Complaints Procedure

A complaint is an expression of concern or dissatisfaction with the services provided or actions taken by the college that affect the quality of a student’s learning opportunities.

A:  INFORMAL APPROACH to resolving complaints

1. Talk through the issue with the appropriate member of staff to find an informal way to resolve the problem, within 10 working days of the action or loss of service that you feel has adversely affected the quality of your learning opportunity.
2. Appropriate members of staff:
   1. Personal Development Tutor
   2. Subject Lecturer
   3. Student Services Manager
   4. Welfare Officer

They can be contacted through reception or by ringing the switchboard.

B:  FORMAL APPROACH

1. If the informal approach does not resolve the matter, you may make a formal complaint, which should be in writing and addressed to the Assistant Principal Quality and Curriculum.Alternative formats and methods of complaints will be accepted.  Assistance regarding how to make a complaint can be found through our reception and welfare services.
2.  A formal complaint must be made within 15 working days of the action or loss of service that you feel has adversely affected the quality of your learning opportunity.
3. The Assistant Principal Quality and Curriculum will assign an investigating manager typically:

• Head of Department
• Director
• Alternative manager

On receipt of a formal, written complaint:

Within 2 days:        The Assistant Principal Quality and Curriculum will acknowledge receipt of the formal complaint to the complainant (and forward a copy to the assigned investigating manager)

Within 10 days:      The investigator will conclude the investigation and send the College`s detailed response to the complainant.   If it is not possible to conclude within 10 days the investigator will send the complainant an indication of how the complaint is being addressed and when they will receive a detailed response.

Copies of all correspondence relating to the complaint should be forwarded to the Principal’s PA to inform the central complaints record.

C:   APPEALS

1. If the College`s response to your complaint does not resolve the matter an appeal may be addressed to an Assistant Principal Quality and Curriculum.
2. Any further appeal should be addressed to the Deputy Principal.
3. Any further appeal should be addressed to the Principal.
4. Any further appeal should be addressed to the Clerk to the Governors*.
5. Further Education Students have the right to take your complaint to the Skills Funding Agency*.

*The Clerk to the Governors and the Skills Funding Agency can be contacted via the Vice Principal Finance and Resources.

If you are a higher education student on a course franchised to the College by a local university, you may wish to take your complaint to the university if you are not satisfied with our response.  All students on higher education courses are able to bring a complaint that occurred on or after 1 September 2015 to the Office of Independent Adjudicator**.  It would be expected that if an HE student were unhappy about their HE course, they would go through our internal complaints procedure first, before complaining to the OIA.

** The OIA can be contacted via the Assistant Principal Sixth Form and Higher Education

D:  COMPLAINTS RELATING TO GOVERNANCE

Any governance complaints should be addressed to the Clerk to the Governors.

July 2015