The basics
Who we are and what we do
We review complaints from students about higher education providers in England and Wales. We also share our learning from complaints with providers and student organisations as an important part of improving practice. You can read more about our Scheme and how it was set up on our website.
Our vision is that students are always treated fairly. Our service is independent and our process is impartial and transparent.
Our members
Section 11 of the Higher Education Act 2004 defines those providers, known as “qualifying institutions”, which are required to be members.
The letter we sent to your provider when it joined our Scheme explains why and when it was brought into membership. Some providers have been members since our Scheme began.
Students can complain to us about anything a provider did or didn't do from the date it became a member of our Scheme, as long as the complaint is one we can look at under our Rules.
If you can't find your provider's membership letter, or if you have any questions about your provider's membership of our Scheme, please email membership@oiahe.org.uk.
Our Rules
Our Rules set out:
- How our Scheme works
- Who can complain
- What we can and can’t look at
- How we review complaints
- What higher education providers must do.
The Guidance note that accompanies our Rules explains how we apply them and what some of the terms we use mean.
It is important that members comply with the Rules of our Scheme and that their procedures and regulations are compatible with our Rules.
How we are funded
It’s free for students to complain to us. We are funded by compulsory subscriptions from our members. There are two elements to the subscription fee: a core subscription and a case-related element. The case-related element is not linked to whether we uphold the student's complaint.
How we keep in touch
We ask each provider to nominate a Point of Contact for us to deal with. A Point of Contact’s main role is to liaise with us about individual complaints and to respond to our requests for information. We recommend that providers also nominate a Point of Contact Delegate who will be able to help us if the Point of Contact isn't available for any reason.
We create a MyOIA account for each member provider. When we know who will be acting as our Point of Contact we will send them login details for the provider's account. Providers can use MyOIA to track complaints, manage contact details and add other users. Existing members of our Scheme can use MyOIA to let us know about any changes to the Point of Contact or Point of Contact Delegate.
As a provider Point of Contact or Delegate, we will send you a regular update – our Update for Points of Contact – which will include important information and reminders specifically for Points of Contact. You will receive this automatically via email. Please make sure to take time to read these updates.
We also publish e-newsletters include more general updates about our work. Please check that your email settings allow these to come through to your inbox. We send the e-newsletters to Points of Contact and Point of Contact Delegates automatically, but any other staff who are interested in receiving them can also subscribe via our website.
When you're ready to discover more
Our organisation
Learn more about how we are governed, our values, our service and our people
What is a Point of Contact and what do they do?
Find out more about what an OIA Point of Contact does and how we communicate with you
The OIA in the HE regulatory framework
We are part of the regulatory framework for higher education in the UK
Our subscriptions
Find out more about how we are funded, details of our core subscription fee rates and information about our case-fee element for 2024