Home > Publications > Selected cases— Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations: April 2001 to September 2001 > Case No. C.492/01
Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations
PCA 6th Report – Session 2001-2002
Chapter 2
FURTHER EDUCATION FUNDING COUNCIL
Failures in undertaking an inspection and investigation of a college and its principal
A principal complained that in considering an enquiry into his activities as head of a college, the then Further Education Funding Council (the Council) solicited complaints against him. The principal said that at the end of the enquiry the Council had produced a report that was at odds with the evidence and that the Council had manipulated the evidence to support predetermined conclusions. The principal also said that the Chief Executive had exaggerated the failings of the college in his report to the college governors and had made continued funding of the college dependant on his suspension. The principal further complained that, in the report of an inspection of the college in October 1999, the Council gave no credit for significant improvements, especially for a gain in student achievement in 1998/99, for improvements in hand and for achieving Investors in People accreditation three weeks after the inspection.
The Ombudsman found that: there was no evidence that the Council had solicited complaints unfairly against the principal or manipulated the findings of their investigation report; the Chief Executive had had a reasoned basis for his comments about the college’s position in the inspection round; and that, given their concerns about the performance of the college, it was not maladministrative for the Council to have used its powers to press the governors to suspend the principal. In the inspection process the Ombudsman found that the Council took account of the student achievement and Investors in People accreditation. The Ombudsman found some elements of maladministration in the process used by the Council to investigate the allegations against the principal but they were not so fundamental as to invalidate it.
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