Senate

Subject: Annual Report on Student Complaints 2006/07

Origin: Academic Registrar

1. Background

The University’s formal student complaints procedures are set out in Ordinance XXXVIII. Informal resolution at departmental level is encouraged but if students remain dissatisfied complaints may be referred to the Academic Registrar who will refer them to the relevant Dean and/or the Registrar/Chief Operating Officer depending on the nature of the complaint. Students who remain dissatisfied after their complaint has been considered through these procedures may refer the matter to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) whose scheme became compulsory in January 2005. Students who have exhausted other procedures, e.g. academic or disciplinary appeals procedures may also submit their complaints to the OIA for independent review.

The Ordinance states that a report on operation of the complaints procedure will be made to Senate and Council on an annual basis. This opportunity has also been taken to report on the University’s dealings with the OIA in 2006/07.

The Registry is very grateful to colleagues in academic departments and support services for their help in dealing with student complaints at Loughborough.

2. Student Complaints 2006/07 – Internal Procedures

2.1 Formal Complaints under Ordinance XXXVIII

There has been a welcome decline in the number of formal complaints under the Ordinance from 9 in 2005/06 to 5 in 2006/07. Appendix 1 provides some breakdown of the statistics by type of student. The majority of cases (80%) related to support service rather than academic department issues whereas there was a roughly equal balance in 2005/06. As overall numbers remain small no attempt has been made to prepare diversity statistics. There was again one meeting of the Student Complaints Committee which upheld the student’s complaint against Student Accommodation Services in part and agreed some financial compensation. Two other complaints were resolved informally and the remaining two were rejected by the Dean/Registrar with both students subsequently taking their cases to the OIA. The undergraduate complaint concerned was upheld by the OIA whilst the PGR case, which has been particularly complex and time-consuming, remains ongoing.

2.2 Informal

Around12 significant cases were again dealt with by the Academic Registrar either directly or by providing advice to the head of the department or section concerned. Numbers remained at a similar level to 2005/06. Around a quarter of these came from applicants to the University who do not have access to the Ordinance XXXVIII procedure or OIA. In one case, an applicant was ultimately barred from the campus by the Registrar as, although he had lodged complaints about his treatment by staff, his behaviour had been unacceptable. It was generally possible to address these complaints via explanation of the situation or recognition that a misunderstanding had taken place and at least half were entirely unjustified. However, a number required detailed responses which were time-consuming to prepare.

It is recognised that this is a small proportion of the complaints being handled at different levels across the University.

2.3 Nature of Complaints

The nature of the complaints continued to be very varied, although research student complaints tend to have their roots in supervisory issues. There was some growth in complaints against Student Accommodation Services, which were generally upheld at least in part, but since the number of cases remains very small this may not be significant.

3. Cases Referred to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator

These grew in 2004/05 (the first year of operation) to 10 in 2005/06 but fell to 6 in 2006/07. One case in 2004/05 required a significant amount of legal advice but it has been possible to avoid this in the last two years. The pattern of OIA cases is rather different to those of formal complaints to the University, with 8 of the 10 cases in 2005/06 and 2 of the 6 cases in 2006/07 following on from an unsuccessful academic appeal by an undergraduate student. In both years one case related to the action taken under the student disciplinary procedures. In 3 of the 2006/07 cases disability support was an issue continuing the trend of previous years. Of these cases, one was upheld and the others dismissed or ineligible. Overall in 2006/07, one case was deemed ineligible, 2 were dismissed, 2 upheld and one is in abeyance. Again there is no pattern in the complaints by department.

Although intended to be faster than the Visitorial system which it replaced, the OIA process remains slow. Nationally the OIA received 588 complaint applications in 2006 (531 in 2005). Of the 465 of these which were investigated, 84% were closed in the year but average completion time was 169 days against 148 the previous year. As in 2005 about a third of complaints nationally were upheld by the OIA. Loughborough’s rate of complaints being upheld is therefore around the national average.

4. The Future

The decline in the number of formal complaints under Ordinance XXXVIII and to the OIA is very welcome. However, cases vary enormously in the time required to deal with them and the particularly difficult research student case referred to in 2.1 above was very challenging during 2006/07 for a number of staff.

Dr Jennifer Nutkins

10 January 2008