Getting Started - What is a 'dispute'?

We have adopted a broad project definition of dispute, so as to include a wide range of the kinds of problem universities face when things go wrong: the breakdown of working relationships and administrative arrangements; complaints and grievances; the threat of litigation; the breakdown of contracts with funders and partners; unforeseen consequences of decisions, everything which carries a cost, in administrative and academic time, or in legal fees.

Disputes in universities tend to have certain characteristics, depending on the side from which a party looks at them.

Do you recognize any of these patterns?

Either (the way it can look from 'below', from the point of view of the student or employee):

  • The dispute begins with a personality-conflict - or a rash word - or a decision affecting a student or an employee, perhaps made by a head of department with inadequate management training, or a committee in a hurry. Academics in particular can express themselves forcefully, and language which they do not consider unduly offensive can be upsetting to other employees or to students.
  • An academic makes an arrogant assertion from which he or she will not be budged. Professional pride can make it difficult to climb down or apologise.
  • A committee gives formal approval to a decision without proper discussion. Committees frequently trust their secretariat and members do not always read papers carefully, or are distracted by a particular point during the meeting and wave everything else through.
  • there is a complaint or grievance which is not dealt with promptly or according to the prescribed procedure.
  • this initial 'cock-up' is 'covered up', documents are 'mislaid' and emails turn out to have been deleted.
  • the decision-makers close ranks and may begin an active campaign of denigration against the complainant.

Or (the way it can look from 'above' from the point of view of the management):

  • disputes begin when a student is disappointed in an examination mark or a lecture-course or the availability of a supervisor or an employee feels slighted in an application for upgrading or promotion or a salary increment or a seat on a committee or a better room to work in.
  • the individual's sense of injustice grows and generates fresh complaints, which are aggregated into a multi-faceted complaint or grievance.
  • the complainant may become obsessed and take up a great deal of administrators' time with repeated complaints.
  • there may be claims of discrimination or victimisation which often come to form the leading edge of the dispute.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, such disputes

  •  create a lingering sense of injustice in the complainant.
  •  drag on for a long time.
  •  become very complicated.
  •  generate an enormous number of documents.

Disputes are also difficult to 'close'

If the dispute goes through the university's procedures or a tribunal or the courts, it is extremely difficult for the student or junior employee to get a complaint or grievance upheld because the actions of the decision-makers have to be very unreasonable indeed before the university's procedures or a court or tribunal will find them to be faulty. The aggrieved complainant may then go to appeal and on to the courts or the press.

It is equally difficult for the institution to achieve 'closure' as the original complaint snowballs and may continue to take the time of senior administrators many years after the student or employee has left the university.

This leaves no satisfactory remedy in the vast majority of cases  and the damage to the life or career of a student or member of staff and to the reputation of the institution may be considerable.

What is it going to cost to review our dispute resolution procedures?

The administrative cost of reviewing dispute resolution procedures is likely to be recouped very quickly by using alternative dispute resolution at an early stage wherever possible.  One of the purposes of this project is to enable HEIs to share experience and good practice so as to help save development costs for individual HEIs.

Do we have any choice? The Department of Constitutional Affairs and the courts are anxious to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution as a way of saving costs.  HEIs will benefit from being seen to follow this public policy trend, and may find the courts disapprove or even impose costs sanctions if they do not.

Can we use the review of our dispute resolution processes as an enhancement mechanism? The provision of feedback to the institution designed to assist it to avoid similar disputes in future may be attractive to the complainant, who is often upset by the perception that  rules have been ignored or broken.

This may help it to build up a picture of:

  • How many disputes are arising.
  • How frequent are disputes.
  • Which types of dispute are most prevalent.
  • What categories of staff or students become the parties to a typical dispute.
  • Whether the same individuals appear in disputes time and again.
  • Whether some individuals have become sophisticated users of the system and whether that proves to be to the benefit of all involved or not.
  • How the HEI ensures that students and staff are treated fairly where the parties are unequal in power and ability to afford representation.
  • Wether staff or students are normally represented by lawyers, trade union representatives, student union representatives, colleagues or 'friends'.
  • Whether the preservation of ongoing working relationships is being achieved?
  • How quickly disputes are  resolved on average?