You don’t necessarily have to make a Formal Complaint. There are other ways to get your voice heard that might be more appropriate.

Very often, you can solve the issue that’s making you unhappy by holding a quick conversation with the right person. You could contact your Programme Leader or Module Tutor directly, and ask if you could talk about your concerns with them. They’re probably more open to feedback than you think, and, if it’s an issue that they can’t solve themselves, they might know who can.

Bear in mind, however, that your lecturers are people too – they might feel sensitive about direct criticism. Read our tips below on how to phrase your concerns informally. If you want to write a draft of how you plan to raise your concerns, you’re also welcome to contact us for feedback.

You might suspect that other people on the course are feeling the same way. If so, this is what your Course Rep is for! They attend meetings with your Programme Leader and the team that runs your course, so they can raise these concerns directly. If you’re not sure who your Course Rep is, your Programme Leader should be able to tell you – or you can contact studentvoice@uwtsd.ac.uk to find out.

It’s normal to feel uncomfortable when you’re trying to give bad news, or say something critical of somebody – especially if that person is in a position of authority, like a University staff member. Here are some tips to help you organise your thoughts.

• Start by making it clear that your aim is to find solutions. You’re contacting them to be constructive, not to be negative or to hurt anyone’s feelings. If you can include something complimentary about the recipient (“I’ve enjoyed attending your seminars this semester”), then all the better.

• However, don’t over-apologise. You don’t need to say, “I’m sorry to have to say this”. If it’s important enough to say, then you’re not doing anything wrong by saying it. Instead, wording such as “I appreciate that this is a difficult conversation for us to have” and “I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you and reach a common understanding” acknowledges the recipient’s feelings, without making you come across as passive.

• Stick to the facts. What happened? (Or, what was promised but didn’t happen?) When? Who is involved?

• Avoid ‘hyperbole’ – words such as ‘never’ and ‘always’. For instance, if your lecturer has not replied to three e-mails that you’ve sent, state that factually (and give the dates). “I e-mailed on 23/03, 27/03 and 30/03, but I did not receive a response” is much more effective (and harder to deny) than “You always ignore every single e-mail I send.”

• Similarly, avoid ‘emotive’ language – words that are intended to trigger strong emotions. If you say “I find what you say absolutely disgusting”, your lecturer is likely to respond defensively. By contrast, if you report what was said, and add, “I felt that this was insensitive, because…”, your lecturer will be better able to understand where you’re coming from – and more likely to recognise your concerns.

• Be clear about the outcome that you’d prefer. Are you looking for a particular solution to the problem? A face-to-face meeting? An apology? Or are you not looking for any particular outcome – just the chance to put your feelings on the record? (If you’re only seeking financial compensation, it’s generally best to go straight to a Formal Complaint).

• Finally – if you’re putting your thoughts in an e-mail, read through what you’ve written before you press ‘send’. How would you feel if you received this? If there are phrases or sentences where your gut feeling is that this is probably too harsh, it isn’t ready to send.

You’re also welcome to contact us for more advice and guidance on how to put your thoughts into words.

If you’ve tried to raise your concerns ‘informally’, by approaching the University staff concerned directly, the next step would be to make a Formal Complaint.

When you make a Formal Complaint, your concerns will be investigated by the Academic Office. The Academic Office is separate from any of the University’s Institutes or service departments, so they can investigate the facts impartially.

As part of their investigation, the Academic Office will write to the Institute or to the service department that you’re making the Complaint about, to get their side of the story, before reaching a decision.

If the Academic Office agree that your Complaint is valid, and ‘uphold’ it, they will recommend an Outcome to address the situation. This Outcome might be the same as the Outcome that you’ve asked for, but it might be different.

To make a Formal Complaint, you’ll need to fill in the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form, which you can download from here. If you’re considering making a Formal Complaint, you’re welcome to contact us to talk through your situation and ask questions regarding your submission.

It’s usually in everyone’s best interests if you try to resolve the issue informally first. Most of us have experienced somebody complaining about us to somebody else, which leaves us wondering, “Why didn’t you just say that to me? I could’ve done something about it!” Moreover, the Formal Complaint process takes much longer than a quick chat with the right person.

