DESTROYED IN COURT
0490 TRIBUNAL - CHAIR SELECTION GRIEVANCE
[Another part of my submission to the Tribunal]
It is now clear from the disclosed OU documents that the key procedures used in this professorial recruitment process were unlawfully designed to exclude me from the shortlist for this appointment; despite my disabilities which should have meant that the procedures should have been carefully monitored to avoid any discrimination. Indeed, even the final report of the OU’s grievance procedure, which I later instituted, was itself an unlawful cover-up. Not knowing this, I settled for the restitution of my right to spend the next three years on leave working on fully supported research. In the event, OUBS management never delivered what had been promised.
55. In October 1994 I had applied to become the Beneficial Bank Chair in Marketing and, having reached the final selection along with some external candidates, I was interviewed by the Professorial Appointment Committee. Although I lost out to my – then better academically qualified - fellow Senior Lecturer, Leslie De Chernatonay, the VC rang me to say that my candidature was strong and that I was likely to receive a chair in the near future. Subsequently, I applied for a personal chair, but that year David Asch, who was seeking a chair himself, reportedly barred any other applications being put forward by OUBS to the university. Indeed, David Asch later informed me verbally that he would make sure that I would never be granted a chair in the OU, and suggested that I look outside for another job.
56. In 2000, after some controversy over his focus on brand marketing to the exclusion of all else and his consequent failure to develop a viable academic marketing group overall, the then Chair of Marketing left to take up a similar Chair at the University of Birmingham in 2000. The first round of recruitment for his replacement – for which the UK’s leading marketing professor (Prof McDonald) on the selection panel publicly stated, in his reference, that I was the best qualified candidate in the UK not least on the basis of my internationally recognised research record - was abandoned; ostensibly because there had not been sufficient candidates of suitable capability.
57. At the
opening of the second round, not merely was I not automatically short-listed –
as had been promised by the Dean when the previous round was abandoned - but I
was not even informed, as previously promised by the Secretary to the
Professorial Appointment Committee, that the second round was taking place. It
was not widely advertised internally in OUBS, as is the usual procedure, though
it seemingly was in the other faculties, and I was only pointed towards the
advertisement in the national press when a member of admin discretely warned me
about what was happening.
58. From my own experience, sitting on a number of such panels, the normal recruitment process (for academics applying to join OUBS) requires that all the candidates’ CVs are scrutinised to ensure that the candidates are the appropriate academic standing by a selection panel made up of suitable senior academics from the School and University. The most appropriate candidates, usually six in number if possible (since this number nicely fills one day of final interviewing), are then brought before the Final Selection Board. This six to eight strong board is split in two; so that the candidates have two interviews. The professorial process is run by the university rather than by OUBS, otherwise the procedure is usually much the same.
59. Viewed more cynically, therefore, it was precisely because the Dean was then
made aware of the key reference in my favour (where Prof. McDonald was to be the
most influential member of the final selection panel, though I did not know this
at the time) that the later ‘personal specification’ for the second round
shortlist was changed so radically from that normally used. At the time,
however, I was only alarmed when a fellow academic’s somewhat gloating version
of events indicated that the process had been more questionable than the Dean
had indicated.
60. Moreover, it is now clear from the disclosed OU documents that the key procedures used in the second round recruitment process were indeed unlawfully manipulated to exclude me from the shortlist. In this context, the key document, my formal grievance (eventually submitted on 21 February 2002), summarised the original arguments. But in addition, as the disclosed documents now show (with a significant number of covert emails between the Dean and the consultant, secreted on his own PC, demonstrating elements of conspiracy, not least to hide the true facts), the ‘new’ recruitment process – using an external consultant to shortlist candidates – was definitely (unlawfully and illegally, in view of my disabilities) manipulated to bar me from being considered.
61. Perversely, the new specification – which was used only once, in this particular case, for academic appointments - was at the heart of the successful attempt to bar me. But it added in only components from that previously used only for candidates for the admin management posts in OUBS, with none of the academic relevance which normally governed the short-listing process. In any case, the consultant had previously only been involved, within OUBS, with such admin positions. In the event, I was still the only leading candidate who fully met the new specification.
62. In fact, the disclosure process has shown that, possibly influenced by their (OUIBS) recognition of the potential damages which might result, the final report of the OU’s grievance procedure, which I later instituted, was itself something of a cover-up. Crucially, it was not mentioned, in the reports passed to me by the OUBS, that the use of a recruitment consultant (Mark Tulitt) had not been formally approved or that his contract did not authorise him to undertake short-listing but only to organise it.
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