Thursday 09-11-2023 - 09:03

On Wednesday 25^th October OfS organised a Freedom of Speech roundtable with the Director of Freedom of Speech Arif Ahmed, to listen to concerns and questions from SUs about the Act, with a specific focus on the upcoming complaints scheme for staff, students and visiting speakers.

Prof. Ahmed made a short presentation in which he clarified that the regulations that relate to SUs will come into effect from 1 August 2024, as will the complaints scheme. He also clarified that there will be a written consultation on the practicalities of the Act before the end of this (calendar) year, and that the regulations around the monitoring of overseas funding will come into effect in September 2025.

Prof. Ahmed also reiterated that he wants everyone to understand the department will be working with a non-partisan approach that ensures freedom of speech for all, and that he is not working for any one side of an argument or cause.

Throughout the roundtable it was clear that the OfS were in ‘listening mode’ and that this would not be a space where we would be able to get clarity on many specific issues but were able to raise where we felt there were concerns for them to digest going forward.

Freedom of speech and freedom from harm

Prof. Ahmed maintained that there is not necessarily a tension between freedom of speech and freedom from harm and stated that freedom of speech can be crucial to defend marginalised people who would otherwise feel too intimidated to speak.

He stated that harassment, discrimination etc. is still illegal and it is only legal speech that is protected. He would not speak to any specific examples, including conflict in the Middle East.

SU resources

When questioned about the ability of smaller SUs to adhere to regulations, e.g. in regards to security costs or otherwise, Prof. Ahmed said he expected that any guidance would take into account different sizes of SU and to have a proportionate approach. He said there was nothing in the legislation to say it was ‘one size fits all’.

Prof. Ahmed also noted concerns around smaller SUs who potentially have less independence, and that complaints, for example, would be dealt with by the university instead. He stated he would have to learn more about smaller and less independent SUs.

Activity outside the event itself

Prof Arif stated that freedom of speech online was just as important, and that legal protest and just saying someone shouldn’t come to campus (as an example) would be protected. He said there would be a need to distinguish between protest as legal expression (fine) and protest that is interfering with the expression of other people’s views (not fine).

Other concerns raised by SUs and NUS Charity that were taken under advisement with no substantial comment from OfS:

• How do we deal with students who invite people without following processes or who are not part of official societies (and who would be liable in that instance – uni or SU)?
• If a complaint involves a situation which was organised with the SU and the university, who deals with the complaint?
• If an SU does not have the capacity or the ability to deal with a complex complaint, we sometimes pass it to the university in that instance – could we do this?
• Are you updating your memorandum of understanding with the Charity Commission? Charitable SUs currently have some restrictions on speech due to electoral regulations (CC9), as well as trustees having to take reputation and finances into consideration in the pursuit of their charitable objectives.
• Staff protocol in SUs - SU staff are usually contractually obliged to not comment on political matters and are in turn protected from discussion of their performance in democratic spaces. Does this legislation override this contractual position?
• The government has identified lawful but unacceptable speech in the progress of the Bill – can you give examples of other speech that would also be unacceptable?
• Will there be guidance of at what point an invitation becomes a formal invitation for a visiting speaker?

NUS Charity will be meeting with the OfS and Prof. Ahmed on the 13^th November and so will have a chance to discuss these issues then.

We are currently finalising a draft of a trustee decision matrix which we can share with members soon, and are organising a meeting with the Charity Commission to discuss their work so far with OfS on understanding how the differing duties on charitable SUs will play out.