In fact, one section of the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form – ‘Details of informal procedures’ – asks you to outline what steps you’ve already taken to solve this. The Academic Office will generally expect to see that you’ve tried to resolve things before turning to them, and will want to know why you weren’t satisfied with the outcome of this.

However, you might have good reasons for wishing to skip the informal stage. For instance, the person or service that you’re complaining about might have left you feeling intimidated, or the thought of meeting them or entering into a chain of back-and-forth e-mails with them is making you feel very anxious. In this case, it might be more appropriate to go straight to the Formal Complaint stage. You can explain why on the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form.

It might also make sense to go straight to a Formal Complaint if you’re very dissatisfied by a University Institute or service and looking for financial compensation. This is because student-facing lecturing and service staff (and their line managers who are one tier ‘above’ them in the management structure) don’t usually have the power to award significant financial compensation anyway.

If you’d like to give the informal process one last try, the Students’ Union might be able to support you by getting in touch with the staff member you’d like to resolve the issue with (though do bear in mind that we can’t ‘wave a magic wand’ – it might be that the only thing to do at this point is to go for a Formal Complaint). We might also be able to accompany you to a meeting. If you’re not sure whether the informal stage is still worth a shot, or if you’re certain that you’re ready to go straight to the Formal Complaint stage, you’re welcome to contact us to talk through your situation.

You can download the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form from here. It’s also worth having a look at Section 14 of the Student Complaint Policy before you start filling it in.

Most of Page 2 of the form is straightforward – it’s just asking you to fill in your personal details, and choose the ‘Type of Complaint’. Don’t ‘overthink’ the ‘Type of Complaint’ – your Complaint will still be investigated if the one you choose isn’t necessarily the best fit.

Page 3 is where you go into detail on your concerns. The more specific you are, the easier it is for the Academic Office to investigate your Complaint – and, therefore, the more likely you are to get the outcome that you’re looking for. Here are some points to bear in mind when filling in Page 3 of the form:

Complaint against

Remember that the Case Officer from the Academic Office might not personally know your lecturers, or anything about your programme. Give full names (not just first names), module codes and full programme titles. If your Complaint is against a service department and you don’t know the name(s) of the person or people involved, state which campus the incident happened at – most service departments have different teams working at different campuses.

Details of complaint

Write what happened in chronological order, from beginning to end. Give specific dates, and cross-reference these to your evidence. For example:

“On 22/03, Dr Glyndŵr said XX in a lecture. On 23/03, I e-mailed Dr Glyndŵr to state that I found this offensive (ref. evidence 1)…”

You can also reference relevant University documents or policies here. For instance, if you can show that you were promised a particular service or opportunity to learn about something in your Programme Handbook, make sure that you quote the relevant section, and give the page number.

Many University policies can be found in the UWTSD Academic Quality Handbook. These can be quite difficult to interpret, and you might not be sure whether the University has actually broken any of its own commitments or regulations. The Students’ Union has experience of a wide range of Complaints, so please contact us for advice on whether any University regulations might be relevant to your case.

Incident

If your Complaint isn’t about a single incident, but is instead about a ‘general’ issue over a longer period of time, you don’t need to fill in this section.

However, if it is about a single incident (or more than one specific incidents), the more detail you provide here, the better. Answer key factual questions – what happened, where it happened, when it happened, and who was involved. Did anybody witness the event?

You might not be able to evidence everything that happened. Even so, your recollection of the incident – how you remember it – is still important to put ‘on the record’.

Supporting evidence

List this in the order that you refer to it in your statements, and label it clearly so that the Case Officer can cross-reference it. For example:

1 – e-mail correspondence between me and Dr. Glyndŵr, dated XX/XX/2021

2 – screenshot of conversation on Teams in seminar group for module XX1001, dated XY/XX/2021 etc.

If these are separate documents, make sure that the titles match the file names.

If there is evidence that you haven’t been able to access and you’re worried about missing the deadline to submit your Complaint, you can list it, and say when you expect it to be available. You can then forward the evidence onto the Academic Office – aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk – when you have it.

