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The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) are the external and independent organisation body who can consider and review complaints about Higher Education providers within England and Wales.  Therefore if you have gone through a procedure such as an academic appeal or student complaint, and gone through the internal stages of the university process but are still not satisfied with the outcome, you can contact the OIA.  If you choose to submit a complaint to the OIA, they will then review your case with the university (from the information you provide) and check to see whether the university followed their policies accordingly. The OIA when reviewing your case will then decide whether your complaint is Justified, Partly Justified or Not Justified with a written explanation of their reasoning for the outcome. If the OIA find that the higher education provider has done something wrong, they will make recommendations on how they can put things right for the student. ...

You can submit a request for your case to be reviewed by the OIA as long as: You are a current registered student or you were a registered student (former student) at a Higher Education provider. The Higher Education provider a member of the OIA scheme- the University of Bedfordshire is part of the scheme therefore you would be eligible to request your case be reviewed. The OIA are able to deal with the type of complaint you are requesting be looked into- for further details about what the OIA can and cannot deal with, please click here. The OIA typically expect that a student has already followed their Higher Education provider's internal procedures (e.g. appeals or complaints procedure to full conclusion). Once a student has exhausted all internal processes relevant to their case within the university, the university should provide a student with a Completion of Proceedings Letter. It is once a student has received this letter that they can then typically ...

Firstly, we advise that you check you can complaint to the OIA.  Please see our Beds SU article 'Who can complain to the OIA?' for more advice on this. To bring a complaint to the OIA you must then submit a completed OIA complaint form within 12 months of the date of the Higher Education Provider's final decision alongside the Completion of Proceedings Letter you should have received from the university.  You can submit an OIA complaint in the following ways: Create a 'MyOIA' online account- this is a quick and easy way for you to submit a complaint online, update the OIA of your contact details, track your complaint progress and upload relevant documents you may wish to include. You can alternatively, download the OIA complaint form from their website and either e-mail or post the form to the OIA (if you choose to post the form, we advise you keep proof of posting). The OIA complaint form can be found here. For ways you can contact the OI...

Once a complaint is submitted, the OIA will action next steps: The OIA will write to the student who submitted the complaint (or their nominated representative) to acknowledge receipt of the complaint. The OIA will then complete basic checks to ensure that the complaint is something they can look into (according to their own rules of the scheme). At this point, the OIA may contact the student or Higher Education provider for more information to help with this decision. If the OIA decide the complaint made cannot be looked at according to their rules, they will write to the student (or representative) and explain why. If a student wants to, they can appeal this decision (but must do so within 14 days).  If, after basic checks, the OIA decide they can look into a case, they will pass the complaint to a case handler that will look further into the case and its details.  It is worth a student understanding that they OIA will likely contact the university about ...

Once a case is looked into and an outcome finally decided, the OIA will communicate whether the case is: Justified Partially Justified or  Not Justified When a complaint is found to be Justified or Partly Justified, the OIA will make recommendations to put things right for the student who has submitted the complaint. The OIA may also, where appropriate, make recommendations to improve processes and procedures at the Higher Education provider to ensure good practice moving forward. Remedies suggested may include: Practical remedies- Re-run a process affected by procedural flaws or bias, offer a new opportunity of assessment, re-mark work with the correct assessment procedures, for example. An apology Financial remedies