Professor Chris Gill
- Professor of Socio-Legal Studies (School of Law)
telephone:
01413304174
email:
Chris.Gill@glasgow.ac.uk
Room 532, Stair Building, 5-9 The Square, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ
Biography
Professor Chris Gill joined the University of Glasgow in 2017 having previously been Director of the Consumer Dispute Resolution Centre at Queen Margaret University, where he held a variety of posts from 2012. Before this, Chris had a career in regulatory and ombudsman services first at the Advertising Standards Authority (2003 – 2006) and then at the office of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (2006 – 2012).
Chris’ research has been funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme, ESRC, SSHRC (Canada), and the Nuffield Foundation and he has published widely in the fields of administrative justice and access to justice, with particular expertise in relation to the ombudsman institution. He works mostly with qualitative methodologies and has a strong interest in socio-legal methodology and empirical socio-legal research. He is the Series Editor of Edinburgh University Press’ book series, Access to Justice in a Changing World.
Chris carries out a range of policy and practice activities, including as an Independent Member of the Ombudsman Association’s Validation Committee and a Member of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s Consumer Panel. He sits on the Academic Panel of the Administrative Justice Council and in 2023 Chaired the Council’s Working Group on Improving Special Educational Needs Decision-Making. Chris has given oral evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Audit Committee. He is a validated member of the International Ombudsman Institute’s Peer Review Panel.
Chris has carried out a range of consultancy projects for organisations including: the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise, the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman, the Legal Services Board, the Welsh Language Commissioner, the Legal Ombudsman, Utilities Disputes Ltd, and Citizens Advice. Between 2014 and 2015 Chris was appointed as Independent Assessor by the Board of Ombudsman Services Ltd. For more information, please visit: https://profchrisgill.com/.
Research interests
Chris is a socio-legal scholar primarily working in the fields of administrative justice and access to justice. He has broader interests in a range of areas including various fields of public policy (especially education, social security, and immigration), policy design and implementation, decision-making in government and consumer settings, regulation, consumer policy, access to justice, alternative dispute resolution, and conflict resolution.
Grants
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Economic and Social Research Council, Collaboration for Local Innovation Fellowship Pilot Scheme (2024 – 2026). Developing transformative approaches to complaint handling in adult social care in Scotland, £58,000 (Co-Principal Investigator with Prof. Richard Simmons and Dr. Fiona Sherwood-Johnson).
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British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Grants (2024 – 2025). Law and education: the impact of juridification on school governance, SRG2324/241922, £9,981.55 (Co-Investigator with Dr Mark Murphy).
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British Academy Innovation Fellowship (2024 – 2025). The ombudsman and the protection of asylum seekers and refugees in Northern Ireland: developing innovative collaborations, methods, and practices, IF2324/240095, £114,447.99 (Principal Investigator).
- University of Glasgow/ ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Follow on Fund, 2022-23: Identifying and Supporting Vulnerable Public Service Users, £9,926.
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University of Glasgow/ ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Knowledge Exchange Fund, 2021-2022: Developing a Caseworker Forum, £15,000 + £15,000 match funding from the Scottish Parliament (Principal Investigator).
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University of Glasgow/ ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Follow-On Fund, 2019: Therapeutic complaint handling - conducting case studies and developing an implementation toolkit for organisational change, £13,300 (Principal Investigator).
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University of Glasgow/ ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, Business Booster Seed Funding, 2018, Helping business reduce the hidden costs of complaints about employees, £4,400 (Principal Investigator).
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ESRC, 2017-2021, Access to justice, alternative dispute resolution and consumer vulnerability in the European energy sector, ES/P010237/1, £359,398 (Co-Investigator with Dr Naomi Creutzfeldt, University of Westminster).
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SSHRC (Canada), 2017-2018, Co-constructing justice: Exploring citizen-centred design for public service complaint systems, $24,899 (Co-Investigator with Dr Tara Ney, University of Victoria).
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University of Oxford ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, 2015: Critics of the ombudsman system: understanding and engaging online citizen activists, £5,836 (Co-Investigator with Dr Naomi Creutzfeldt, University of Westminster).
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Carnegie Trust Public Engagement Centennial Fund, 2014, ‘Designing Consumer Redress Conference’, £2,250 (Co-Investigator with Carol Brennan).
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UK Administrative Justice Institute/ Nuffield Foundation, 2014-2017, ‘Scotland’s Model Complaint Procedures’, £4,900 (Co-Investigator with Prof Tom Mullen).
Supervision
Chris is interested in supervising PhD candidates in any of the following areas:
- Access to justice, particularly (but not limited to) projects examining the following key themes:
- technology, digitisation, and artificial intelligence
- alternative dispute resolution and online dispute resolution
- the increasing role of non-legal actors in justice provision
- Any aspect of the UK Administrative Justice Institute ‘Research Roadmap’
- The design and operation of administrative justice systems (including courts, tribunals, ombudsman schemes, and internal grievance procedures)
- The experiences of administrative (and other) justice system users, with a particular interest in investigations drawing on procedural justice theory or legal consciousness
- The use of Alternative Dispute Resolution in civil and administrative justice
- Projects proposing innovative methodological designs on socio-legal topics in the field of administrative law and justice
- Projects examining issues of administrative justice in particular areas of government decision-making (e.g. immigration and asylum, social security, housing, education, social care, etc.)
Current students
Elisabeth Davies. How do Ombuds schemes address the power imbalance between service provider and service user without compromising their impartiality?
- Barraclough, Tim
Establishing the principles and practices of a distinctly Scottish Tribunal system - McBain, Mary
Jane.Stanley@glasgow.ac.uk - Reilly, Phoebe
.An examination and evaluation of Scottish university responses to a complaint of student to-student gender-based violence (GBV)
Former students
Budur Dhaifallah Alnefaie. The UK Public Sector Ombudsmen: a doctoral and socio-legal analysis on the possibility of transplanting an ombudsman into Saudi Arabia inspired by the UK model (2021).
Susannah Paul. From adversarialism to empathy: examining judicial approaches and workgroup dynamics in the First-Tier Immigration and Asylum Tribunal (2023).
Charlie Irvine. Does Mediation Deliver Justice? The Perspective of Unrepresented Parties.
Teaching
- Law and Government
- Citizens v The State
- Immigration Law
Additional information
- Member of the Scottish Legal Complaint Commission’s Consumer Panel
- Member of the Ombudsman Association’s Validation Committee
- Member of the Administrative Justice Council’s Academic Panel
- Validated member of the International Ombudsman Institute Peer Review Panel
- Co-convenor of the Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference’s Administrative Justice Stream
