Why is the University of Greater Manchester refusing to answer questions about its ‘rigorous, impartial’ investigation?

Dear readers — we hope you’ve been enjoying the lovely spring weather.

A warm welcome to those of you who signed up after reading Mollie’s note on Sunday, which explored how our investigations into the University of Greater Manchester came together and the response we’ve had from local MPs. In today’s briefing, we ask why the higher education regulator the Office for Students is ignoring our questions about bullying, racism and misuse of public funds at the university and whether the investigation will be truly impartial. Meanwhile Phil Brickell, Labour MP for Bolton West, calls the allegations “so embarrassing, so damaging for the reputation of what is an important institution in the local area” and tells us that he doesn’t have confidence in the university’s investigation and its ability to scrutinise the vice chancellor. “The University wouldn’t ask one of its students to mark their own homework,” he said.

We also recommend a New Yorker profile of Roger Hallam, the Manchester-born co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion who is currently serving five years in prison, bring you news of a hot air balloon festival in Manchester this summer to rival Bristol’s, and a home in Salford with an entire room dedicated to Lego.

Coming up this week, Jack writes about a special ritual at the John Rylands library, where the locksmith visits once every five years to maintain the locks and keys for the cabinets that hold some of the library’s most precious works. Plus, we’re looking at the five-year battle between a tenant farming family and Bolton Council, who want to build social housing on the site where the family has lived for 300 years. And this weekend, we’ll publish a fascinating piece by the writer James Gilmour into how Trafford Park could have been a big public park filled with deer, instead becoming a hub for American-style industrial production and later a symptom of post-war decline.

🌦️ This week’s weather

Tuesday 🌦️ Breezy and cold with a mix of bright spells and showers. 9°C.

Wednesday 🌧️ Cloudy, cool and damp with showery spells of rain. 8°C.

Thursday 🌦️ Breezy with sunny intervals and a few isolated showers. 8°C.

Friday 🌤️ Dry and calm with plenty of hazy sunshine. Milder. 11°C.

Weekend ⛅️ Dry and settled, with temperatures close to March’s seasonal average of 10°C.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🏛️ The Office for Students is refusing to answer questions about the University of Greater Manchester, despite repeated requests for comment on how the higher education regulator is addressing serious allegations of misconduct and financial impropriety by senior level university executives. For the uninitiated, our reporting revealed that two senior university executives, Paul Starkey and Joseph Wheeler, had pressured one of the university’s biggest partners, the international student recruitment agency ECN, into agreeing to give up 40% of its revenue and transferring it into Wheeler’s son’s bank account in exchange for marketing services. Joseph Wheeler, a car marketing executive from Milton Keynes, owns the company RSM, which was paid £8 million by the university over the last six financial years to provide marketing and brand management services. In our first investigation into the university, Wheeler was accused by over a dozen current and former university staff members of being a racist bully who threatened to sack people if they didn’t bend to his will. Last Monday, we passed the claims made in this story to Greater Manchester Police, who we understand are liaising with the fraud team as to next steps, and on Friday, Phil Brickell MP wrote to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, saying he believes our reporting is “enough to warrant an independent investigation into the University’s financial arrangements” and that his own conversations with whistle blowers indicate “a systematic misuse of public funds.” One of the curious parts of our most recent story was the university’s response, which said that our claims were “extremely serious” and that “the Vice Chancellor has invoked the University’s internal procedures to ensure they are dealt with appropriately”. Responding to this statement, Brickell says he is “not confident in the University’s ability to scrutinise its own senior leadership team in this matter” and “The University wouldn’t ask one of its students to mark their own homework”. We asked the university to address why it was the vice chancellor George Holmes, not William Morris, chair of the board of governors, who invoked the internal investigation, but a spokesperson said “we are making no further comment” until the “independent investigation” reaches an “outcome”. Members of the board of governors and the audit committee did not respond to individual requests for comment on whether they would be carrying out their own investigations. The Office for Students issues clear guidance on the need for universities to prevent fraud and has a number of regulations that stipulate that higher education institutions should be transparent, have good management and governance and act in the public interest. However, despite repeated attempts to ask the higher education regulator if they are concerned about whether the university has broken any of its conditions of registration, they have refused to respond, except to say “We don’t generally comment on individual universities”.

🎓 Inside the university: Our sources tell us “the atmosphere is awkward and strange” in the university’s offices, and that despite suspicions that Paul Starkey, one of the senior university executives who attempted to pressure a key university partner into transferring 40% of its revenue into Wheeler’s bank account, would be suspended, it is understood that he is back at his desk after a period of annual leave. Meanwhile, the vice chancellor George Holmes is busy planning a grand black-tie event in Bolton Town Hall to celebrate the institution’s 200th anniversary and his 20th anniversary as vice chancellor (an unusually long tenure, by all accounts), to take place at the end of this year. In an email sent to all staff on Friday (via Outlook for iOS), Holmes said “I would ask that we all remain focussed on the many things we have to celebrate” and asked staff to “refrain from speculation about the veracity of the allegations” and “instead rely upon this rigorous, impartial process to elicit the facts”. We still don’t know who is involved in this “rigorous, impartial process”, or why the vice chancellor invoked the investigation, but we understand the process could take up to a year. Want to pass us some information or speak to a reporter? Email Mollie.

