How to submit a complaint to the Office for Students: new FSU guide

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

18 September 2026

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (HEFSA) is the most consequential piece of free speech legislation to be passed in the last fifteen years. It placed universities under a strict legal duty to protect free speech on campus. But without a complaints scheme, universities have been able to ignore their responsibility to protect free speech with impunity.

When the Labour Government came to power in July 2024, one of the first acts of the then Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, was to pause the implementation of many of the Act's key provisions, including a complaints scheme. The Free Speech Union threatened Bridget Phillipson with legal action, and then, days before the case was due to be heard, she partially U-turned, announcing that she would commence most of the key provisions — and she duly did.

In April, the then Education Secretary announced that, from 1 September this year, a complaints scheme would be operational for academics, university staff, and visiting speakers. Under this scheme, academics can take their complaints directly to the regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), should they believe that their free speech rights have been infringed.

A new guide to making a complaint

Now that the scheme is live, the Free Speech Union has published a guide to submitting complaints to the Office for Students. This guidance note was produced by Best Free Speech Practice and is extremely comprehensive and thorough.

While the Free Speech Union is delighted that this complaints scheme is now in place, which will undoubtedly help many academics, the battle for free speech is far from over on university campuses. Unlike what was promised under the original HEFSA passed by the previous Conservative government, students are ineligible to submit complaints through this dedicated system.

But we must take the wins where we can — and this is significant. At the Free Speech Union, we have helped countless academics who have been hounded off campus, ostracised by colleagues, and silenced for holding or expressing lawful and legitimate views.

Academics, university employees and visiting speakers who believe their right to academic freedom and free speech, as codified in HEFSA, has been breached can now use this route to complain directly to the OfS.

You can find the guidance document here.