However, if you simply state that it’ll be available on request, the Academic Office won’t accept this. Remember, the Complaint process places the responsibility on you to provide the evidence and ‘prove’ your case – the Case Officer can only investigate facts that you’ve directed them to investigate.

On Page 4, you can state your ‘Desired Outcome’. It’s important that you’re clear what you’re asking the Academic Office to do about your Complaint. Do you want them to offer financial compensation? Are you asking for an apology from somebody? Are you asking for a process to be reviewed?

It’s up to you what you ask for, but be realistic. Is what you’re asking for a ‘fair’ resolution to your case?

Bear in mind that the Academic Office might ‘uphold’ (i.e. agree with) your Complaint, but still disagree with you on the Desired Outcome (perhaps because they believe that your Desired Outcome wouldn’t actually solve the problem, or because in similar cases they’ve offered less than what you’re asking). In this instance, they might offer you a different Outcome. However, they will certainly take your Desired Outcome into consideration.

Page 5 is where you document the ‘informal’ process – the steps that you’ve taken to resolve the issue so far, before you decided to make a Formal Complaint.

The first part of this section asks who you’ve already discussed this with. Bear in mind that this is NOT asking you whether you’ve had advice from the Students’ Union – rather, the Academic Office wants to know which University lecturers or service department staff have already been involved, and what they’ve had to say about your case so far. (Of course, if the Students’ Union has been involved at that stage, you can mention that.)

This page also asks for details of the ‘remedy’ offered – in other words, whether you were offered a resolution to fix the issue, or whether the University staff member that you discussed this with simply disagreed with you and refused any action.

Once you’ve finished drafting the form, you’re welcome to contact us for feedback and suggestions on how you can make your Complaint stronger.

When it’s ready to submit, e-mail it to aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk, and make sure to attach your evidence (clearly labelled, of course!) to the same e-mail.

Section 14.3 of the Student Complaint Policy states that you should submit your SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form within one month of your ‘informal’ attempt to resolve the issue (i.e. within one month of the last time you met with or e-mailed a University staff member to talk about your concerns). The Academic Office also expects you to submit your Formal Complaint no more than 6 months after the incident or events that you’re complaining about actually happened. If more than 6 months have passed, it might be difficult for everyone involved to remember the facts, which would make it harder for the Academic Office to investigate fairly.

However, in practice, the Academic Office might show some flexibility on this deadline – even if it’s slightly late, they will generally consider your Formal Complaint if you’ve raised concerns that are worth investigating.

Before you go ahead with a Group Complaint: if this is an issue that affects students on your course generally, it might make more sense to discuss it with your Course Rep. They attend meetings with your Programme Leader and the team that run your course, so they can raise these concerns directly. If you’re not sure who your Course Rep is, your Programme Leader should be able to tell you – or you can contact studentvoice@uwtsd.ac.uk to find out.

There’s nothing to lose by trying this route first – if your Course Rep isn’t able to help you achieve the outcome that you’re looking for, you can still submit a Formal Complaint / Group Complaint.

Yes, you can submit a Group Complaint. The process for this is the same as with a ‘normal’ Formal Complaint, but with a couple of additional steps.

Firstly, you’ll need to identify someone to be the ‘spokesperson’. This is the person who completes the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form in their own name.

Next, you’ll need to download the Group Complaint Consent Form. On this form, list the names and student ID numbers of each student who is ‘signing up’ to the Group Complaint.

Each student who wants to be part of the Group Complaint also needs to sign the Group Complaint Consent Form. There are two ways that they can do this:

• EITHER they can physically sign the form

• OR (if studying online and/or not able to meet physically with the others) they can type their full names into the ‘Signature’ box. They then need to e-mail aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk within 5 days of the ‘spokesperson’ submitting the SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form, stating that they’re supporting the Group Complaint under your name. They need to do this from their UWTSD e-mail accounts.

Remember that, if you submit a Complaint as a Group, this means that you’re all agreeing to the same content of the Complaint and will agree to accept or reject the Outcome as a Group.

Contact us if you’d like to discuss whether the Group Complaint process is appropriate for your situation, or for more general support in putting your Group Complaint together.

