SPSO Individual Decisions

Miss C appealed against the university's decision to discontinue her studies and not to allow her to re-sit examinations. She submitted medical evidence she felt was not taken into account at the appeal stages and said that she was not invited to attend meetings. The university determined that there were no grounds to consider her appeal. Miss C then complained to us. Our investigation found that throughout the appeal process her medical and personal circumstances were fully taken into account and that the university had given her numerous repeat attempts to achieve the credits needed for her degree. We did not uphold her complaint, as we found that the university had followed their appeal procedures and acted reasonably throughout the process. Related reading View Decision Report 201300287 as a PDF (10.95 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C was a student at the university. During his third year he fell and injured his elbow. He said that his academic performance suffered as a result of the pain he was in and the medication he was taking. He completed his fourth year in June 2011 and was awarded a lower second class degree (2:2). He submitted an appeal for this to be increased to a 2:1 due to his medical situation having affected two of his third year results. The university did not accept his appeal as it referred to academic results from 2010 and there was a 20 working day deadline for submitting appeals. Mr C complained to us that the university unreasonably applied their time limit, as his appeal concerned the 2011 decision to award him a 2:2, rather than the 2010 assessment of his third year work. The university took the view that, as honours classification is a mathematical calculation based on academic results over the third and fourth year, Mr C's appeal had to be viewed in terms of his third year results. Their appeals procedure allows for late appeals to be considered where there are exceptional circumstances preventing the student from raising their medical situation within the proper timescale. However, they did not consider Mr C's circumstances to be exceptional. Having looked at all the information, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint as we found that the university took into account the relevant evidence when deciding not to accept his appeal. Mr C raised a further complaint that the university did not make him awarethat there was a potential remedy - to exclude his third year results from the calculation of his overall Honours classification. Although the university did not specifically advise Mr C of this, we found that their appeals procedure put no restrictions on the grounds for appeal claimed by students or the remedies sought. Ultimately, as Mr C's overall appeal was time-barred this became irrelevant. However, we were satisfied that there were no barriers to this remedy being

Eighteen months after being awarded a masters degree by the university, Miss C complained that she had received inappropriate supervision during her course. The university initially accepted her complaint but, after considering it, decided that it was out of time in terms of their complaints procedure. Miss C complained to us that the university handled her complaint incorrectly and failed to give proper consideration to the reasons why she said she could not complain earlier. We obtained all the relevant correspondence and guidance, made enquiries of the university and checked their complaints procedure. In all the circumstances, we did not uphold the complaint. We established that, although Miss C provided very detailed reasons why she had not felt able to complain earlier, there was no evidence to suggest that these had not been properly taken into account or that the complaints procedure had not been followed. Related reading View Decision Report 201103175 as a PDF (16.62 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C was a student on a taught postgraduate course at the university. He complained that teaching hours, timetable and deadlines of assignments were altered from those in the course programme without reasonable communication. We found from looking at the evidence provided by both Mr C and the university that the course documents made it clear that changes were likely to occur and that, in the main, it was a student's responsibility to regularly check particular sources for information. There was also evidence of reasonable communication with Mr C, by email, about assignments where the dates of these were changed. In addition, the university said it would ensure that information provided to students was clearer in future. As there was not sufficient evidence to support Mr C's claim, we did not uphold this complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201100710 as a PDF (13.71 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C was a postgraduate student. He complained that the university failed to give him the appropriate quantity of supervision during his postgraduate course. From looking at the evidence provided by Mr C and the university, we found that there was no specific standard for the quantity of supervision. The university's code of practice for postgraduate research courses stated that it was the responsibility of students to maintain regular contact with their supervisory team. The university provided sufficient evidence that Mr C was seen on a regular basis by his principal supervisor and, when necessary, his second supervisor. Therefore, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint. Mr C also complained that the university did not deal with his complaint in line with their procedure, because they did not have a meeting with either him or his student union representative. Mr C also said that he did not have a student union representative throughout the time he made his complaint. We found from looking at the evidence, that Mr C had a named representative from the student union at both formal stages of his complaint. We also found that under the university’s complaints procedure, the university's investigator was not required to meet with a complainant, although a meeting would normally take place at stage 1 of the procedure. We asked the university to remind their investigators of this, and suggested that it might be helpful if their investigators explained to complainants why there was no meeting on this occasion when they did not take place. Overall, there was no evidence that the university had not dealt with Mr C's complaint in line with their procedure and, therefore, we did not uphold his complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201003701 as a PDF (14.34 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018