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Classes of information

This Scheme aims to make as much of our information as possible readily accessible to the public, on a continuous basis. We are committed to releasing more material in the future.

IT and telephony information (between 'Contracts' and 'Research funding')

UCL has published a series of information sheets on the information it holds relating to IT, IT services and contracted suppliers:

UCL will make available information within the Information Classes described below. Information falling into the classes below will be retained in accordance with UCL Records management policy and retention schedule:

Information Class descriptions

Under each Information Class there are brief descriptions of the information available within the class.

Who we are and what we do

This section provides information relating to the legal framework, how the university is organised, location and contact details, information which identifies the relationships between different bodies (such as business, the professions and the community), and student activities.

Legal Framework

The constitution and governance of UCL are defined in and regulated by the Charter and Statutes and UCL’s Regulations for Management. 

(Proposed amendments to the Charter and Statutes require the endorsement of the UCL Council and the subsequent approval of the Privy Council. Proposed amendments to Regulations for Management require the approval of a meeting of UCL Council.) 

How the institution is organised

The responsibilities of the officers of Council, of the Provost and his Senior Management Team, and of other senior UCL officers are defined at:

UCL's standing committees are formally established by Council, which is UCL's governing body. Although Academic Board is included it is provided for in the UCL Charter and Statutes rather than formally established by Council as a standing committee.

Location and contact details

Lists of and information relating to:

  1. organisations which the university has responsibility for
  2. organisations it works in partnership with
  3. sponsors and companies wholly owned by it

This information identifies the relationship between these bodies (such as business, the professions and the community) and the university.

Student activities

Information relating to the operation and activities of the Student Union and other clubs, associations and non-academic activities that are organised for or by the students can also be included where this information is held by the University.

University College London Union (UCLU) is the representative body for University College London students, founded in 1893. UCLU is a separate legal entity to UCL.

What we spend and how we spend it

This section provides financial information relating to projected and actual income and expenditure, procurement, contracts and financial audit.

Funding / income / investments

  • Funding income and investment details are contained within the Annual report and financial statements and investment portfolios  (includes archived copies of our annual report since 2000).

Budgetary and account information

Financial audit reports

Capital programme

Information about major building projects which are either agreed by UCL and in the design stages or are in construction is provided by the Major Projects schedule.

Financial regulations and procedures

Staff allowances and expenses

We provide a breakdown of the expenses of senior staff, ie members of the leadership team who occupy the roles set out in our Leadership team as provided on our website, in financial years since 2014 in the form of an

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Please note the following:

  • Hospitality primarily relates to business meals with third parties.
  • Subsistence primarily consists of meals on overseas business travel and local working lunches.

  • To provide such statistics our Finance Team has aggregated several codes UCL uses in the expenses system into groups which make up the column headings.

Staff pay and grading structures

Remuneration of higher paid staff is contained within the Annual report and financial statements.

Register of suppliers

Procurement and tender procedures and reports

Details of UCL Quotation, Tenders and Contract rules are contained in Financial Regulations 82 to 90. Rules for the Ordering of Goods and Services are covered in regulations 91 to 97. These regulations set out the official framework.

Contracts

Details of contracts that are of sufficient size to undergo a formal tendering process. These are only available in hard copy from: Freedom of Information Officer.

Please note: also available as an Email attachment.

Research funding

UCL is a leading Research and Development Institution. Research is funded from various sources – industry, funding councils and charities. The research is carried out under contracts that are private between UCL and the sponsor of the research, and therefore not open to public scrutiny. Aggregate information is presented on a quarterly basis to the Research Strategy Committee and will be open to public scrutiny on the same conditions as the Committee Minutes.

Financial, Business or Research information which is not listed in the Publication Schedule will not be available if it is not in the financial, business or research interests of UCL to release it.

What our priorities are and how we are doing

This section provides details of the strategies and plans, performance indicators, audits, inspections and reviews.

