Universities

Summary
Mr C complained that he had not received adequate feedback from the college during his studies. As part of his complaint he said that as he had been unable to progress with his studies he had to enrol on his chosen course at another college. This meant that he had to undertake work he had already completed and had lost his student funding.

To investigate this complaint we made several enquiries to the college as well as considering information from Mr C. We also looked at the college complaints and assessment procedures. We carefully considered all the available information and found that the college had not followed its published procedures for giving students feedback. We asked the college about Mr C being unable to progress to the next year of his course. The college explained, and we saw evidence, that they had in fact offered him the opportunity to continue his studies with them.

We found that the college had not addressed one of Mr C's complaints. We also found that their record-keeping for his complaints was poor as they were unable to produce a report that they said had been written. This was contrary to their published procedure which said that they would keep accurate and complete records of all complaints received and the resulting correspondence, interviews and actions.

Recommendation
We recommended that the college:

• remind staff to ensure that all individual complaints are addressed, and of the need to keep accurate records in line with the college complaints procedure.

Summary

Miss C owed the university money because she had withdrawn from her course. She complained to the university about the way that a debt agency working on their behalf handled the recovery of her debt. She also complained that the university had not dealt adequately with her complaints and that communication from them was inappropriate.

We upheld Miss C's complaints. Our investigation found that she had raised several concerns with the university about the agency's handling of the debt recovery, but the university declined to respond to these and told her to continue dealing directly with the agency. We also found that the university's handling of Miss C's complaint was poor. We found that they failed to confirm receipt of her communications, missed agreed deadlines and provided inconsistent information. In addition, they sent communications to Miss C at an incorrect address and email account, even though she had provided the correct information.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise to Miss C for instructing her to continue to deal with the debt recovery agency;
• take appropriate action to reach an agreement with Miss C about repayment of the outstanding fees;
• apologise to Miss C for their unreasonable handling of her complaint;
• share our decision letter with relevant staff to remind them of the importance of timely responses to complaints, and of the need to explain and apologise to complainants if exceptional circumstances create delays in response; and
• review their procedures for assuring that external agencies acting on the university's behalf meet the relevant service standards, including putting in place monitoring arrangements.

Summary

Mr C was unhappy with the academic appeals process that he had to follow when he claimed that his dissertation (document of research and findings, submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification) was unfairly marked. He had been given a fail grade, which meant that he would not be able to go on to study for a doctorate. We explained that we could not look at academic appeals other than where there was a failure of process or mismanagement. Mr C complained that he had not been able to see the comments on his dissertation before the appeals decision meeting, and that the university had not followed their appeals procedures.

After we investigated, we did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that the university had followed its feedback policy, and that comments on final assessments were available if individual students approached their tutor or supervisor. They had advised Mr C to do this, but he had not. The appeals procedure did not enable individuals to question academic judgement or to debate the assessment. The university had followed its procedures in checking that assessment guidelines had been followed, and all markers were in agreement about the grade awarded. The stages of the appeals process had been followed and were clearly documented.

Summary

Mrs C complained to the university that she was being bullied and harassed. She said that she was unable to continue with her studies for a considerable period and was signed off by her GP. She complained to us that the university had not followed their procedures in investigating her complaint of bullying nor offered her reasonable care in terms of their mental wellbeing policy.

Our investigation found that the university should have dealt with the complaint of bullying under their dealing with harassment policy but did not do so. It was investigated under the student disciplinary code and no evidence was found to discipline any student. At the next two stages of the complaints procedure, the university acknowledged that the best approach had not been followed, but did not uphold the complaint that bullying and harassment had not been dealt with properly. Our investigation concluded that there had been confusion over which procedure should have been followed and that the university had failed to fully investigate the harassment allegation.

We also upheld the complaint that the university failed to offer reasonable care in terms of their mental wellbeing policy, as the university investigated the complaint of harassment as a potential student code of conduct matter. They did not give due regard to Mrs C as a potential victim of harassment and to the potential harmful effect on her wellbeing. There was no evidence of the university offering her support and practical assistance as outlined in the mental wellbeing policy.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise to Mrs C for failing to conduct an adequate investigation into her complaint of bullying; for not following its policy on dealing with personal harassment, and for failing to offer reasonable care in terms of their mental wellbeing policy; and
• share the outcome of the investigation with relevant staff and remind them of of the importance of following the dealing with harassment policy and the mental wellbeing policy.

