2: The legal structure of the University and why it is important

The University of York takes the legal form of a Chartered Corporation. It was granted a Royal Charter by the Privy Council on 29 July 1963: a prestigious instrument accorded to professional and other bodies serving the public interest, through which the University becomes incorporated. In reality, the University does not have an active relationship with the Privy Council other than when it is seeking amendments to its Charter and Statutes. A Royal Charter has not been revoked since the 17^th century, and there has been much confusion in the media about the ability of the OfS to intervene to revoke a university’s Royal Charter in the event that it seriously breached registration conditions. Whilst the OfS could withdraw an institution’s degree awarding powers in principle, it does not have the powers to revoke a Royal Charter!

There is no single legal framework by which universities are incorporated in England. The majority of the pre-1992 universities have Royal Charters, as do the colleges of Oxbridge and a number of specialist colleges and conservatoires. Many post-1992 HEIs are either Higher Education Corporations (HEC), when they were dissociated from local authority control and subsequently were granted University title in 1992. A third set are companies limited by guarantee, as a legal structure suited to many not-for-profit bodies. A number of former colleges/institutes in London, large and small, which were granted university status in the early 1990s, are based on this structure, as are smaller institutions such as York St John. The charitable status of universities alongside their core legal form is discussed in a separate section of the Handbook.

As a Chartered corporation, York has all the powers of an individual (e.g. a date of birth, address, the power to enter into contracts etc), and not just the specific powers set out in the Charter and built on in the Statutes. The likelihood of a complaint being raised against a Chartered corporation for not following its own internal rules and regulations, or acting in the absence of specific guidance on a matter and  exceeding its power, is therefore minimal. However, this does not mean that universities cannot ever be subject to redress and have decisions quashed, or fall foul of any statutory requirement. Many universities have been subject to legal breach for health and safety, data protection law or equality and employment law, for example. A small number of pre-1992 universities (York isn’t one of them) can also be subject to an investigation by the ‘University Visitor’ for an internal breach of rules and regulations in relation to staffing matters, but the latter no longer intervene in student complaints since the establishment of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator: https://www.oiahe.org.uk/.

The Ordinances are essentially a series of regulations pertaining to specific bodies (whether the departmental Boards of Studies, details of the existence of the Students’ Union and the Graduate Students Association, membership of Senate), with specific regulations governing academic activities such as the admission and assessment of students.

What is apparent is that York does not have as coherent a regulatory framework from the Charter all the way through to Ordinance, Regulation and Policy as we would like to have in place. A taxonomy where we define the status of each level within a framework (e.g. what is meant by a regulation and how does it differ from a policy and procedure) is a key piece of work to progress, along with a more general modernisation of the Charter, Statutes and Ordinances. Ensuring our governing instruments provide robust governance and oversight is key, whilst enabling colleagues from Council and other University committees through to UEB and departmental management teams to operate in a more agile and effective way.