does not have a legal background (the case having arisen in land economy and not the law department) and who it appears did not show up to court on behalf of the university to give evidence in the case although without knowing the reason for this its hard to judge the meaning of the absence.
I would have asked for advice from the head of the law faculty in that particular situation because they would be in a better position to advise the organisation in it than the head of land economy. The head of the law faculty is used to managing an environment where everyone has a legal background, knows the constraints of a head of department and of probationary processes in Cambridge. I don’t think the law faculty would have generated that type of situation for the organisation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 15:11
The head of the law faculty is not being asked for legal advice in that situation because the range of legal remedies available in the situation has already been decided, they are being asked for input into an organisational decision on offering a specific remedy in a situation that court has already agreed could be offered in the situation, so the head of the law faculty is being called up for their ability to make more precise judgments for the organisation in that type of situation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 17:01
Saying this is no disrespect to the people making the decisions at the time because it is much to say this with the benefit of hindsight, concrete information on the future consequences of that organisational decision and not having a significant administrative organisational workload to manage.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 20:53
These situations where mental health breaks down can generate close to infinite pain. You are being kind i.e. accepting some level of abuse, being even more kind, being even more kind and then suddenly you are out of the kindness regime altogether and into containment of the abuse. You’re calling the police because there isn’t a cup left in the house that hasn’t been smashed to bits, the television is in pieces, the GP said the wrong thing so you have to get them out of the house before they get physically attacked and you are getting the police in having barricaded yourself in a room because large object are being thrown. A police team is then coming to restrain the person who will fight until every bit of energy in their body is completely spent as people will only do when they feel their life depends on them expending as close to their maximum energy as possible without actually dying. A burglar is not capable of fighting with that level of force, that option of expending that fraction of their maximum energy will not be made available to them by their mind.
And when you go into the hospital and the person normalises and they are talking to staff about e.g. politics because they are obsessed with the news the staff all think the person is crazy and will never be anything other than crazy but they are not crazy at that point they are back to normal, they just know more about politics than the staff do and the staff don’t understand the difference between someone who knows more about something than they do and someone who is experiencing mental ill health. When the consultant who is handling the case goes on holiday and a locum consultant steps into that situation you see that all the knowledge of the person is lost and they increase the medication dose because they don’t know how to interact with the person – they don’t know them – and they up the dose of the medication but since its a potent vasodilator then that triggers a stroke and that then alters the behaviour. The person can’t speak up about their treatment because the staff think they are crazy and don’t recognise a situation where the person has normalised, the family can’t speak up about the treatment because they are related to a crazy person so they might also be crazy and/or they might be a pushy family. It will be impossible to question the standard of care being delivered in that situation – where errors have been made in the care – and work effectively with medical professionals to improve the standard of care. It’s close to infinite emotional pain.
And then it’s the same cycle over and over again, you could spend hours cooking a dinner to the standard of a Michelin Star chef but the dinner is still getting flung across the room with some force to add some new intricate splash decoration to the wall and then you will have to clean all that mess up. The attacks aren’t premeditated so they will be with whatever is to hand – there’s a frying pan – that’s why these situations are so physically painful because the person will fight as close to their maximum energy as possible without dying themselves and they will keep going with the frying pan to inflict the maximum physical damage possible on whoever they feel is a threat unless they are physically restrained by someone to protect them. People could be shot and left for dead. It’s close to infinite physical pain.
These situations are close to infinite physical and emotional pain. People learn to buy the cheapest cups because they won’t last too long, not worry about a TV warranty because this won’t be covered and how the sprint in all types of terrain because if your life depends on learning something then you will learn it.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 21:08
Turns out that all that is happening is that a person who was working in a high risk environment – mining – and was very competent in that high risk environment had a particular type of mental breakdown under conditions of high work-related stress – promotion – and this was not recognised at the time and they were not then given the optimal treatment to get mental health back to a normal state so mental health just got progressively worse over time and this increased the risk of a reoccurrence of a mental health breakdown.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 00:48
What you see is that you can deliver exceptionally high mental power in these complex high-risk situations and you can push your mind very close to its energetic limits but if it starts to go wrong you have to know how to take your foot off the accelerator because if it does wrong you might end up in a high-risk mental state you can’t get yourself out of. This is not then a disability, it’s high ability that could go horribly wrong in one of these high-risk situations.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 01:03
I undertook a high-risk activity in an organisation where I felt it was sufficiently safe to undertake that high-risk activity to effect a health and safety regulation correction in the organisation to make sure it could meet a new legal obligation to regulate work-related stress and thus reduce health and safety risk for everyone in the organisation and improve the overall health of the organisation.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 02:30
I never felt that my head of department was a bully or that there were significant problems with his behaviour. I thought my head of department was overworked. The only real bias that I could detect was a bias towards particle physicists. If you weren’t a particle physicist there seemed to no real interest in your progress but perhaps I am wrong about that. It’s a real problem if your line manager has no real interest in your progress but I don’t think it is uncommon for heads of department in Cambridge to have that particular bias – towards their own specialist area – in relation to the academic staff in the department that they line manage.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 02:39