Summary

Mr C complained that the university unreasonably withdrew his right to study. He said he had not received communications that they sent whilst he was overseas because his university email account had been disabled, and that he had told his supervisor about his intended period of study off-campus. He also complained that the university unreasonably refused to hear his appeal against the decision to withdraw his right to study.

The university said they withdrew Mr C from his studies because he had not complied with their monitoring procedures for overseas students, as required by the UK Border Agency. In particular, he had not signed in weekly at the university office while on-campus, and had not completed the required form to obtain permission to study off-campus. Mr C had also consistently failed to respond to correspondence.

We did not uphold his complaint about withdrawal of the right to study. Although our investigation found evidence that Mr C had told administrative staff about the difficulty he had experienced in accessing emails, he had not reported it to the university IT help desk as he had been advised to do. Nor had he made any attempt to contact the university to arrange an alternative form of contact while any IT issues were being resolved. There was no evidence to suggest that Mr C's email account had been disabled or blocked by the university.

We did, however, uphold his complaint about the appeal. The university had rejected Mr C's appeal because it was made after a five working day appeal deadline had elapsed. We found, however, that they had not properly applied their policy on complaints and appeals and should have offered Mr C a ten working day period in which to appeal. We considered whether the university should now offer Mr C an appeal hearing but concluded that, as the decision to withdraw Mr C from his studies had been a reasonable one, this would not serve any practical purpose.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• amend their existing policy to identify the circumstances in which the Informal Resolution Stage may not be appropriate, and could, legitimately, be bypassed.

Summary

Mr C complained that by investigating an allegation of gross misconduct against him, the organisation breached their regulations, codes of procedure and general rules, by creating rights beyond their statutory and common law obligations.

We explained to Mr C that our investigation of his complaint could only look at whether policies and procedures were followed and if appropriate advice was taken. We found that the organisation had taken legal advice. We could not compel them to provide this to us, and only a court could determine whether the legal advice was reasonably acted upon. We could not, therefore, determine whether they breached the regulations by investigating allegations against Mr C, and could not uphold his complaint.

Summary

Ms C complained that the university did not follow their regulations in the way they handled her PhD programme. She also complained that when she appealed against being de-registered from the programme, the university failed to respond reasonably to her appeals.

The particular issues which Ms C complained about related to the way in which the university supported her with difficulties she encountered with her research, including the loss of samples and a change in blood sampling techniques. She also complained that they had not provided her with sufficient written feedback on assessments she completed for the course. When she declined to meet with staff on several occasions until they provided her with information in writing, the university started to invoke procedures for de-regulation. Ms C was unsuccessful in her appeals against her de-registration.

We upheld the complaint about the way the university handled the PhD programme. Our investigation identified failings with the way in which the university provided feedback to Ms C following her assessments. Feedback was delayed, insufficient in detail, and not always in writing. We also identified issues with the sharing of other information about the conduct of research. In relation to the de-registration, our investigation found that the regulations had not been followed; insufficient notice was given of the situation, and this was followed by delays in providing responses to Ms C's appeals. However, we found that the content of the responses provided by the university was reasonable.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• remind all staff of the obligation to follow through procedures in relation to any future cases of de-registration;
• review the way in which they communicate with students to ensure they provide consistent written feedback and communications, particularly where there are concerns over research methodology; and
• apologise to Ms C for any confusion caused by the irregularities in how the early stages of the de-registration process was handled.

Summary

Mr C complained to the college on behalf of his daughter (Miss A), after the Student Awards Agency for Scotland took recovery action against her. This highlighted a disagreement about the date on which Miss A's studies had ended, as Mr C said that Miss A was still attending college after the date on which the college said they had withdrawn her from her studies. This affected the amount of student award she was due to repay.

