How students use FOI to investigate their universities

Perhaps you want to know which universities make the most in library fines, or are curious about what the gender pay gap is like at the top. Or maybe you suspect your university staff are spending too much on first-class rail tickets or the dean’s office furnishings. These are just some of the ways that students are using freedom of information (FOI) requests to find out eye-opening facts about their universities’ activities.

But recently the government has put forward a proposal to make universities exempt from the Freedom of Information Act in a recent green paper on higher education reform.

The government has suggested that because private providers of higher education are already exempt from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, all universities should fall under the same rules in order to keep them on the same footing. At the moment universities are included in the legalisation because they receive public funding.

However, student newspapers, unions and campaign groups have highlighted how they use FOI requests to find out how their universities spend money and other information that is in their interest to know.

Jem Collins, the chair of the Student Publication Association, which supports student journalists, says the Freedom of Information Act is “as important to student journalists as it is to the rest of the media”.

“Exempting universities from FOI would leave the wider student body unable to know if they’re well represented and where their tuition fees are going,” she adds.

As well as being useful for student media, student unions have used FOI requests to strengthen campaigns. Michael Spence, the education officer at the University of Manchester students’ union, says students involved in the Fossil Free campaign discovered that the university had almost £40m invested in fossil fuels. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the university lost £2.28m in the value of its shares in BP, which was also discovered using an FOI request.

“Unions play the role of being a critical friend of a university,” adds Spence. “It’s better that we can access information in some way so we can say ‘this is wrong’ instead of ‘we think this is wrong but we don’t actually know’.”

In recent years, the number of FOI requests to universities has increased and this has led some vice-chancellors to argue that this places an unfair burden on universities, particularly as some requests come from supply companies trying to gain market intelligence. And there is evidence that most requests come from people outside of the university such as journalists and members of the public, as opposed to students and staff.

Even so, without the option being there at all, students worry that their universities could get away with a lot more.

Michael Segalov, a journalist who graduated with a degree in law with international relations from the University of Sussex last year, says the possibility that universities will be exempt from the FOI Act is disconcerting. “We could lose one of the only tools we have to have oversight of universities.”

Students at Sussex used an FOI request to find out that the university had spent £55,000 in legal fees when they brought a disciplinary hearing against Segalov and four other students. The disciplinary action was later deemed unlawful and the university apologised and paid compensation to Segalov and three of his fellow students.

“The protests at Sussex at the time were about the privatisation of the university and we were able to find out about that using FOI requests. At first, we struggled to get hold of information because the university argued it was contractually and commercially sensitive,” says Segalov.

“But then we had a win with the information commissioner who agreed that the public should have access to some un-redacted contracts that they were putting out to tender. That revealed that contracted security guards were permitted to wear tiny body cameras on campus,” he added.

Tom Fenton, a third-year history student at the University of Durham, agrees. He and his colleagues on the student newspaper Palatinate also had some problems finding out about the university’s spending. “In 2013, the newspaper wanted to find out how much the university had spent on artwork in a new building. It took five months for the information to be released and it turned out to be £1.4m – which caused quite a stir at the time.”

The university had been anxious about releasing the details for security reasons but the deputy vice-chancellor, Ray Hudson, says there was a “strong public interest in knowing how public money is spent and in ensuring the university is transparent and accountable in its decision making processes”.

Fenton continues: “This year, we put forward a FOI request asking how much the university spends on an average student in each department, but this was rejected by the university on the grounds that it would endanger their links with outside companies.

“Students have a right to know since they invest a great deal of money in higher education institutions,” adds Fenton. “We found out that the university was investing our money in companies that many students feel are unethical, such as defence contractors and oil companies. So much of our ever-increasing accommodation fees are going towards these investments.”

• What do you think about the proposal to make universities exempt from the FOI Act? Let us know in the comments section below.