The thing with experimental particle physics is that you need to build big detectors and you can only do that in big departments with a big team of experimental particle physicists, so experimental particle physicists get very biased towards hiring more experimental particle physicists.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 02:47
If you go to CERN and see what these experimental particle physicists have built it is truly incredible and an awe inspiring but still if they could find a way to do that without impacting progress in other areas of physics I am sure other physicists would really appreciate that extra effort and thought from the experimental particle physicists.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 03:10
There was a problem with a head departmental administrator and then there was a problem with a restructuring of all the admin staff – they were all put through a fire and rehire process, some of these staff had worked in the department for decades, it was heartbreaking – admin problems, HR problems, operational problems.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 03:49
I worked in Professor Pietro Cicuta’s group. I never felt that he was a bully or that there were any significant problems with his behaviour. He attracted many gifted Italian students to his group but I could see no bias towards Italians when working in his the group, he seemed to treat everyone in the group the same. I could see no other types of bias other than him having a strong preference for people who could find interesting scientific problems, solve complex problems, and get things done. If anyone in the group needed anything to get something done or a project finished then he would get it – input from a scientific expert through a collaboration, equipment, technical support, funding – you name it and he would get it. An effective interdisciplinary group leader.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 13:09
I was line managed by Joanna Taylor and Professor Charles Smith while I was working on the REF – a funding allocation exercise vital to maintaining a continuous funding stream for life-saving research in the university. Two more fair and reasonable line managers you could not get. Joanna Taylor was relentless in pursuit of the HR information needed for the REF submission and that is what it took to get information out of HR – being relentless. I remember one REF meeting that was chaired by Professor Chris Abell where it was clear that the department was behind in preparation for the REF submission and where things like HR data were coming up again. Professor Chris Abell eventually lost his temper in the meeting after spending ages in the meeting discussing things like HR data – which I was told by others in that meeting who knew him better was uncharacteristic for him.
There was a group of professors from the physics department in that meeting including my head of department. I asked a question and Professor Chris Abell lost his temper with me at which point Professor Charles Smith intervened and pointed out I was a new member of the REF team after which Professor Chris Abell altered his response to a much better one and then answered the question. I knew Chris Abell from reading a subset of his work and from being aware of the other significant positive contributions that he had driven in the university – he understood childcare needs. He’s not someone I would have felt unsafe in dealing with. Professor Chris Abell then lost his temper with this group of Physics Professors including my head of department – it was cathartic and it was inspiring – and I thought good for you Professor Chris Abell you’re done putting up with the physics department and I’m with you because I’m done putting up with the physics department too.
Admin Problems, HR problems, operational problems.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 17:33
I think legal will be under the most pressure closely followed by HR in this situation. This is because this legal obligation to regulate work related stress has multiple consequences for the legal profession itself. It means that disability discrimination will start cleaving off from the other types of discrimination in the equality act and one aspect of disability discrimination will undergo a bifurcation to separate out ill health emerging in conditions of high and/or unregulated workloads and a vulnerability to ill health in conditions or normal and regulated workloads.
There are three reasons why I think this will be difficult time for the legal profession
1) I think it will be difficult for the legal profession to get the legal aspects of work-related stress regulation right in the case of workers in general
2) The legal profession will have to implement functional work-related stress regulation in its own working environments
3) I think the third will be more unexpected. Some of these serious mental health conditions appear to be work-related stress injuries that could emerge in a person working on a complex legal case that taxes their mind in a particular way i.e. it taxes their ability to error correct information and to deliver energy to the mind when required to deal with a complexity bottleneck in solving a case. Someone might then show up psychotic and manic and get a diagnosis of schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder but in this case it’s a work-related mental injury. Since these diagnoses are stigmatising and not ones that society yet fully understands it means that as soon as this has happened to a person their life is significantly impacted and they might not themselves then understand what has happened to them which will make life even more difficult for them than society now not understanding them.
The legal profession cannot afford to get mental health wrong because it administers life-altering processes. If it is too kind to those administering the life-altering processes there is a significant risk to the lives of others and a delayed knock on effect to the lives of those administering the processes and if it is not kind enough to those administering the processes there is also a significant risk to lives of those administering the processes and a delayed knock-on risk to the lives of others so it has to its approach exactly right and that will take some time.
Eileen Nugent · 26 November 2025 at 17:26
I think Cambridge is close to its typical state of self regulation.
Human Resource · 27 November 2025 at 10:11
I think if management consultants took a look at how the university is run they’d be in total despair. Our goals are supposed to be to helping scholars to maximise delivery on teaching, research, impact and grant income. Instead of resolving minor squabbles HR ignore then worsen them, then outsource cost on to other academics via committees and panels as well as lawyers and eventually health services once the whole circus takes staff to breakdown. Any company run like that would be set on a fast track to bankruptcy.
Fast Track to Bankruptcy - 21percent.org · 27 November 2025 at 18:38
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