The college had investigated this and decided that the evidence supported their recorded withdrawal date. As part of our investigation, we reviewed the evidence that they provided, along with Mr C's evidence. Having done so, we considered the college's position on the matter to be reasonable and we did not uphold the complaint. However, we noted that it was not the college's practice to issue withdrawal letters and that Miss A, therefore, received no formal notification at the time of her withdrawal. We took the view that this might have avoided the subsequent disagreement and complaint, and made a recommendation to address this.

Mr C also complained about the college's complaints handling, as he was unhappy with the the time it had taken for him to complete their complaints process. We found that stage one of the college's process was informal and that three separate members of staff had dealt with Mr C during this stage before his complaint was formalised and escalated to stage two. We considered that this informal stage was unnecessarily protracted. Once the complaint was formalised, we found it was handled reasonably. However, we noted that throughout the process the college failed to proactively signpost Mr C to the next stage. In the circumstances, we upheld his complaint about complaints handling. However, we considered that the imminent introduction of a standardised complaints handling procedure for the further education sector will address this and so we made no further recommendations.

Recommendations

We recommended that the college:

• revise their policy to ensure that students who are withdrawn from courses are notified of this in writing.

Summary

Miss C complained about the way in which the university handled her application for Recognised Prior Learning (RPL - a process in which skills and knowledge gained outside formal learning are assessed and granted formal recognition) when she was accepted onto a course. She said that their handling of her application was unnecessarily protracted and flawed. She also complained about the way her complaint about this was handled.

We upheld both Miss C's complaints. During our investigation we found that the university had failed to follow their RPL guidelines, as Miss C should have been provided with a named RPL adviser to support her in making the application. We found no evidence that she was told who her adviser was. Nor was there evidence that she had been provided with written support materials, which the guidance in place at that time identified as essential elements of the RPL support system. We also found that, while the assessor of any RPL claim should not normally be the RPL adviser, in this case the person the university identified as the RPL adviser had also assessed the claim, contrary to their guidance. Although we found that the identified assessor had not formally notified Miss C of the decision on her application, nor had it been considered by the assessment board as it should have been, we were satisfied that the university had written to her explaining why she did not meet the RPL criteria. Nevertheless we considered that, as correspondence became protracted, there was a failure to adequately explain the exemptions that the university were prepared to grant, and any right of appeal that Miss C might have had.

Miss C also complained that her complaint was not adequately considered. She said that the university's formal response diminished the substance of her complaint, and that they failed to offer mediation in line with their complaints procedure. We found that the university had acted in line with their complaints procedure in not offering Miss C mediation. Given the detailed email correspondence and meetings with staff that had already taken place to try to resolve the issues informally, we considered that by the time Miss C made her formal complaint, the opportunity to resolve the matter informally through mediation had passed. However, we found that the response to Miss C's formal complaint, although it largely upheld her concerns, did not adequately explain the university's decision and any remedial action taken to avoid this happening again. We were also critical at the way in which Miss C's formal appeal against the decision was handled, as it was considered by the same person who made the decision on the complaint. We noted that, under the complaints procedure, any appeal should have been considered by the complaints appeal panel. We made a number of recommendations to address the failings identified in our investigation.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• ensure that all relevant staff are aware of the RPL process and, in particular, the need to ensure that students are adequately supported when making such an application;
• ensure that students are appropriately advised of all rights of appeal in relation to RPL within the revised policy and when advising them of the decision;
• ensure that, should Miss C decide to re-register for the doctoral course, any further RPL application from her is assessed in line with their revised policy and at no financial cost to Miss C;
• ensure that formal complaints are handled in line with their complaints procedure: in particular, that the investigation is thorough and the response adequately addresses the issues raised; and
• provide Miss C with a formal apology for the failings identified.

Summary

Mr C complained that the college failed to respond to his complaints about the teaching staff on his course. We found that there were a number of shortcomings in the college's handling of Mr C's complaints. It took them too long to respond, not all issues he had raised were properly considered, and there was a lack of robust follow-up action to improve Mr C's learning experience. The college apologised unreservedly and reimbursed Mr C's fees.

Recommendations

We recommended that the college:

• provide update training to all staff involved in Stage 1 complaints handling.