Why are universities missing from the duty of candour?

Student deaths by suicide keep raising difficult questions about how universities respond when tragedy occurs.

For bereaved families, the period that follows is too often marked by confused processes, uncertainty about what the institution knew, and limited transparency about how decisions were made or lessons learned – all of which sits uneasily with universities’ stated commitments to student wellbeing, safeguarding, and public accountability. For the 100 has long campaigned on the issue.

The government’s Public Office (Accountability) Bill – often referred to as the “Hillsborough Law” – has been widely welcomed as an attempt to embed honesty, transparency, and ethical conduct across public administration.

It introduces a statutory duty of candour alongside obligations to cooperate with investigations and inquiries, as well as offences relating to misleading the public – all intended to shift institutional cultures away from defensiveness and towards openness when harm has occurred.

Early commentary assumed the duty would apply across the education sector, including universities, but the Bill as drafted is far more selective. Schedule two, which defines the bodies treated as “public authorities” for the purposes of the legislation, expressly includes schools and further education providers – but higher education institutions aren’t specified.

Far from a trivial omission, this is a deliberate drafting choice that shapes who is clearly bound by statutory candour and who isn’t. As early analysis on Wonkhe noted, this raises serious questions about the sector’s accountability framework.

Left to interpretation

Part two of schedule two complicates things. Paragraph 2(1)(j) explicitly includes schools and further education providers, but paragraph 2(1)(k) extends coverage to other bodies satisfying a residual test – that is, bodies not excluded that exercise functions of a public nature.

It’s at least arguable that universities could fall within this category, given that they’re publicly funded, heavily regulated, and exercise significant public functions in relation to education, safeguarding, and student welfare.

Leaving the application of a duty of candour to statutory interpretation is unsatisfactory, to put it mildly – a reform designed to promote openness shouldn’t depend on litigation to establish its scope.

The explicit inclusion of further education, set against silence on higher education, creates uncertainty where clarity is most needed, and raises a more fundamental question – why should candour be placed beyond doubt for one part of the tertiary education system, while another is left in a grey area?

The numbers

Recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics underlines what’s at stake here. Between August 2016 and July 2023, there were 1,108 suicides among higher education students in England and Wales – an average of around 160 deaths per year. The suicide rate among students is lower than that of the general population of similar ages, but the numbers are still deeply troubling.

The trend over time is often described as “stable”, but that stability requires careful interpretation. Rates rose between the academic years ending 2017 and 2019 before falling and levelling off more recently, and it’s possible that increased investment in wellbeing services, staff training, and early intervention has played a role. But stability isn’t success – nor should it breed complacency.

What it represents is a plateau at an unacceptable level of loss, with 155 student deaths recorded in the most recent year alone. The Office for National Statistics also cautions against over-interpreting year-on-year changes, given small numbers and registration delays.

What these statistics can’t tell us is how institutions respond when a death occurs – whether families are kept informed, whether risks were acknowledged, whether any learning followed. Those qualitative aspects of institutional response are exactly where families, coroners, and campaigners such as the LEARN Network continue to raise concerns.

Left in the dark

The Bill mirrors principles already applied in the NHS, where statutory candour requires organisations to acknowledge harm, apologise, share findings, and demonstrate learning. Universities currently have no equivalent obligation. As has been noted in previous analysis, and in briefings on HE student suicide prevention, the gap remains significant.

Families frequently describe being left in the dark – uncertain what the institution knew, how decisions were taken, and what changes, if any, followed. There’s also real inconsistency in how universities respond to coroners’ Prevention of Future Death reports, and a lack of central oversight to ensure learning is shared across the sector.

A statutory duty of candour would formalise expectations around open communication and transparent learning, but it would also carry real implications for governance – requiring clearer reporting to governing bodies, more structured internal reviews, and stronger accountability between universities, coroners, and regulators. These aren’t marginal compliance issues – they go to the heart of how universities discharge their public responsibilities.

The pause

The government has paused the Bill’s remaining House of Commons stages to refine its application to the intelligence services. That work relates specifically to national security considerations, and aside from that issue, the structure of schedule two – including the explicit inclusion of further education and the absence of higher education – appears settled on the face of the Bill as amended.

All of which places renewed importance on the Bill’s passage to the House of Lords. If the duty of candour is intended to set a clear and consistent standard for public bodies, the continued ambiguity around universities warrants careful scrutiny – leaving higher education to implication rather than express inclusion risks undermining the very clarity the Bill seeks to achieve.

Don’t wait

None of this means universities should wait for statutory change before reflecting on their own practices and internal policies – ethical responsibility doesn’t depend on legislative inclusion, and reliance on voluntary action alone is precisely what duties of candour are designed to move beyond.

Where openness matters most – following serious harm or loss of life – it shouldn’t depend on discretion. Candour isn’t a risk – it’s the foundation of trust, and the point at which prevention, accountability, and compassion come together.

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill should therefore be read not only for what it contains, but for what it omits.

By naming further education providers while leaving higher education to implication rather than express inclusion, it draws a boundary that’s difficult to justify – and whether that boundary holds will depend on whether Parliament is willing to confront the consequences of leaving universities outside explicit statutory candour.