{"id":2896,"date":"2025-11-08T06:50:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T06:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2896"},"modified":"2025-11-08T09:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:25:00","slug":"the-next-post-office-scandal-our-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2896","title":{"rendered":"Our Universities are the next Post Office Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(Image of Paula Vennells is public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.0)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office Scandal is the defining event of 21st century Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 1999 and 2015, about 1000 sub-postmasters\u00a0were wrongly prosecuted for theft because of faults in the Post Office\u2019s\u00a0IT accounting system. The Post Office senior management, headed by Paula Vennells, knew the software was faulty but pursued convictions for years, destroying livelihoods, reputations and lives. A shocking injustice was carried out at the instigation of a few, but condoned by many, and met with the silent consent of politicians, civil servants and the judiciary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many similarities between what is happening in our Universities and the other British scandals like the Post Office (as the poster ‘England’s Dreaming<\/em>‘ has noted here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office was once a public service. Corporatisation began under Tony Blair\u2019s Labour government in 2000 and was completed by David Cameron\u2019s coalition government in 2012. This change brought a profit-driven, defensive management culture to the Post Office — one that prioritised institutional reputation and revenue. Similarly, UK universities have evolved from public educational institutions into quasi-private corporations, competing for home & international students and global rankings. With this commercialisation has come risk aversion, PR management and brand protection over transparency or accountability. In both cases, managerialism has uprooted an older public service ethos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the Post Office and universities operate within frameworks that privilege internal control over transparency. Universities handle allegations of misconduct, bullying or research misconduct through “confidential” internal procedures. These processes are rarely subject to external oversight and their outcomes are never made public. Like the Post Office\u2019s internal investigations, university grievance systems are designed not to uncover truth but to protect reputation. The absence of independent scrutiny allows the discretion of senior management to dominate, often leaving complainants isolated and discredited. This opacity creates conditions under which serious individual harm goes unchecked and systemic dysfunction remains hidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office scandal was marked by extreme power imbalance: local sub-postmasters of modest means faced the combined legal and financial resources of a national institution. A similar asymmetry defines university employment and research structures. Early-career academics, doctoral students and fixed-term staff are dependent on senior colleagues for funding, authorship, and professional advancement. When conflicts arise over research misconduct or workplace bullying, these individuals have no chance. They often face the full weight of institutional HR\/legal divisions and public relations teams. Even Professors with secure open-ended job contracts are still vulnerable. For example, Cambridge University has resources exceeding many small countries and so they can easily bankrupt any Professor in a legal fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post Office was under significant political pressure to maintain a trustworthy public face as it moved towards privatisation, and thus portrayed the Horizon system as faultless. Universities share the Post Office\u2019s structural incentive to preserve brand integrity. In an environment where reputation directly affects funding, rankings and student recruitment, negative publicity represents existential risk. This creates a culture in which the avoidance of scandal always outweighs the pursuit of justice. The Post Office\u2019s insistence on the infallibility of its Horizon software mirrors University senior management’s insistence on the infallibility of their internal procedures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were ~1000 sub-postmasters who were wrongfully prosecuted. At least 13 people are believed to have taken their own lives and at least 60 people have reported that they contemplated suicide. There was profound damage caused to people\u2019s lives, reputations, families and health<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scandal in that UK universities is on a comparable scale<\/strong>. Over the last decade, at any UK university, there are many hundreds of victims — people whose complaints were mishandled; whose accusations were ignored; staff or students plagiarised; PhD students marginalised; early-career staff bullied with no recourse; young researchers whose careers were destroyed. The 21 Group knows of multiple instances of staff or student suicides caused by University management. The number of victims and the scale of the harm is comparable to the Post Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, who is playing the role of the handsomely rewarded Paula Vennells in the next Post Office Scandal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who are the “thugs in suits\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who are playing the role of the many politicians, civil servants and the judiciary who silently consented?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Image of Paula Vennells is public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.0) The Post Office Scandal is the defining event of 21st century Britain. Between 1999 and 2015, about 1000 sub-postmasters\u00a0were wrongly prosecuted for theft because of faults in the Post Office\u2019s\u00a0IT accounting system. The Post Office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2907,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/2907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}