George Holmes suspended as vice chancellor as the police move in

Dear Millers – it’s unusual we email you at this time of the evening but it’s been quite a dramatic day in relation to one of our biggest recent stories. 

We haven’t heard much news from the University of Greater Manchester since our investigation earlier this year uncovered evidence of financial corruption and mismanagement there. And then, in the space of a few hours this afternoon, two big pieces of news came out.

Just after midday, staff at the university received an email telling them that the vice chancellor George Holmes and two other senior figures have been suspended as a result of “serious allegations”. 

Then, at 2pm, Greater Manchester Police released a statement, confirming that “an investigation has been launched into allegations of financial irregularities at the University of Greater Manchester (formerly University of Bolton).” The statement added: “This follows a review of allegations published in The Mill, and subsequent PwC report commissioned by the university's Fraud Response Panel.”

The suspension of Holmes, who has been running the university for 20 years and who decided to fight to retain his position rather than resign after our investigation was published, is a significant moment which has already been picked up by the Guardian, the BBC and the MEN.

Phil Brickell, the Labour MP for Bolton West, said in a statement: "We need to let the investigation run its course. I will continue to monitor developments closely and engage with the University and relevant authorities in order to ensure the University best serves its students, staff, the people of Bolton and its surrounding communities."

In the past few hours, we’ve been speaking to sources at the university to work out why he has been suspended now and what might happen next.

Three suspensions 

At 12.09pm today, university staff received an email from Sue Duncan, academic registrar, and William Morris, chair of the board of governors, informing them that the university had suspended three senior figures from the university, including vice chancellor George Holmes, provost Zubair Hanslot and an unnamed “senior member of academic staff”. 

The email said the suspensions are a “neutral step, taken to protect the integrity of the process” and reassured staff that an interim leadership was in place and that the university’s “core functions and academic activities will continue without disruption”.

In a statement, the university said the suspensions are “a precautionary measure and do not imply any assumption of guilt”. “As the University’s internal procedures, involving all relevant parties, have now begun, we are not able to comment further until such matters are concluded,” the statement continued, adding that the university is “committed to the highest standards of integrity and accountability”.

We’ve been told by two sources at the university that the university received a copy of the report it commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) last week, and that the suspension of Holmes and the other two senior staff members may have followed from that. The PwC probe was commissioned in February, a week after we revealed that senior executives at the university attempted to divert hundreds of thousands in tuition fees into a private company which was owned by one of those executives.

The Mill passed some information to PwC’s investigators after they asked to speak to us, but we have not yet seen a copy of the report (if you’d like to leak us a copy, email Mollie). A senior staff member says there were “lots of meetings” on Friday, and “a sense that something was stirring” after the report was delivered. 

We have also spoken to officers from Greater Manchester Police several times about our reporting, but it’s notable that the force chose today to release a full statement about their “active investigation”. A spokesman referred to “allegations of financial irregularities” and mentioned our investigation and the PwC report. 

‘Power struggle’

Previously, the university had called our reporting “vexatious” and said that “under the veil of investigative journalism” we had “threatened to make public unsubstantiated, potentially damaging, claims by former staff members against a named individual associated with the organisation”. But they did not directly deny any of the major allegations in our story about alleged financial corruption at the university, which have been mentioned three times in parliament, including by local MP Phil Brickell and by the Leader of the House of Common Lucy Powell. 

Our investigation began with questions about why the university was paying millions of pounds to a tiny marketing company run by a former car marketing man called Joseph Wheeler, who had apparently assumed enormous influence at the university. That story led to Wheeler being removed, but the questions about his involvement remained.

We then obtained contracts, emails and other files showing that Wheeler and another senior staff member at the university recently set up a deal with a company in Casablanca, Morocco that was set to funnel large sums from one of the university’s biggest commercial partners into Wheeler’s private company. We also found evidence that Wheeler had asked a university employee to pay £56,000 into his son’s personal bank account as part of the deal. 

Neither the university nor Wheeler has ever explained why this deal was sanctioned, or what the vice chancellor George Holmes knew about it. 

Multiple staff members at the university told us they had lost confidence in Holmes, with one saying in February: “I think he must resign as a matter of urgency”.

Sources describe an “internal power struggle” in the university’s senior leadership in recent weeks that has seen longstanding supporters of Holmes launching “attacks on his character”. 

“They were once thick as thieves and now they’re all turning on each other,” one person told us this afternoon. 

If you know more, get in touch.