Official Reply

In reply to the letter criticising the Counselling Service (Salient, April 11), I have several comments to make.

There is a staff of three in the Counselling Service, and they are the only people who have access to the Counselling Service files. The University Administration, the Labour Department and the Security Service do not have access to them. If they requested information, they would be refused.

It is Mr I. H. Boyd, Director of Welfare Services, who assists overseas students, if they wish to have assistance, with student permits or other matters involving the Labour Department. When overseas students approach the Counselling Service for help in these matters they are referred to Mr Boyd, but he does not have access to Counselling Service files. If an overseas student especially asks a Counsellor to help him in matters relating to the Labour Department, then it is the Counsellor who helps. On a few occasions Mr Boyd has been absent from the University and the Counsellors have stood in his place for overseas students who have needed emergency help.

Any student who wishes to have his file destroyed has only to ask. Lee Foundation applications from past years have been destroyed.

Ruth Swatland, Head of Counselling Service