GOOD PRACTICE FRAMEWORK - HANDLING COMPLAINTS AND ACADEMIC APPEALS - Group complaints

135Providers should allow students to complain as a group where the issues raised affect more than one student. Group cases are most likely to relate to a service or facility delivered by the provider, and will often involve students studying on a particular module, course or pathway, that use the same facilities. But students on very different courses of study may also make group complaints where they share a source of dissatisfaction with their experience, for example, if they are affected by a closure of leisure or support facilities.

136A provider should consider whether its complaints procedure is flexible enough to allow it to handle complaints from groups of students in an effective and efficient way, or whether it would be beneficial to introduce a separate process setting out how it will handle group complaints. Providers may wish to set out how they will look at complaints from very large groups of students. Any separate process should reflect the principles and good practice guidance set out in this section of the Good Practice Framework.

Deciding whether to treat the case as a group or individual complaints

137Students may have a number of well-established routes to raise initial concerns collectively, particularly where the issue complained about relates to an aspect of their academic experience. For example, students may raise issues through student academic representatives or course representatives, or may have opportunities to offer feedback during or at the end of a module. Students may also approach members of staff directly or start a petition. It is important that providers explain to students the limits of any actions arising from these processes, and direct students to a formal complaints process when appropriate.

138Sometimes students will make a formal complaint having already identified themselves as a group. It is good practice to operate procedures in a way that reduces the administrative burden on students and staff, for example, not requiring every student in a group to make individual submissions to initiate the process. But a provider can take reasonable measures to check that any students named in a group complaint are aware of the complaint and have actively agreed to be part of it.

139It is normally reasonable to expect students to follow any steps set out in the procedure for making a group complaint and to require students to opt-in to the complaint. Providers don’t have to notify students that a group complaint has been submitted or encourage them to join it. But it will often be easier to manage a complaint if the provider tries to establish at an early stage whether other students have also been affected by the issues and are likely to be joining the group. The students’ union or other student representatives might be able to offer students support in organising the group even if they are unable to act as the representative for the complaint.     

140Sometimes, students may want to join a complaint that is already being investigated, or submit individual complaints about the same issues after the provider has made its decision. If their complaint would otherwise be in time under the provider’s procedures, it would not be reasonable to refuse to look at it because the student wasn’t part of the group from the start. The provider should explain, or should ask the group’s representative to explain, how far the complaint has got and whether the student has an opportunity to make individual representations, if they choose to join the existing group.

141If a provider receives a number of individual complaints about the same issues, it may decide to handle those complaints as a group. But there should be an element of student choice. If a student doesn’t want to join the group, or they want to represent themselves in the complaint, they should be able to make an individual complaint.

142Sometimes students will bring a complaint as a group, but the issues may have impacted the students in different ways. In circumstances like this the provider may decide to split the complaint into sub-groups, for example by organising them into different module or programme groups. The provider may also decide it would be better to handle some of the complaints individually, or to look at remedies individually. For example, an individual student may have been impacted very differently because of a disability or personal circumstances. Or they may give the provider information that they would like to be considered but not shared with other students in the group. It may be reasonable for the provider to reach a decision about the group complaint first, and then respond to individual complaints.

143The provider can decide it would be pragmatic to allocate any individual complaints to the same investigator and decision-makers, so the core issues of complaint only need to be investigated once and decisions can be made consistently. The investigator’s conclusions on the group complaint can feed into outcomes for the sub-groups and any individual complaints, although they may have different outcomes depending on the impact of the issues and the individual circumstances.

Communicating with the group

144Usually it is helpful for someone to act as a representative for the whole group of students making the complaint. Providers can ask the group to nominate a representative, who will normally be responsible for liaising with the provider on behalf of the other students. It is helpful for providers to set out information about the role of the group representative in the process.

145Usually a group representative will need to:

• Collect and submit information and evidence from the students, making sure it represents all of the views expressed, not just their own;
• Liaise with the provider about the process to be followed and explain this to the group;
• Attend any meetings, discussions or hearings and make representations on behalf of the group;
• Present any resolution offered by the provider to the group;
• Accept or reject any solutions offered on behalf of the group.

146If the group is large the provider may need to be flexible and extend any deadlines in the procedure to give the representative enough time to coordinate the views of the rest of the group. It should also consider allowing the students to nominate more than one representative to help share the work, although it may ask one of them to act as a lead representative and its primary point of contact. The provider should consider speaking with the representative(s) at an early stage to make sure they understand their role and know who to contact if they have any questions about the process.

147If the students are not able to identify their own representative, the provider may consider whether a member of staff not otherwise involved in the complaint could help the students in this way. For group complaints the provider needs to make sure that students in the group have a proper opportunity to put forward their case whether or not there is a representative.

Responding to the complaint 

148Responding to a complaint brought by a group of students is broadly the same as responding to a complaint brought by an individual. As with any complaint, it’s important to focus on properly understanding and addressing the students’ concerns, gathering and testing relevant evidence, and where appropriate exploring steps that can be taken to put things right, as early in the process as possible. However, handling a group complaint may need more flexibility. Providers shouldn’t overlook opportunities for early resolution, or mediation or conciliation, just because students have decided to bring a complaint as a group.

Putting things right 

149Where an offer to put things right is made in the context of a group complaint, it’s important that the terms of the offer are made clear to the group. The provider should think carefully about whether it is reasonable to make any offer conditional on the whole group accepting it. In most circumstances, conditions like this shouldn’t be necessary and students should be able to decide on an individual basis whether any offer provides a satisfactory resolution for them, or if they want to go on to the next stage of the provider’s internal procedures or complain to us. Occasionally a remedy might be difficult to implement unless most students are willing to agree to it. For example, a change to a module assessment may be impractical to make if only some of the students were to agree to it.

150In some circumstances a provider may consider making an offer to or taking some action for students who were not part of the group complaint.

151Some of the group may accept an offer at the formal stage and decide not to go to the review stage. But sometimes the review stage will result in a different or better offer for the remaining students. Although it doesn’t automatically need to extend the new offer to the other students, the provider should nevertheless think about whether it would be reasonable in the circumstances to do that. This is likely to depend on the nature of the complaint and what the conclusions were. For example, if the review stage concludes that the provider has done something substantially wrong, and that wasn’t properly acknowledged at the previous stage, the provider still needs to think about how to put that right for the students. The provider should also consider whether the remedy should be offered to other affected students too, even if they didn’t join the complaint.

152It may be appropriate for the provider to recognise, in any remedy offered for a complaint, the additional responsibilities taken on by students acting as representatives for large groups.

Group academic appeals

153Group academic appeals are more unusual than group complaints. Normally a provider would consider any circumstances that have had an impact on the performance of multiple students at or before the meeting of the relevant assessment board. But the provider should be flexible and allow students who have been affected by the same issues in a similar way to submit a group appeal. Guidance on communicating with the group and responding to their concerns applies to appeals as well as complaints.

Completion of Procedures Letters

154Once the provider has made its final decision on the group complaint or appeal, it should issue Completion of Procedure Letters to the students involved in line with our published guidance. Even if the provider has been corresponding with a representative, it is still responsible for ensuring that each student is given a copy of the Completion of Procedures Letter setting out its final decision on the complaint and signposting them to the OIA at the end of the process.