SPSO Individual Decisions

Mr C is a mature student who suffers from anxiety. Mr C complained that the college unreasonably failed to provide reasonable adjustments and take seriously his concerns about age and anxiety issues. He also complained the college failed to address his concerns about bullying. Mr C said that his anxiety reached unmanageable levels due to the lack of empathy shown by the college staff. Mr C believes that his college tutor did not properly make the other lecturers aware of his anxiety issues. We found that, where possible, the college did offer reasonable adjustments to Mr C. Mr C was offered counselling, and the option of moving class was discussed. It was also confirmed that students are offered the opportunity to disclose information about their disability at the point of registering on the course, and we did not see any evidence to suggest that Mr C was unaware of this. We found no evidence that the college tutor did not inform the other lecturers of Mr C's anxiety and we did not find any evidence of bullying. We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Related reading View Decision Report 201700608 as a PDF (11.08 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mrs C made a complaint to the college following her dismissal from her course. She complained that the college had failed to adhere to its procedure during the disciplinary process. She considered that she was unreasonably dealt with under the final stage of the disciplinary process and suspended from the college unreasonably. She also said that the allegations made against her were never adequately explained to her and that the disciplinary appeal hearing was not conducted fairly. The college's response set out the process it followed, that they considered the actions taken were appropriate and that the allegations made against Mrs C were disclosed in advance of the relevant disciplinary hearings. Mrs C was not happy with the response and brought her complaints about the disciplinary process to us, as well as a complaint regarding the college's handling of her complaint. We requested the complaints file from the college. They provided minutes of relevant meetings and an investigation report of the allegations made against Mrs C. However, they were not able to provide witness statements or evidence of the investigations that had been undertaken. The college did not know if these documents had been lost or destroyed under its document retention policy. Having considered the evidence that they provided, we found that the college could not provide evidence that the allegations against Mrs C merited escalating the disciplinary process to the final stage and suspending Mrs C. The college could not evidence that Mrs C had been provided with a summary of the evidence against her, as required under their procedures. It was also clear that the disciplinary meeting notes did not record the meetings with sufficient accuracy to allow the reader a clear understanding of the content of the meetings. We found that there were failings in how the disciplinary appeal hearing was handled. In addition, the college, in response to Mrs C's complaint, did not speak with any m

Mr C attended a course at the college. There were verbal interactions between Mr C and his tutor over the course of two tutorials. Subsequently, the college suspended Mr C and instituted a disciplinary process against him. The disciplinary process made no findings against Mr C. Mr C complained about the actions of his tutor, which were also investigated by the college. In investigating Mr C's complaints, we reviewed the material Mr C and the college provided, as well as the relevant policies. Mr C made four complaints about the college, of which we upheld three. Mr C complained that the college's tutor acted unprofessionally towards him at the tutorials. We found that there were opposing views on what occurred at the two tutorials. We considered there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the tutor acted unprofessionally, and did not uphold this complaint. Mr C said that at the first tutorial he was not provided with written material on yellow paper (as required under his personal learning support plan). The college acknowledged this was not provided, and we upheld Mr C's complaint in this regard. Mr C raised a number of concerns about the way the college brought and handled the disciplinary investigation against him. We had concerns about delays in the disciplinary process, the procedure followed, and the decision to immediately suspend Mr C. Therefore, we upheld Mr C's complaint on this point. Mr C said the college's complaints process was unreasonable. We found that while the college had taken interviews as part of this process, their investigating officer did not consider transcripts previously obtained during the disciplinary process. We considered that this evidence should have been taken into account. We upheld Mr C's complaint in this respect.

