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Student complaint statistics

Jack Robson made this Freedom of Information request to Imperial College London This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

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Jack Robson
Delivered

Dear Imperial College London,

For the past five years, what is the total number of student complaints received by the University broken down by year into Level 1 and Level 2 complaints.

For all Level 1 complaints received, broken down per year, how many were upheld, partially upheld or rejected?

For all Level 1 complaints received, broken down per year, what was the average (mean) length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

For all Level 2 complaints received per year, how many were upheld, partially upheld or rejected?

For all Level 2 complaints received, broken down per year, what was the average (mean) length of time for complains to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

For all Level 2 complaints received, broken down per year, what was the maximum length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

Per year, how many complaints were appealed to Level 3?

For all Level 3 complaints received, broken down per year, what was the average (mean) length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

For all Level 3 complaints received, broken down per year, what was the maximum length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

Of those appealed to Level 3, how many were referred to a new Level 2 complaint panel?

For those referred to a Level 2 complaint panel, how many were upheld, partially upheld or rejected?

What was the total number of complaints per year that were referred to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator?

For all complaints received to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, broken down per year, what was the average (mean) length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to the final student acceptance?

For all complaints received to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, broken down per year, what was the maximum length of time for complaints to be handled from receipt of the initial complaint to final student acceptance?

For the past five years, what proportion of Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and complaints handled by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator related to the following broad categories:
- Academic (e.g. teaching, supervision, grading etc)
- Employee misconduct
- Research/Academic misconduct
- Fraud and corruption
- Bullying/Harassment/Discrimination
- Sexual harassment
- Public interest disclosure/right to information
- Other

Of these, per year, what proportion related to the Equality Act?

What level did these complaints get to?

What was the outcome of these complaints – upheld, partially upheld or rejected?

What was the average (mean) time taken for these complaints to be resolved?

What was the maximum time taken for these complaints to be resolved?

For the past five years, per year, what was the total cost and average (mean) cost in legal fees the University spent in litigation regarding student complaints?

For the past five years, per year, of the resolved legal cases regarding student complaints what was the average (mean) and total pay-out to students who had complaints upheld in court?

Of all cases which went to court, what proportion were upheld, partially upheld or rejected?

Yours faithfully,

Jack Robson

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IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Mr Robson,

Thank you for your email. I am writing to you further to our duty,
contained at Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act, to provide
advice and assistance to requesters.

You may find it helpful to consider our [1]Students Complaints Procedure
which sets outs the various stages of the process as well as the type of
issue that would be considered. However, many of the matters referred to
in your request would not be treated as student complaints, as follows:

o Employee misconduct, would be dealt with under our staff disciplinary
procedures
o Research/Academic misconduct, would be dealt with under our academic
misconduct procedures
o Fraud and corruption would be a student or staff disciplinary matter
(depending on who had allegedly committed the fraud or corruption)
o Bullying/Harassment/Discrimination/Sexual harassment would be a
student or staff disciplinary matter (depending on whether the
allegation was made against a student or member of staff)
o Public interest disclosure/right to information, we are not clear what
you mean by “public interest disclosure” in the context of student
complaints. Access to information requests are dealt with under
relevant data protection and Freedom of information legislation

 

Details of all the procedures and processes referred to above can be found
on the College website.

 

Please also note the following points:

 

o We do not hold a single centralised record of matters raised through
all of the procedures listed above.
o We do not record the time it takes to handle student complaints (or
other matters referred to above).
o Higher Education Institutions do not usually refer student complaints
to the OIA; that is for the student to do if they wish.
o The OIA will usually only consider complaints once the institution’s
internal complaints processes have been completed, i.e. once the
matter had reached the final stage of the relevant procedure.
o The OIA website will tell you which categories of complaint they will
consider. Complaints about access to information rights would be for
the Information Commissioner.
o We would not hold figures on how long the OIA takes to handle
complaints, you would have to approach them for that information.
o The student complaint process does not involve litigation.

 

You should be aware that the Freedom of Information Act gives people a
right to access recorded information held by public authorities. If the
information requested is not information that the authority holds, there
is no obligation to generate that information in order to respond to FOI
requests. In addition, authorities are not obliged to respond to FOI
requests if it would take more than 18 hours to locate and collate the
information requested. Given the very broad range of your request (which
would involve us accessing our records relating to numerous different
procedures – many of which do not have a level, 1 2 and 3) and the
time-period covered, it is likely that responding to the request as it
stands would exceed 18 hours.

 

We are unable to respond to your request in its present form for the
reasons outlined above. We suggest that you look at the procedure
documents mentioned above and consider submitting a more focussed request.

 

Yours,

 

Freedom of Information Team

[2]Imperial College London 

 

 

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