🏡 If a December 2024 review by the massive accountancy firm Deloitte is anything to go by, Stockport Homes, the borough’s biggest landlord, is a “high performing” organisation that delivers good value for money. However, this is not a view that is supported by local councillors James Frizzell and Matt Wynne, who say they have been inundated with complaints from tenants about heating breaking down, anti-social behaviour, broken security gates and repairs not being completed quickly enough. The review did highlight a “defensiveness” at Stockport Homes when dealing with concerns raised by councillors and suggested more accountability was needed. Stockport’s Labour leader David Meller is now calling for a review of the council’s decision to allow Stockport Homes to manage its housing stock at arms length at the council’s next budget meeting. Know more about this story? Get in touch.

♥️ Louisa Palmisano, known as Lulu, died aged three years old after a van struck a tram on Mosley street. Her parents say she was the “sweetest little girl” and “full of creativity and joy”. A 36-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.

Quick hits

🌊 Louise Beardmore, CEO of United Utilities, and the water company’s chief finance officer Phil Aspin will be questioned by MPs at an inquiry into reforming the UK’s water sector on Wednesday, on topics including “water companies’ finances including their pay-out of dividends and executive bonuses”. United Utilities was criticised recently for raising water bills by 32% over the next five years, in the same year the water company dished out nearly £340 million to shareholders.

⛰️ The debate over whether High Peak should join Greater Manchester rages on. This weekend, the FT’s northern correspondent Jennifer Williams headed to High Peak to sample the thoughts of the rural Derbyshire community. One local called Manchester “a shithole”, while the leader of Derbyshire County Council called the idea “bloody bonkers”.

🎈 If you’ve ever been envious of Bristol’s beautiful hot air balloon festival, where hundreds of hot air balloons ascend into the sky as the sun sets every summer, you’re in luck. Manchester is going to get its own version, with the Balloon and Beats festival announcing it will come to Platt Fields on 27-28 June.

🍛 Stockport Pyramid will be able to cater for up to 800 guests and “will be the biggest and the best in the UK”, according to Mahboob Hussain, owner of the Indian restaurant chain Royal Nawaab, who won planning approval to turn the iconic building into a large curry house in November last year. “This is definitely not ‘a curry house’”, Hussain added.

🍷 Royton has become an unexpected nightlife destination, with additional GMP officers deployed to the town on the weekends to monitor the packed bars and keep an eye on the violent scuffles on the streets. A spokesperson for Bono has also called for a larger presence (unfortunately that’s a bar, not a singer in sunglasses).

🍃 Green Island Festival, a three-part festival over the summer based in Hulme’s lovely garden centre, has just released its first lineup, including Afro-Jazz band Nubiyan Twist and Tanzanian band The Zawose Queens.

Home of the week 

In Salford, for £325,000 you can get: three beds, two receptions, one bath, and one room that’s apparently perfect for housing a massive Lego collection (you’ll have to provide your own Lego, though).

Our favourite reads

Why was a climate activist put in prison for five years? — The New Yorker

Roger Hallam, “stern-looking, with a long face and gray hair he pulls into a bun”, the 58-year-old co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion (XR), was raised by a Methodist family in Manchester. He’s now serving five years in a Norfolk prison for recruiting protestors to a major protest on the M25 in November 2022. The New Yorker tells his story, and the story of how XR eventually splintered and distanced itself from Hallam.

The Engagement Party review – a disappointing love letter to Oldham — The Observer

On Friday night at Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham, the successful campaign that saved Oldham Coliseum from closure invited local theatregoers to its brand new production, The Engagement Party. Queen Elizabeth Hall will be the Coliseum’s temporary home until the building reopens in time for pantomime season, and the evening should have been jubilant — but theatre critic Matt Barton was left feeling flat. “Despite posing as a love letter to Oldham, and using a local community cast to stand in for wedding guests, the only sense of place comes from references to the town’s chicken shops. Not a day to remember.” Oh dear.

Nick Grimshaw: I lost a million listeners at Radio 1, it was the plan — The Sunday Times

Growing up in Oldham in the 1990s, former Radio 1 breakfast host, now 6 Music breakfast host Nick Grimshaw longed to be part of Manchester’s music scene but had a “horrible” voice and played the trumpet “terribly”. “Saying you wanted to work at Radio 1, while growing up in Oldham, felt like reaching for the stars,” he says. When he was doing student radio at university, his father, Peter, thought Nick had lost his mind. Now he’s one of the country’s most recognisable voices.

 Our to do list

Tuesday

📱A Riot in Three Acts is coming to HOME this week — a combined sound and sculpture exhibition by Imran Perretta on our urban spaces and the violence that shapes them. Tickets are free, but booking is required.

🐟 Stockport tinned-fish-and-wine destination MØ6B are hosting a candlelit life drawing class. Tickets are £20.

Wednesday

🎭 Ren Roberts is bringing her brand new one-man-show Blip to Contact Theatre. Starring Tom Bass, the play uses clowning and physical comedy to explore the vulnerability of a father-son relationship. Tickets are selling fast!

🎸 Late ’80s and early ’90s Mancunian pop band The Man from Delmonte will be playing their first gig in 34 years. The performance will be at Band On The Wall, and tickets cost £22.

Thursday

🌱 Now that spring may well have sprung, the Marbury Road Edible Garden are hosting their semi-annual seed swap at The Lighthouse Church. I’m not sure why so many of our events have been in Stockport recently either.

🎹 And Catalan cellist Gerald Flotats is performing a lunchtime concert at the Bridgewater Hall, alongside Lithuanian-born pianist Kasparas Mikužis. Tickets cost £13 and can be purchased here.

Got an event you’d like us to share? Email Ophira with the details.