@ Doodles: you got it, that's the situation I'm facing. I believe it's a problem of ego and also that she doesn't like working with other people. She discouraged me various times to appoint another supervisor and then when the mistakes came, she said that it was my fault because I was insisting to keep the things in my research proposal. Obviously, this is not true. If it was my fault I wouldn't probably even complain here. Her supervision is no more than a proofreading, and she never gives me substantial comments. In any case, even if she was busy, she should have been able to recognise a bad research proposal.
The other supervisor seems to be ok, at least from the methodological side (which I need), and since mine is a supervision across school, I want to see whether I can transfer to my second supervisor's school. My topic is more appropriate there than in the department where I am now. I don't whether this will be possible, especially if my current school gets my full fee (horrible to say, but I suspect that my supervisor's only concern is the money she can get from me), but I want to try. Unfortunately in my university it happens frequently that students are not in the departments closer to their research interests, since they think that no matter who supervise you.

The new topic is not completely different from the one I'm currently working on. I was able so far to do some interviews, and in the offices where I've been there seems to be people willing to provide me with more data if I require them. Basically I'm planning to downsize my topic but with the data available, I'm not changing completely my research. The problem of the PhD is what made me think of the possibility (or the need more like) to change supervisor. Since I need to remain in the PhD standard, I think that my current supervisor is not appropriate at all. If she was not able to give me ideas and guidance, it's pointless for me to discuss this change. Turning to the possible extension, I will consider this implication when I discuss this with the Director of research students, but I don't think it will be the case to request an extension. In these five years, due to the poor supervision I received, I almost wasted time and money and I think that what I did in 5 years could have been done in half of that time with good guidance. Since I was discriminated on the basis of my mode of attendance ("you're going too fast to be a part-time student", "you have to wait": these are my supervisor's comments). My supervisor didn't ask me to change topic, but she's never sure about what I'm doing because she's not familiar with my topic, my field of research and also the readings I'm doing. And the time goes, my fear is that if I keep on working with her I will fail even to submit in time. I understand that as a part-time student I'm not allowed to finish before 6 years minimum (as in my regulation), but I prefer to spend the remaining of the time to write up my thesis and get a decent job (since I need it also for family reasons), rather than playing around and have to guess what is in my supervisor's mind. I don't know if I'm clear, but my basic argument is that if I change supervisor and I get a more knowledgeable one, I will also able to use my time and money more efficiently. Anyway, I really thank you for your suggestions!

Fieldwork bit: the sources I mean are reports and minutes of meetings that partly I was expecting to find. OK if the latter are not available, but the former are not just because the authors themselves don't want to share them. Turning to the interviews, i tried to contact assistants and similar people, and I was aware that key people such as head of deparment or general directors are not available or willing to be interviewed. But it didn't work either: this people don't talk without the authorisation of the head of department. And this happened even if I alerted them about my visit several weeks ago. A plan B is then to downsize my research and concentrate on other aspects. The problem is not this, but my supervisor. I believe that the fact that she cannot advise me on the sources, even when I ask only advice and not to give me any particular input, it's a serious problem, also in the light of a failed upgrade. My concerns are for the future, if she didn't work properly so far, I'm worried that she won't be able to supervise me properly for the rest of my PhD. She seems to be too busy to be engaged with my research.

Perhaps I omitted some bits, but to answer to your questions: I did a new upgrade, second chance, and now I am working towards a PhD. I went out of contact five months ago and after the new upgrade. I've got the 6th year and another year after that. It seems a long time ahead, but take into account that my supervisor has never clarified what the required standard for a PhD is. And in any case most of the feedback I receive is more a proofreading rather than substantial comments that make my research grow. If she's not familiar with my topic because she doesn't do any research on it, she's not even able to give me advice on the data sources. Perhaps it's not the case for everyone, but I had several times this impression. Finally, if she keep on thinking that I don't work well or I'm refusing her supervision (this is not true, simply I don't find her feedback useful, especially after the failed attempt to upgrade) and doesn't listen, then I think it's wasted time working with her.

Dear mates,
I'm a part-time PhD student in a UK university. My experience is very depressing, probably not as bad as some that I've read here, but still a nightmare for me. My current supervisor is not an expert in my field, she has no knowledge at all of what I'm investigating (despite the faculty regulation stating that supervisors should be actively working in the research field of research students), and she's not particularly good in research methods and design. Last year she didn't provide me with good supervision, and as a result I failed my upgrade. Her excuse was that she was too busy to carefully read my research proposal, and for the same reason one of her students failed his viva. In addition, although the regulation requires the appointment of two supervisors, she discouraged me to find another one. Her feedback is all but useful, she often accuses me of not including certain aspects in my drafts although she didn't tell me what has to be included. For instance (but I've got hundreds of these) the most common comment I read is: "I'm surprised you didn't include a background section in your research proposal" but she never told me what in general goes into a research proposal, not even the basics. I don't if I'm wrong, but I believe I should expect this type of help from a supervisor, otherwise what are they for? On the top of this, she's quite rude to me. Last time I had a supervision, e finally got a second supervisor, she started alleging that I'm refusing the support from the supervisor and that I create fuzz. This is not true, after the upgrade I feel discouraged because I don't see anything useful in submitting my work to her again, and it's been five months that I don't meet her. Now I'm doing the fieldwork, and it's not easy to collect all the data, some people are not available for interviews and there are not written sources for some of the aspects I wanted to cover. I believe that I should downsize my thesis, and probably change the topic (still in the same field but different topic). I think that my supervisor could be helpful if she could advise me on the feasibility of my research, instead I didn't receive any advice on this, other than rewrite the whole research proposal because she didn't do her job properly last year. I can't do that just because the time for submission is coming for me as well and rewrite the whole research proposal would take me another year and I'm running low of money. She doesn't understand this and keeps saying that since I'm a part-time student I've got time and I have stay at the back of the queue of full-time students. I'm seriously considering to change supervisor, ok part-time, but we are talking about my money and my time and the more I go ahead, the more I think that if I remain with her I will most certainly fail. Let me know if you had similar experience and how you've dealt with it