Annual report

Corporate and business plans

Teaching and learning strategy

Academic quality and standards

The Academic Manual is a compendium of key documents relevant to academic quality management and enhancement operations at UCL and particularly to Internal Quality Review.

The Manual is accessible to external readers as well as UCL staff and students both from the UCL website and via the Registry and Academic Services webpages. There is a search facility (thus removing the need for an index) and hyperlinking to other Manual or UCL documents.

Information on the UCL's internal procedures for assuring academic quality and standards and qualitative data on the quality and standards of learning and teaching.

External review information

Corporate relations

Government and regulatory reports

This information is generally available from academic department web sites.

Annual reports on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct

UCL is committed to increased transparency and accountability in addressing issues of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct within our community.

As part of this commitment, UCL has published annual anonymous reports on data insights and intelligence obtained through Report + Support and existing reporting pathways. The first report was published in early March 2020, a year after the launch.

These reports include the number of reports received, actions taken, outcomes and next steps for the institution in creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of our community.
Quarterly trend analysis reports will be run through Report + Support and shared at Faculty level to ensure a proactive approach to intervention and prevention. Data shared will be fully anonymised to ensure there is no risk of identification. The HR and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team will be working with Faculty leaders to design and deliver targeted interventions where there are challenges or concerns as part of UCL’s Full Stop campaign.

One of the key objectives of the Full Stop campaign and Report + Support is to ensure UCL students and staff feel safe reporting issues of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. UCL recognises that increased reporting is essential to effective prevention. Therefore, UCL will view an initial increase in disclosures and reports as an indicator of trust and confident in reporting and in an effective response.

Historical sexual misconduct reports

As part of our commitment to increase transparency, UCL has also published historical reports on sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and sexual violence. You can read these below:

Formal complaints against staff of sexual misconduct

Formal complaints against students of sexual misconduct

The above data from the 2019/20 academic year onwards will be published on the UCL Report + Support website.

Other action UCL is taking:

  • UCL have appointed a full-time permanent ‘Culture and Behaviour Change’ manager.
  • We have revised and delivered the Student Union Active Bystander training. These workshops give students the skills they need to intervene should they witness sexual misconduct on campus, this is done through a strong grounding in consent and recognising sexual misconduct. Since the 2015 academic year, 15,000 students have received Active Bystander training (including 5,492 in the last academic year).
  • Engaging staff and PhD students in ‘Where do you draw the line?’: training on preventing harassment and bullying. We have delivered training to nearly 3,000 staff to date.
  • Delivered ‘Taking the Lead’ to 300 managers across UCL from September 2018 – January 2019.
  • Banned the use of non-disclosure agreements in settlement agreements with staff or students who have raised genuine complaints of sexual misconduct, bullying or harassment.
  • Delivered specialist Rape Crisis training to staff in student-facing roles.
  • Established an agreement with Intersol Global to improve the quality and consistency of investigations.
  • We now have 35 Dignity Advisers to help provide support and guidance to staff at an informal, local level.
  • We are now publicly publishing data relating to complaints we have received on sexual misconduct and bullying. We hope this decision will provide further impetus for positive cultural change, as well as deliver increased transparency - both publicly and internally.  
  • We have an established a dedicated phone line which officers support on bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct through our employee assistance programme.

Investments in companies linked with Israel

We have received a number of similar requests for information relating to investments held by UCL in companies linked with Israel. Mindful of our obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and of the public interest in this topic, we have compiled the relevant information to address each of the questions that we have been asked. Because the individual requests we received covered the same information, for transparency purposes and to ensure consistency, we thought it would be most helpful to address all of these points in one collated response, as set out below.

  • UCL investments: Of the companies currently linked to us on the Palestine Solidarity Campaign website, UCL now only holds investments in HBSC (£1.5m). UCL is satisfied that this investment is in line with its ethical investment policy (see below) and has no plans to divest at this stage.

At this time, UCL does not hold any investments in Raytheon, Rockwell Collins or Booking.com.

