Complaints in higher education

Complaints against universities and colleges of higher education

QAA has no remit or power to become involved in individual disputes involving students or members of staff and higher education institutions, either as an arbitrator or on their behalf.

To clarify our position on this and to offer advice on how students, staff or others can resolve their complaint, whether these be individual disputes or possible Causes for Concern, we have published a visual guide to help identify the nature of your complaint.

If you have a personal dispute with your higher education institution, we can offer you the following advice. Please note that this advice relates to higher education.

Individual disputes involving students To make a formal complaint against your institution, you will need to obtain and follow the complaints procedure from your institution. This should be available on request from your institution and it may be available on their website. If you have exhausted the complaints procedure at the institution and are not happy with the outcome of that process, you may be able to take your case to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (www.oiahe.org.uk) for an institution in England and Wales or the Ombudsman (www.spso.org.uk) for institutions in Scotland. These bodies will only look at your case if you have exhausted the institution’s internal complaints procedures and your complaint has not been satisfactorily resolved.

Individual disputes involving staff QAA cannot involve itself in individual disputes between staff and institutions in respect of employment matters. In these circumstances, we can do no more than advise you to contact the Human Resources department of your institution to discuss your concerns. If you are not happy with the outcomes of that process you may wish to contact the relevant union representative. Alternatively you may wish to seek independent legal advice.

Causes for Concern

Although QAA cannot become involved in individual disputes, we can investigate concerns that relate to an institution’s policies or procedures (or lack of these) that are having a serious adverse effect on its academic standards and the quality of its higher education awards. These can be investigated through the Causes for Concern scheme.

If you are engaged in a personal dispute that you believe has developed as a result of a more general problem that has come to light at an institution, we may be able to consider that element of your complaint under our Causes for Concern scheme, but please note that we will not be able to remedy your personal situation or offer you redress.

Please also note that we do not have the power or the remit to request that your institution, or an external examiner, remarks or regrades your work; and we cannot remark or regrade your work ourselves.

QAA will not normally consider a matter of concern if you have not first tried to resolve it using the institution’s own internal procedure. Please also note that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, QAA will not investigate complaints while other investigatory processes, for example an institution’s own internal complaints procedure, an investigation by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, or an Employment Tribunal, are taking place.

Complaints about QAA

If you wish to make a complaint against QAA, please read our procedure for handling complaints from institutions.

If you have any further queries relating to complaints about QAA, please email complaints@qaa.ac.uk or call 01452 557000.