Ms C applied for, and accepted, a place on a course at the college. The price of the course was advertised on the college's website and in the course brochure as being £650. During the first unit of the course, Ms C received an invoice for £1,950 in course fees. Ms C queried this with the college but did not receive a response. When she received a further invoice, which she received after starting the second unit, she contacted the college again. The college explained that the fee was actually £650 per unit and that the course consisted of three units. They offered to reduce the fee by ten percent in light of the poor customer service, but would not reduce the fee to £650. Ms C highlighted to the college that the fee of £650 was as advertised on their website and in the course brochure. The college offered to further reduce the invoice, and stated that Ms C had five working days to accept the offer or she would be immediately withdrawn from the course. Ms C complained to us that the college acted unreasonably by charging her more than the cost of the course as advertised on their website and in the brochure. She further complained that the college acted in an unreasonable manner when they emailed her asking her to pay the amount they considered she was due the college. We examined information from the college's brochure, which indicated that the fee for Ms C's one year course was £650. We also examined the college's website, which noted the start date, the length of the course and the cost as £650. There was no indication that the cost was £650 per unit. In their responses to Ms C, the college had accepted that the information on their website was misleading. We concluded that it was reasonable for Ms C to have interpreted the information on the college's website and brochure as meaning that the course fee was for the whole course, rather than for each individual unit. We upheld Ms C's first complaint because we considered that the college had not pro

Mr C complained that the college unreasonably failed to deliver his course in line with the course criteria and that they failed to respond to his subsequent complaint in accordance with their responsibilities. We were satisfied that the college acted in line with the Scottish Qualifications Authority criteria for Mr C's course, and we did not uphold this aspect of his complaint. However, we upheld Mr C's complaint about the way the college responded to his subsequent complaint as we found that the college did not communicate reasonably with Mr C in response to his requests for information.

Mr C complained that the college failed to provide him with the facilities advertised and about the time taken to deal with his complaint. Mr C was unable to provide us with information about the specific facilities advertised and, as the college's website had changed since the time Mr C joined the course, the college were also unable to provide this information. Given that we had no advertising material against which to judge Mr C's complaint, we could not reach a finding on the matter and therefore we could not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint. Mr C contacted the college's finance department, saying he was not paying fees because of his dissatisfaction with the course. The finance department failed to pass Mr C's complaint to the relevant complaints handling staff or tell him how to make a formal complaint. Although there were subsequent delays in Mr C pursing his complaint with the college, it was clear that he had submitted a complaint and that the college failed to deal with it appropriately at that time. On balance, we concluded that because of this failure there was an unreasonable delay in the college dealing with Mr C's complaint and we therefore upheld this aspect of his complaint. We did not make a recommendation as the college had already taken action to remedy their failing, by explaining to their finance department when to pass on complaints. Related reading View Decision Report 201603557 as a PDF (11.18 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Ms C complained to the college about the assessment of her work and asked to be moved class. The college investigated the assessment of her work, including having it re-assessed by different assessors, and determined that the initial assessment had been reasonable. The college entered into discussion with Ms C about moving class and her being re-assessed on some aspects of her work. Ms C was dissatisfied with the actions the college had taken and complained to us. We decided that we could not consider her complaint about the assessment of her work, as it related to academic judgement. By law we cannot investigate matters of academic judgement and, therefore, we could not comment on that issue. We did not uphold Ms C's complaint about agreements she said that she had made with the college about re-assessments. We could not see any evidence that any agreements, such as those Ms C referred to, had been made. Related reading View Decision Report 201508106 as a PDF (11 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C was an advocate representing eight former students at the college. Mr C complained that the college unreasonably failed to deliver timetabled teaching hours or provide necessary additional support, given the students' circumstances and needs. Mr C also complained that the college unreasonably failed to address or listen to the students' informal complaints, and did not reasonably handle two formal complaints and an appeal. We found that there were no college records of the teaching or support provided, so we could not uphold the complaints. There was also no evidence available to prove that the students had made informal complaints, or that they submitted the first formal complaint. We found that the college handled the second formal complaint reasonably. However, we upheld the complaint that the appeal was not reasonably handled. The senior college staff member responsible for the appeal should not have been involved, as they had previously been responsible for dealing with the students' second complaint. To avoid either a real or a perceived conflict of interest, it would have been good practice for another member of staff to have handled the appeal from the outset. In addition, there was no minute or note of the appeal hearing and its outcomes. Although there was insufficient evidence for us to be able to uphold most of Mr C's complaints, we were concerned that the college had destroyed records before the students had an opportunity to complain to us. We had accepted the students' complaints as being in time in terms of the law that set up our office, which says they can do so within a year of the date of whatever they are complaining about. While we would always encourage people to approach us soon after they have completed the complaints process of an organisation, it does not matter whether they approach us in the first month or the twelfth month – they have a right to complain during that time. We would, therefore, have expected the college t