The Charity Commission has told University of Oxford colleges to change and modernise how they run themselves, Times Higher Education has learned, after one’s tumultuous, costly battle to oust its former dean and another’s response to a rape allegation raised concerns about governing bodies.
The Charity Commission wrote to the colleges – which, as charities, are registered with the commission and regulated by it – in the autumn. In a statement, the commission said it was in “positive, constructive” talks with the colleges.
However, a separate source said the commission had “required each college to produce a proposal for reformed governance in the coming months, or face investigation” – an initiative they said “has not been met well [by colleges] and has been very controversial internally”. Colleges have been “managed historically more as gentlemen’s clubs than modern charities”, they added.
The Charity Commission’s intervention is said to have been triggered by Christ Church’s expensive four-year battle to oust its former dean Martyn Percy, who eventually stepped down with a reported £1.2 million pay-off, and by Lady Margaret Hall’s reported failure to make a “serious incident” notification to the commission after a former student alleged she was raped by another student.
