Putting things right
If we decide the complaint is Justified or Partly Justified, we will usually make one or more Recommendations to put things right for the student and/or to improve practice at the provider.
Student-focused Recommendations:
Wherever possible, we will try to make Recommendations that put the student back in the position they were in before the events complained about happened. While we’ll take the student’s preferred remedy into consideration, this may not always be realistic or within the remit of our Scheme (for example, if it involves academic judgment or a request for disciplinary proceedings against individual member/s of staff).
Some examples of practical remedies we may recommend include:
- Re-running a process that was affected by procedural flaws or possible bias.
- Offering a fresh assessment opportunity.
- Re-marking work following the correct assessment procedures.
- Offering an apology.
If practical remedies aren’t available or appropriate, we may consider other remedies – such as financial compensation.
Good practice Recommendations:
We can also recommend that a provider changes the way it does things so that problems don’t happen again, for example changing a procedure or regulation that disadvantages students or recommending that staff undergo specific training.
Both the student and the provider have the chance to comment on the practicality of our Recommendations before we confirm them. Once the Recommendations have been confirmed, providers must comply with them within any deadline that has been set.
- Learn more about our approach to putting things right, including our approach to financial compensation.
- In our experience, providers almost always comply with our Recommendations or information requests. If we are concerned about any potential issues with compliance, we will follow the process set out in Following up casework-related compliance.
