Generally honest but frequently secretive; rigorous in their dealings with fellow scientists but often "unhelpful and defensive", and sometimes downright "misleading", when explaining themselves to the wider world. That was the verdict of Sir Muir Russell and his fellow committee members in their inquiry into the role of scientists at the University of East Anglia in the "climategate" affair.

Many will find the report indulgent of reprehensible behaviour, particularly in peer review, where CRU researchers have been accused of misusing their seniority in climate science to block criticism. Brutal exchanges in which researchers boasted of "going to town" to prevent publication of papers critical of their work, and in which they conspired to blacklist journals that published hostile papers, were dismissed by Russell as "robust" and "typical of the debate that can go on in peer review".

In the event, the inquiry conducted detailed analysis of only three cases of potential abuse of peer review. And it investigated only two instances where allegations were made that CRU scientists such as director Phil Jones and deputy director Keith Briffa misused their positions as IPCC authors to sideline criticism. On the issue of peer review and the IPCC, it found that "the allegations cannot be upheld", but made clear this was partly because the roles of CRU scientists and others could not be distinguished from those of colleagues. There was "team responsibility".

The report is far from being a whitewash. And nor does it justify the claim of university vice-chancellor Sir Edward Action that it is a "complete exoneration". In particular it backs critics who see in the emails a widespread effort to suppress public knowledge about their activities and to sideline bloggers who want to access their data and do their own analysis.

Most seriously, it finds "evidence that emails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them [under Freedom of information law]". Yet, extraordinarily, it emerged during questioning that Russell and his team never asked Jones or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.

Secrecy was the order of the day at CRU. "We find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness," says the report. That criticism applied not just to Jones and his team at CRU. It applied equally to the university itself, which may have been embarrassed to find itself in the dock as much as the scientists on whom it asked Russell to sit in judgment.

The university "failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements" – FOI law in particular – and "also the risk to the reputation of the university and indeed the credibility of UK climate science" from the affair.

The university has responded by abolishing the role of director of CRU, held by Jones until last November. Indeed CRU itself has lost its former independence. Acton said Jones would now be "director of research" for CRU, working within the university environment department.