Once you’ve sent the form to the Academic Office, you’ll receive an acknowledgement from aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk confirming receipt and stating the date by which you can expect an Outcome. This is usually 40 days after the Academic Office receives it – though it sometimes takes longer (in which case, the Academic Office will write to you to let you know why).

When the Case Officer is appointed by the Academic Office to investigate, the first thing they will do is review your statement and your evidence. If you haven’t attempted to resolve the issue ‘informally’ before submitting your Formal Complaint, the Case Officer might ask you to do so. However, they would usually be understanding if you’ve made it clear on your SC08 Formal Student Complaint Form that there’s a good reason why you haven’t been able to.

The Case Officer might also offer mediation as an alternative to a Formal Complaint. This can be an effective way of resolving issues between individuals, and the University has trained mediators on its staff. However, mediation can only be successful if everyone involved is committed to it and wants it to be successful – so, if you feel that mediation isn’t appropriate in your situation, you don’t have to accept it.

As part of their investigation, the Case Officer might contact members of staff in Institutes or service departments of the University to ask for their side of the story. It’s worth remembering that the process isn’t usually ‘anonymous’ – unless you give the Academic Office a very specific reason why, the Institute or service department of the University will usually need to know who submitted the Complaint in order to be able to identify specific evidence in relation to your case.

The Case Officer might also contact you to clarify statements that you’ve made on the form (either in a meeting, or by e-mail) – so keep an eye on your e-mails while the investigation is ongoing.

You might be invited to attend a Complaint Panel, if the Case Officer believes that your case is complex.

If, after 40 days, you haven’t received an update from the Academic Office, e-mail aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk to follow up.

You’re welcome to contact us at any point during the Academic Office’s investigation, if you have any questions about the process, or if you’re not sure how to respond to a question from the Case Officer (or if you’d like support in preparing for a Complaint Panel). You can also read more about how this stage of the Complaints procedure works in Section 15 of the Student Complaint Policy.

If you disagree with the Outcome, you can ask for a Review of Outcome, by completing the SC11 Review of Outcome Form (which you can find here) and sending it to the Academic Office – aocases@uwtsd.ac.uk.

The Review of Outcome process is conducted by someone who wasn’t involved in your original Complaint – they’ll be independent of the Case Officer who decided the original Outcome to your Complaint.

You have up to 14 days from the release of the Academic Office’s decision to do apply for the Review of Outcome. Contact us for advice as early as possible with this.

To ‘win’ the Review of Outcome, you would need to meet one of the ‘grounds’ listed in the Student Complaint Policy:

“18.2.1. irregularities in the conduct of the complaints procedure, which are of such a nature as to cause reasonable doubt whether the same decision would have been reached had they not occurred” - You can apply for a Review of Outcome if you can show that the procedure for investigating your Complaint (in UWTSD’s Student Complaints Policy) wasn’t followed correctly.

“18.2.2. the existence of new material evidence which the student was unable, for compelling reasons, to provide earlier in the process” - You can apply for a Review of Outcome if you have more evidence that the Academic Office didn’t consider. However, you’d also have to show that you have a good reason for not providing this evidence at the time.

“18.2.3. the complaint outcome was not reasonable given the circumstances of the case” - You can apply for a Review of Outcome if you can show that the Outcome to your Complaint isn’t logical or fair. To show this, you’d need to do more than just repeat your original argument – you’d need to show (for example) that there’s a mismatch between the facts that you presented and that came up in the investigation, and the final Outcome that you received.

Once you've applied for a Review of Outcome, you should receive the University's final response within 28 days. Keep an eye on your e-mails in case the Case Officer contacts you for more evidence or clarification.

There is one more option if your Review of Outcome is also rejected, or if you can't meet the 'grounds' for Review of Outcome but still believe that you've been treated unfairly. This is to submit a Complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, which is a national body that can investigate English and Welsh universities. You have up to 12 months to do this from your case closing at UWTSD. To do this, you'll need to request a 'Completion of Procedures' letter from the University, and follow the instructions here. Again, the Students' Union can help you with this part of the process, so please contact us for further support and guidance.