Review of Institutional Complaints and Appeals Procedures in ...

Chart D: How widespread do you think students not making complaints due to fear
of damaging their relationship with their tutor is?
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Not at all
Not very
Reasonably
Very
This area of perception about the process is one of the key concerns for students and
institutions need to show that they will respond and that they will respond quickly to prevent
any adverse reaction from the person being complained against.
It was however commented that in the exceptional case the complaint may be made
maliciously by the student against a member of staff and it is important that staff are also
protected in these cases.
It was also commented that students need to go through the whole process and then on the
OIA before they can comment about how the process has been conducted. Therefore if there
is a concern at an early stage that the procedure has not been properly followed then the
student may need to wait many months before this is addressed.
Student views on the impartiality of the process
When asked what they thought would make the process more impartial. There were several
suggestions including having an independent person such as an ombudsman or being provided
with more detail about the investigations.
It was commented that in some cases the complaint was dealt with by a member of staff in
the same department and this was a cause of concern amongst some students. NUS believes
that there should not be faculty involvement where the complaint relates to the faculty. As
one adviser said, “I think they are worried that the University will always take the side of a
University staff member/ procedures over their side.”
The fact that there is a representative from the students’ union on hearing panels for both
complaints and appeals was highlighted as a positive feature of some procedures.
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