What can we help you with?

If you are have any concerns or issues about any aspect of your College life, then you need to raise these with an appropriate member of staff as soon as possible.

If you’re not able to resolve the issue informally then you may want to submit a formal complaint. A complaint can arise if one or more students have a specific concern about an action or lack of action by the College, the standard of a service provided by or on behalf of the College, or about matters that affect the quality of the learning opportunities. You would need to make the complaint within three months of the incident at hand. Where an incident affects a group of students, you might wish to make a group complaint. In this instance the group will be asked to nominate one student who will act as the group representative. The College will communicate with this student who will be responsible for communicating with the other group members.

It might be the case that another College procedure would be more appropriate to deal with your concerns, the College will deal with the complaint elements and then advise you what they feel would be the more suitable procedure to deal with the other concerns in your complaint. Often it can be a tough decision to submit a complaint and you may worry about the consequences on your studies due to complaining. The College ensures that you’re not at any sort of a disadvantage for submitting a complaint, this includes handling your complaint with an appropriate level of confidentiality. The College aims to deal with complaints within 90 calendar days after receipt.

The following can be addressed through the complaints procedure:

• Category 1: teaching and assessment (teaching, tutorial and academic pastoral support, curriculum)
• Category 2: university services (school administrative services, central administrative services)
• Category 3: other services and general (complaints which don’t fit into the above categories or are of a more general nature)

The following can’t be raised under the complaints procedure:

• The outcome of Board of Examiners
• Penalties for exams and assessment offences
• Reconsideration of requests for special assessment arrangements
• A decision made by a Fitness to Practice Panel
• A complaint about the catering, residential or bus services
• A complaint about the Health Centre
• A complaint about the Students’ Union
• Disciplinary action taken against you under the disciplinary procedures relating to non-academic matters

There are alternative procedures in place to deal with the above issues.

To submit a formal complaint you need to fill in the complaints form. You need to set out your concerns clearly and concisely, provide any evidence you have to support your complaint. Evidence may include; emails, medical evidence, timeline/dates of meetings, reports by a professional, witness statements, financial information etc. All completed complaint forms should be submitted electronically to complaints@rhul.ac.uk