If you are unhappy with the experience you have received from a University Department, Faculty, service or staff member, the University has a Student Complaint Procedure for you to use in order to  resolve the situation. All complaints are treated seriously and are handled sensitively. Students will not be disadvantaged for raising a genuine complaint.

A revised version of the Student Complaint Procedure is in effect from 1 October 2024 for matters of complaints occurring on or after this date. For matters of complaints that occurred prior to 1 October 2024, the previous version of the Student Complaint Procedure will be used.

We understand that it can be a stressful experience to submit a complaint, particularly when it is about an individual staff member. We recommend that you seek support and advice before submitting your complaint; depending on your circumstances this could be from a College Tutor, a Graduate Tutor, the Student Advice Service or an independent advisor of your choosing.

Student Complaint Procedure

Step 1: Local Resolution

Where appropriate, you should contact the staff member who is responsible for your issue or concern. If you do not feel comfortable raising the matter with this person directly then you should speak or write to the Responsible Officer or the person responsible for the Faculty, Department or Service (your course handbook or the service's webpages may have more information). You should raise your complaint as soon as it occurs or at least within 20 working days of the matter arising. Many issues can be resolved easily and quickly if you communicate your problem to someone.

Step 2: Formal Resolution

If the response from the Faculty, Department, service or staff member has not resolved your complaint, or your complaint is so serious that you feel you can't raise it with them, complete and submit the Formal Complaint Form, within 20 working days of the matter arising or the response you received from the Faculty, Department, service or staff member. If you have a valid reason for not raising a complaint within this timeframe, for example, you have a disability that causes you to take longer to do things and you need a reasonable adjustment to process times, or the impact of the matter was such that you felt unable to come forward until now, then you should include this information within the Complaint Form and your Case Handler will consider this. You should not include unnecessary information about other people in your complaint.

Formal Resolution process

You will be appointed a Case Handler who will screen your complaint to make sure it can be considered under the Student Complaint Procedure. Your Case Handler will confirm the outcome of the screening within 5 working days of receiving your complaint. If your complaint is eligible, the Case Handler will then conduct an investigation; the staff involved in your complaint will be sent a copy of the information you have provided and will be requested to provide a response. The Case Handler will prepare a report setting out the information that has been gathered, the conclusions that have been drawn, and any recommendations.

The complaint report and complaint materials will be considered by a Complaint Officer - a trained member of Regent House who is not connected to your College, Faculty, Department or service and  who has no prior knowledge of the case. The Complaint Officer will make a decision about your complaint and consider a remedy, where this is appropriate. The Case Handler will send you the Complaint Officer's decision and any staff responses. 

Occasionally the Case Handler or Complaint Officer might want further information from you during the investigation. If so, you will be sent the staff responses at this point, before being asked to provide a written statement or to attend a meeting.

Step 3: Review

If you are dissatisfied with the Complaint Officer's decision, you can request a review of the decision on the following grounds:

• Procedural irregularities that occurred during Formal Resolution, which were material or potentially material to the decision reached; and/or

• The Formal Resolution decision is unreasonable, in that no reasonable person could have reached the same decision on the available evidence; and/or

• The availability of new evidence, which materially impacts the complaint outcome and which, for valid reasons, could not have been submitted at an earlier stage.

In order to request a review, you will need to complete and submit the Review Form within 10 working days of receiving the Complaint Officer's decision. Providing your request for review is eligible, it will be considered by a Reviewer who can either uphold or dismiss your request. Where a request is upheld, a remedy can be put in place. You will receive a Completion of Procedures letter with the Reviewer's decision. This letter confirms the completion of the University's internal procedures.

Reasonable adjustments

If you require any reasonable adjusts to be made to this process, please provide details of these on the form. If you have a Student Support Document (SSD) which recommends that you receive a certain percentage of extra time, this is automatically applied to any deadlines you are required to adhere to within the Procedure, including the deadline to submit a complaint. For example, if your SSD states that you receive 25% extra time for examinations and the Procedure states you must submit your form withing 10 working days, you automatically receive an extra 3 working days to the deadline. If you consider that the extra time recommended in your SSD does not provide an adequate adjustment to the deadlines of the Procedure or if you have a disability but you do not have a SSD, you should contact us via email (studentcomplaints@admin.cam.ac.uk) to request an extension to the deadline, explaining your reasons and supported by evidence, in advance of the deadline. A request for additional extra time may be granted. If you submit your complaint late, you should include your reasons and provide evidence for lateness with your form. It will then be for the Case Handler allocated to your case to determine if your reason for lateness are valid. 

What if you are unhappy with the final outcome?

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) runs an independent scheme to review student complaints. We are a member of this scheme. If you are unhappy with the outcome you may be able to ask the OIA to review your complaint. You can find more information about making a complaint to the OIA, what it can and cannot look at and what it can do to put things right here: www.oiahe.org.uk/students.

You normally need to have completed the Student Complaint Procedure before you complain to the OIA. We will send you a letter called a 'Completion of Procedures Letter' when you have reached the end of our processes and there are no further steps you can take internally. If your complaint is not upheld, we will issue you with a Completion of Procedures Letter. You can find more information about Completion of Procedures Letters and when you should expect to receive one here: www.oiahe.org.uk/providers/completion-of-procedures-letters.

Anonymous/confidential prevention reporting 

The Student Complaint Procedure requires a student to identify themselves so that a matter can be investigated and an effective remedy put in place. However, there may be some circumstances where a student wishes to report something so that the University knows about it and can take action, but the student does not wish to be named and make a complaint. In this circumstance, speak to your College Tutor or Graduate Tutor or email OSCCA@admin.cam.ac.uk and we will chat through any available informal options.