  • Steps we have taken to ensure our investments are ethical and do not contribute to any international human rights violations: UCL has implemented a robust ethical investment policy, which can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/ethical-investment. This policy sets out our current ethical investment restrictions and the process for screening and review.

In particular, UCL’s Policy for Socially Responsible Investment states that the university will adopt investment strategies that seek to minimise and ideally eliminate irresponsible corporate behaviour, including investing in:

o Environmental degradation
o Armament sales to military regimes
o Human rights violations
o Institutionalisation of poverty through discriminatory market practices
o Racial/sexual discrimination
o Tobacco production and manufacture

  • Our commitment to our ethical investment policy: UCL is committed to holding itself and its investment managers to the standards set in our ethical investment policy. With this in mind, we have reviewed our arrangements with our investment managers and are satisfied that our investment portfolio is in accordance with our ethical investment policy.

UCL relationship with Stonewall

Request FOI 022-007

“I should like to request the following information relating to the recent decision by the Academic Board to withdraw from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme:

  • The number of transgender people present at the meeting where this decision was made.
  • The specific wording in any of the material that UCL has received from Stonewall in relation to the Diversity Champions scheme which prevents any kind of academic research or scholarship from being undertaken. This was the stated aim, as reported in the Guardian this week, for withdrawing from the scheme, so I would like to be clear about what it is specifically about the scheme that inhibits research.”

Our response

UCL does not hold information relevant to this request. 

In relation to the first part of your request, this is because UCL did not keep a record of the personal characteristics of attendees at relevant meetings. 

In relation to the second part of your request you may find the following documents of assistance:

In addition, the minutes of the Academic Board discussion of the ‘UCL and Stonewall’ paper are available on the Governance and Compliance website. 

Further information about UCL’s relationship with Stonewall is also available on the following UCL website.

How we make decisions

This section covers decision making processes, and records of decisions.

Minutes from governing body, Council/Senate, academic boards and steering groups

UCL's standing committees are formally established by Council, which is UCL's governing body.

Teaching and learning committee minutes

Minutes of staff/student consultation meetings

Appointment committees and procedures

These pages contain information about UCL's standing committees and sub-committees, including details of their constitution and membership, terms of reference and dates of meetings.

Minutes of meetings of the formal committees for sessions prior to 2010-11 are not publicly accessible.  For Minutes of meetings in and after session 2010-11, access restrictions continue to apply both to unconfirmed Minutes of meetings and to confidential Minutes.

Calendar of meetings of Council, Academic Board and UCL standing committees

Our policies and procedures

This section covers current written protocols, policies and procedures for delivering our services and responsibilities.

Policies and procedures for conducting university business

  • The Academic Manual is a compendium of key documents relevant to academic quality management and enhancement operations at UCL and particularly to Internal Quality Review.

The Manual is accessible to external readers as well as UCL staff and students both from the UCL website and via the Student and Registry website. There is a search facility (thus removing the need for an index) and hyperlinking to other Manual or UCL documents.

Procedures and polices relating to academic services

Procedures and policies relating to student services

Procedures and policies relating to human resources

Procedures and policies relating to recruitment

Codes of Conduct for members of governing bodies

Equality and Diversity

Estate management

Complaints policy

UCL is committed to providing a high quality educational experience for all our students, reflected in excellent academic, administrative and pastoral support UCL.

    FOI - Complaints

    Complaints covering requests for information or information via the publication scheme.

    Any written reply from the applicant expressing dissatisfaction with UCL’s response to a request will be treated as a complaint, whether or not the applicant has expressly stated a wish to have the decision reviewed. This includes appeals against decisions to withhold information. The Vice Provost (Operations) is responsible for handling complaints. 

    Complaints received more than two months after the initial decision will not be considered.

    If dissatisfied with the outcome of the review, the applicant may seek a review by the Information Commissioner, who has powers to uphold or overturn the decision. UCL will abide by the decisions of the Information Commissioner’s Office, unless it considers itself to have grounds for an appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Information Rights).

