Improving what we do
In 2024 we undertook a strategic review, exploring our purpose and goals and identifying the strategic objective and priorities for the coming years. We set out these priorities in our updated 2025 Strategy and the plans to support this work in our 2025 Operating Plan.
One of the priorities we agreed is to fundamentally review our casework process to ensure that it has service users at its heart, is as efficient as possible and is focused on effective resolution and remedy. We have seen an increasing number of complaints received year on year, the needs and expectations of students are changing, and the sector is constantly evolving. It has never been more important that we offer an accessible and easy to navigate process that is flexible enough to meet the needs of the students and providers who use it.
We have continued to look for efficiencies across our case-handling process. This includes further embedding our work to understand trends in the complaints we receive and where there are opportunities to streamline our approach.
Kindness
Despite the sustained increase in complaints that we have seen in 2024, we have worked hard to continue our focus on quality and kindness. We have continued to offer tailored support to vulnerable students and those experiencing difficult circumstances. We were pleased to contribute to the drafting of the Compassionate Communication Commitment.
“I am very very grateful for your patience and effort in the handling of my case. I wish to let you know that I have been touched by your kindness multiple times during these months.”
Student Feedback
In 2024 we continued to invite feedback from the students who use our service. This feedback, together with insights from students who participated in our student discussion groups and from our general engagement with students during our process, is very valuable and informs how we develop what we do.
Some students are very satisfied with our service. We are pleased that a high proportion of those who respond say that we have treated them with respect and politeness. Others express concerns, most commonly around understanding our processes and decisions, the extent and nature of our remit, or a perception of a lack of impartiality.
It is important and valuable for us to understand what we could do better for those students that have not experienced our service in a positive way. Students who are unhappy with their experience can make a complaint about our service. In 2024, we received 45 service complaints, compared to 52 in 2023. Some of the complaints we received raised issues about the merits of the student’s complaint about their provider, which we can’t consider under our service complaints procedure. As in previous years, where the concerns were about our service, the issues raised were generally like the concerns expressed in the wider student feedback. As well as being an opportunity to put things right if they have gone wrong, the complaints we receive about our service provide valuable insight into how we could further improve our service.
Legal challenges to our decisions
Our case decisions can be challenged by judicial review. Judicial review cases often provide useful learning and insights for us, and we value reflections from judges on our decisions and processes.
During 2024 we received a total of 13 new judicial review claims, compared with ten in 2023 and four in 2022. 11 of the claims received in 2024 were refused permission and we are waiting for the court to reach a decision on one of them.
One claim was granted permission. While we were successful in defending the specific issues raised by the student, the Judge concluded that one aspect of our process regarding the revision of our proposed Recommendations, had not been handled fairly. Our recommendations were set aside, and we continued our review. Following further comments from both the student and provider about new proposed recommendations, the provider made an offer to the student in line with our new Recommendations, and these were accepted by the student.
Over the past year we have seen an increase in the number of students who commence legal proceedings without legal representation, which can present additional challenges. We recognise that the costs involved in litigation can be significant. We try to keep our costs low, but we also have a responsibility to recover the costs we incur in successfully defending claims made against us. To assist with managing the continued increase of legal claims, we established a new operational role of Adjudication Reviewer to oversee and respond to legal claims proportionately and cost effectively.
“…The Claimant rather has to identify clear arguable errors of a public law nature. Having reviewed the various submissions….I fail to see any evidence of such failings. The material before the court suggests that the Adjudicator carefully reviewed the information in front of it and reached a rational decision.”
During the year we also received one County Court claim from a student, regarding the outcome of their complaint to us, which was struck out by the Court.
Data and our casework
In 2024 we continued to develop customised reporting on the new casework system we introduced in 2023. Our reporting and intelligence hub helps to increase the visibility of our progress in different areas and colleagues across our organisation use this tool to support their work in areas including improving allocation of cases and the accuracy of data in our systems, and monitoring compliance.
Website
In 2024, to ensure that our content management system was up-to-date and would remain supported, we re-built our website on a new platform. We didn’t make significant changes to the content of the site, but we took the opportunity to make some improvements for security and accessibility.