The deaths of 97 Liverpool football fans at Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 became the UK’s worst sporting disaster. It led to a 30-year long campaign for justice by families and survivors.
This has culminated in the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill 2025 (known as the Hillsborough Law), aimed at embedding transparency and accountability within UK public bodies.
Its provisions could have significant implications for colleges.
Ethical conduct and codes of practice
Public authorities will be required to publicise, develop and implement codes of ethical conduct that promote candour and integrity. These codes must align with the Seven Principles of Public Life (Nolan principles) and include provisions for protected disclosures (whistleblowing) where staff believe colleagues have breached ethical standards. The code must mandate that people working for the authority act in accordance with the duty of candour in work matters, specify disciplinary consequences for breach and guidance for reporting perceived misconduct.
Legal duty of candour
At its heart is the new legal and professional duty of candour. Public officials and authorities will be legally required to act with honesty, integrity, and transparency during investigations, inquiries, and inquests, seeking to reduce the institutional defensiveness which has historically undermined public confidence and trust in investigations and the institutions themselves. This new duty mandates that relevant information must be disclosed proactively and promptly, rather than reactively or selectively. Failure to comply, especially with intent to mislead or obstruct, will be treated as a criminal offence punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment and/or a fine.
New offence: Misleading the public
Public officials who knowingly or recklessly provide false or seriously improper information in their professional capacity may face criminal sanctions. The conditions required for the offence are dishonesty that was significant or repeated (including concealment or obfuscation), caused or had the potential to cause harm to a person and departed significantly from what is to be expected in the proper exercise of the persons functions. For example, if college governors had suspicions that learner grades were being inflated in an improper way then we could see how, under the proposed bill, they may have a legal duty to report this matter. There is, though, a defence of reasonable excuse.
Implications and next steps
FE colleges are listed as bodies to which the legislation will apply. Apart from changes to relatively rare circumstances involving inquests and formal inquiries or the offence of misleading the public, the main implications for colleges relate to the requirements for ethical conduct which are:
- A broad duty to promote and maintain high standards of ethical conduct (essentially conduct compatible with the Nolan Principles) at all times by employees; and
- An obligation to adopt, publish and enforce a code of ethical conduct.
The code of conduct must set out behavioural expectations for discharging the duty of candour and explain what employees should do to comply with it. It must set out the disciplinary consequences for failing to act in accordance with the code (including any circumstances where such failure may amount to gross misconduct); and the code should promote ethical conduct, candour, transparency and frankness within all parts of the college’s work.
The code will need to include a mechanism for employees and others to raise concerns about unethical conduct and breaches of the codes by college employees and to whistleblow where appropriate. The code will also apply to independent and student governors, and to staff governors and governors, all of whom are currently expected to observe the Nolan principles as a matter of good practice.
These new legislative requirements will require colleges to review how they do things in many different areas, particularly when considering how to deal with matters regarded as controversial or confidential and how these sit with their duty as charity trustees to protect the reputation of the college. Staff will need to be trained on what the duty of candour means and how it interacts with other legal duties.
Colleges will need to review their processes for managing disclosures and concerns about unethical conduct as they could face significantly more of these once the legislation comes into force. Finally, it could have a significant impact on dealing with complaints and claims.
The Hillsborough Law therefore represents a potentially seismic shift in public accountability, not only addressing the failures of the past but also setting a blueprint for how public life should be conducted in the future.
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