Our process
Who can complain?
We can look at complaints from students and former students. A student is someone who is or was registered at a higher education (HE) provider, or someone who is or was studying for one of the provider’s awards. The term “student” can also include trainees and apprentices.
Students at some providers, such as universities, can complain to us no matter what course they were studying on. Students studying at other providers can only complain to us if they are or were on an HE level course. The information on our website about each provider explains if its students need to be on an HE course to be able to complain to us. Find out more:
Complaints we can look at include but are not limited to:
- Academic appeals
- Accommodation
- Bullying and harassment (including sexual misconduct)
- Disciplinary matters (including plagiarism)
- Discrimination
- Extenuating circumstances
- Fitness to practise processes
- Freedom of speech
- Placements
- Procedural irregularities
- Research supervision
- Teaching provision and facilities
- Unfair practices
- Welfare
Under our Rules there are some complaints we can’t look at and other complaints we may decide not to look at, for example:
- Admission issues - unless they are a former student of a higher education provider who is applying for re-admission, and the complaint is related to their time as a student.
- Academic judgment – for example the final mark of a piece of work (but we can look at the marking process eg bias)
- Student employment
- Ongoing legal proceedings – unless they’ve been put on hold
- Issues considered by another alternative dispute resolution (ADR) body
How does a student complain? Will the provider know the student has made a complaint?
Students have 12 months to bring a complaint to us. This is a strict deadline and the clock normally starts from the date the COP Letter was issued. The student only needs to send us the COP Letter, the final decision and their completed and signed Complaint Form. They can complete our Complaint Form online via our MyOIA portal. Providers can also use MyOIA to track complaints about them.
We will decide whether the student’s complaint is one we can look at under our Rules and will let both the student and the provider know.
Our review
If we decide we can look at a complaint, it will normally progress through several stages of our review process before we decide on the outcome. Our process flow-chart provides a visual guide of how our Scheme works.
We will send the provider a copy of the student’s complaint and both the student and the provider will have the chance to comment. We usually look at the provider's final decision and ask to see the information and documents which were part of the process it followed. When we review a complaint we normally ask:
- Did the provider follow its own procedures?
- Were the procedures fair?
- Was the provider’s final decision reasonable?
Learn more about how we review complaints:
- Take a look at our process flow-chart
- Find out more about our approach and process.
- Read our guidance for Points of Contact on responding to our requests for information.
- Our case summaries give examples of the complaints we receive and the decisions we make.
- Watch our bite size OIA video on the process of a complaint.
Settlement
We always try to resolve a complaint at the earliest stage we can. We might try to settle a complaint if there’s been an obvious procedural error that could have had an impact on the case, or if any of the circumstances suggest settlement might be a better way to resolve the issues informally. If we settle a complaint, we normally won’t need to conduct a full review or issue a Complaint Outcome.
Find out more about our approach to settlement.
Our decision – the Complaint Outcome
We will decide whether the complaint is Justified, Partly Justified or Not Justified and will explain the reasons for our decision in a Complaint Outcome. The Complaint Outcome is sent to both the student and the provider.
Putting things right
If we decide the complaint is Justified or Partly Justified, we will usually make one or more Recommendations to put things right for the student and/or to improve practice at the provider.
Student-focused Recommendations:
Wherever possible, we will try to make Recommendations that put the student back in the position they were in before the events complained about happened. While we’ll take the student’s preferred remedy into consideration, this may not always be realistic or within the remit of our Scheme (for example, if it involves academic judgment or a request for disciplinary proceedings against individual member/s of staff).
Some examples of practical remedies we may recommend include:
- Re-running a process that was affected by procedural flaws or possible bias.
- Offering a fresh assessment opportunity.
- Re-marking work following the correct assessment procedures.
- Offering an apology.
If practical remedies aren’t available or appropriate, we may consider other remedies – such as financial compensation.
Good practice Recommendations:
We can also recommend that a provider changes the way it does things so that problems don’t happen again, for example changing a procedure or regulation that disadvantages students or recommending that staff undergo specific training.
Both the student and the provider have the chance to comment on the practicality of our Recommendations before we confirm them. Once the Recommendations have been confirmed, providers must comply with them within any deadline that has been set.
- Learn more about our approach to putting things right, including our approach to financial compensation.
- In our experience, providers almost always comply with our Recommendations or information requests. If we are concerned about any potential issues with compliance, we will follow the process set out in Following up casework-related compliance.
Find out more about our approach and the complaints we review
Annual Reports
Our Annual Reports include information about the complaints we handled in that year, including trends, common themes and examples of the Recommendations we made
Annual Statements
We publish an Annual Statement for each member provider, which includes information about the provider’s record in handling complaints and appeals that year
Resources and Publications
All our current publications, resources, documents and guidance