SPSO Individual Decisions

Mr C complained about the support provided by the college for his disability. Mr C said the college did not set up a personal learning support plan in a timely way, and his lecturers were not told that he had a support plan. Mr C also said the college failed to give him information about the assessment of some of his courses, failed to give him feedback in time, and did not explain the process or deadlines when they gave him the opportunity to study over the summer and take 'assessment on demand' for some courses. Mr C said he was given only one day's warning for one exam, and was not given a resit opportunity for other courses. Mr C also complained that the assessment for one of his courses was reviewed by an independent assessor without his permission, and that the college failed to respond to his questions and give him information he requested on several occasions. The college investigated Mr C's complaints, but did not uphold them, and Mr C complained to us about the college's lack of support and about their investigation of his complaint. While we were investigating Mr C's complaints, we found that Mr C had also complained to the Scottish Qualifications Authority about the same issues, and they were also investigating these. Given that Mr C already had access to an avenue of appeal which could give him the outcome he wished (reconsideration of his grades), we decided not to investigate Mr C's complaint about the support provided by the college. We asked Mr C if he wanted us to continue investigating his complaint about the college's handling of his complaint to them, but he did not respond, and we closed our investigation. Related reading View Decision Report 201403349 as a PDF (11.33 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Miss C, who has a condition affecting her mobility, complained of a lack of support from the college. In particular, she raised concerns about a fieldwork residential trip, which she was not allowed to attend due to health and safety concerns. Miss C said she was not involved in decisions made about her ability and, although she was provided with notes and recordings from the trip, these were not of a good standard, and she had to seek help from the lecturer to finish the assessment. She also raised concerns about delays in processing changes to her personal learning support plan (PLSP) and personal emergency egress plan (PEEP) in second year. Because she felt she was not receiving the support she needed, Miss C applied to transfer to a new course. However, this took some time and she was ultimately not able to transfer. Additionally, when Miss C asked her tutor why he thought the transfer was not an option, he suggested that the physical aspects of the course might be too challenging for her. In response to Miss C's complaint, the college accepted that the notes from the residential trip were not of a good standard. They also explained that the delays in the PEEP and PLSP were due to the unexpected absence of the additional support coordinator, and apologised for this. However, the college considered that Miss C's request for transfer had been handled reasonably. They said that her tutor had told her within five working days that her transfer request had been refused, and they considered that his comments about the physical aspects of the course being challenging were not intended to make assumptions about Miss C's physical ability. Overall, the college said that they had provided reasonable support to Miss C, and they did not uphold her complaints. Miss C was dissatisfied with their response, and complained to us about the additional support provided, the handling of her transfer, and the college's handling of her complaint. We investigated Miss C's comp