    Records management and personal data polices

    Records Management is a discipline aimed at the efficient and systematic control of the records you create or receive during the course of your work. This is achieved through systems by which designed to control the creation, storage, retrieval and disposal of records.

    The Records Office provides help and advice to staff on information management issues, produce policy in line with legislation and promote good governance.

    Please send general enquiries about records management to records.office@ucl.ac.uk or call 32063 (internal) / 020 7679 2063 (external). The Records Manager can also be contacted on 32589 (internal) / 020 7679 2589 (external).

    The UCL Computer Security Team exists to improve the security of the College's information infrastructure and to minimise the risk of damage caused by unauthorised use. The team co-ordinates the handling of security incidents within the college, liaising between departments and external organisations to provide technical support in response to security incidents, to isolate problems and to assist in recovery after an incident has occurred.

    Research policy and strategy

    Charging regimes and polices

    UCL will follow the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Accordingly, all requests that cost less than £450 to process (the ‘appropriate limit’) will be complied with free of charge.

    If the estimated cost of compliance exceeds £450, the duty to comply with the request does not arise. Such requests may be refused. However, mindful of the duty to provide advice and assistance, where the cost of complying with a request would exceed the appropriate limit, the applicant will be helped, if possible, to modify or re-focus the request in order to bring the cost below the limit.

    In calculating the cost of a request, UCL may only take into account the time taken to determine whether it holds the information, and to locate and retrieve it. It may not take into account the time taken to consider exemptions and to seek and obtain legal advice, to consider whether a request is vexatious, to obtain authorisation to provide the information or to calculate fees. Costs are calculated at an hourly rate of £25, the equivalent of two and a half working days.

    Where communication costs (such as postage, photocopying, printing, CDs etc.) are less than £35 the information will be provided free. The applicant will be charged in full for these costs above that level. A fees notice will be issued, which must be paid within three months. During this period the 20 working day clock is stopped, and re-starts when the fee is received. If the fee is not paid, UCL is released from its obligation to provide the information.

    UCL will not charge for information listed on its Publication Scheme except where specifically indicated on the Scheme.

    Lists and registers

    This section covers information contained only in current maintained lists and registers.

    Any information we are currently legally required to hold in publicly available registers

    The Data Protection Act 1998 requires UCL, as a data controller to provide the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) with details about the purposes by which the university processes personal information. This is known as notification, and the ICO keeps a register which is available to the public for inspection.

    • You can search the data protection public register for UCL's entry on line at Asset registers Details from all asset registers, covering some information from capital asset registers, including landholdings.

    A request should be submitted in writing to: Freedom of Information Officer.

    Disclosure logs

    UCL does not currently keep a disclosure log.

    Register of gifts and hospitality provided to senior personnel

    Any register of interests kept in the university

    The services we offer

    This section covers information about the services we offer, including leaflets, guidance and newsletters.

    Generally this is an extension of part of the first class of information. While the first class provides information on the roles and responsibilities of the university, this class includes details of the services which are provided by the university, internationally, nationally and locally as a result of them. It will also relate to information covered in other classes. 

    Prospectus

    Services for outside bodies

    Course content

    Welfare and counselling

    Dean of Students (Welfare): The role of the Dean of Students (Welfare) was disestablished on 1 October 2013. Welfare matters are referred to the department of Student Support and Wellbeing and Student Psychological Services.

    Health including medical services

    Careers

    Chaplaincy services

    Services for which the university is entitled to recover a fee together with those fees

    Sports and recreational facilities

    High-quality Sports and exercise facilities are run by the UCLU.

    Museums, libraries, special collections and archives

    The UCL Records Office provides help, advice and guidance on information management policy, practices and procedures, for records in all formats, including the off-site storage of UCL’s paper records.  They also hold UCL’s administrative archive. 

    Conference facilities

    Advice and guidance

    Local campaigns

    Media releases