Decision report 201201264

Summary
Mr C complained that he had not received adequate feedback from the college during his studies. As part of his complaint he said that as he had been unable to progress with his studies he had to enrol on his chosen course at another college. This meant that he had to undertake work he had already completed and had lost his student funding.

To investigate this complaint we made several enquiries to the college as well as considering information from Mr C. We also looked at the college complaints and assessment procedures. We carefully considered all the available information and found that the college had not followed its published procedures for giving students feedback. We asked the college about Mr C being unable to progress to the next year of his course. The college explained, and we saw evidence, that they had in fact offered him the opportunity to continue his studies with them.

We found that the college had not addressed one of Mr C's complaints. We also found that their record-keeping for his complaints was poor as they were unable to produce a report that they said had been written. This was contrary to their published procedure which said that they would keep accurate and complete records of all complaints received and the resulting correspondence, interviews and actions.

Recommendation
We recommended that the college:

• remind staff to ensure that all individual complaints are addressed, and of the need to keep accurate records in line with the college complaints procedure.