What’s it all about?

1. CMA Guidance and Consumer Protection Law: Implications for HERoberta Wooldridge Smith, Deputy Academic Registrar10 February 2016https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/aro/cpl

2. What’s it all about? Sets out minimum standards on Information Provision Fairness of Terms and Conditions Complaint Handling Covers Consumer Contract Regulations Consumer Protection Regulations Unfair Terms Regulations Consumer Rights Act came into force October 2015

3. Scenario 1 Marketing associated with a flagship part-time doctoral programme offered by the University of Harpenden notes that its graduates typically enjoy a significant increase in salary. In fact, recent DLHE data for Harpenden show that very few of its graduates experience such a career transformation. Q: Does this constitute ‘material information’ that ought to be made available to the potential applicant pool? Q: Is it a matter of misleading omission if the University knows its employment data do not provide an empirical basis for the suggestion that Harpenden graduates will enjoy the benefits implied in its prospectus? Scenarios adapted from David Palfreyman (2015) Send for the Director of Compliance! Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 19:1, 10-18

4. Scenario 2 A professor assures a third-year undergraduate that, if she self-funds year-one of a PhD, it is ‘very likely indeed’ that the Research Council will provide grant and fees in subsequent years or, if not, that the Department ‘will surely find funding from somewhere’. But the professor does not understand RC policy or appreciate the Department’s poverty. Q Is it ‘negligent misrepresentation’ because he did not check? Q Is it a matter of ‘misleading omission’ if he initially did not know but fails to tell the student when he discovers the true position later? Q Should any professor now avoid discussion that implies unconfirmed contractual commitments? Scenarios adapted from David Palfreyman (2015) Send for the Director of Compliance! Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 19:1, 10-18

5. Scenario 3 At the University of Tadcaster, the Department of Physics has just been through a bruising review process with a collaborative partner with whom it delivers a doctoral programme. In short, the partner is no longer able to offer mobility opportunities to existing Tadcaster students and wishes to withdraw from the partnership under which joint doctorates are awarded, with immediate effect. Q: When should current students be told of the cessation of the collaboration? Q: What actions should Tadcaster take with respect to current offer- holders or potential applicants? Scenarios adapted from David Palfreyman (2015) Send for the Director of Compliance! Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 19:1, 10-18

6. Scenario 4 Peter Smith is a second year PhD student at Truro University whose progress has been steady. Following a restructuring exercise in the School of Law, his supervisor takes early retirement. The replacement, a new probationary lecturer, is not supported in practice by the more experienced colleague identified to contribute to the supervisory team who often travels abroad in order to conduct her own research. Peter starts to miss deadlines for the submission of chapters of his thesis and the quality of the work he does submit sharply declines. Q: Does Peter have grounds for claiming that Truro has failed to deliver the supervisory element of its service ‘with reasonable skill and care’? Q: What remedies are open to Peter under the terms of the CRA? Scenarios adapted from David Palfreyman (2015) Send for the Director of Compliance! Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 19:1, 10-18

7. Actions for CDTs • Adhere to public undertakings e.g. frequency of supervisions, access to training opportunities. • Engage in complaints handling training and stage 1 reporting. • Review and archive cohort-specific information etc. • Increase awareness of potential risks arising from undertakings made by staff and student ambassadors involved in marketing/ recruitment/ online ‘chat’/ social media activity. • Manage change in academic provision sensitively, involving current students. • Notify changes to provision to applicants/offer holders via SROAS through formal reporting on changes in taught provision.