Case Summaries

A student complained to their provider about text messages from a member of staff, which she said were sexually inappropriate. She also complained about the way her initial disclosure to the provider had been handled, because she had contacted two different central services at the provider to raise concerns before being told she would need to submit a formal complaint.

The provider used two different procedures to look into the complaint. It dealt with the student’s complaint about the staff member under its HR procedures. It dealt with the complaint about the way the disclosure was handled as a service complaint under its student complaints procedure.

The provider told the student her complaint about the staff member had been upheld and a sanction had been issued to him. It partly upheld her complaint about the way her disclosure was initially handled. It also acknowledged that there had been some delay in the processes and offered the student £1,000 in compensation for these issues.

The student was unhappy with the provider’s final decision and complained to us. We partly upheld the student’s complaint (we decided it was Partly Justified).

We decided it was reasonable for the provider to have split the student’s complaint into two parts and run parallel investigations under its HR and student complaints procedures. The provider had already apologised and implemented a number of changes aimed at improving its reporting procedures and the support for students making a disclosure, taking on board learning from this student’s experience. We decided the provider had already taken reasonable steps in response to this part of the complaint and the compensation was at a reasonable level for this and for the delay. We did not uphold these parts of the student’s complaint to us.

We upheld the part of the student’s complaint about the outcome of the HR process. We thought that the provider could have given the student a more detailed outcome, without compromising any of its obligations to the staff member as an employee. The provider had not explained how it had considered some of the key issues raised by the student in her complaint, such as the impact of the staff member’s conduct on her and that she felt vulnerable due to the power imbalance and as a disabled student. We decided that it could have explained what the HR investigation had determined as findings of fact. It should have considered whether the student experienced distress because of the proven misconduct, and thought about what remedy would be appropriate to address that impact.

We recommended the provider send the student a more detailed outcome to their complaint about the staff member, to include a remedy for the impact of any proven allegations, with a fresh right to ask for a review of this outcome. We also recommended the provider should apologise and offer the student £750 for the distress and inconvenience caused by not initially providing a clear outcome for this aspect of the complaint, in addition to the £1,000 previously offered. We made a good practice Recommendation for the provider to review its complaints procedure to make sure that students are given a proper outcome to complaints about staff members.