Guide to Complaints & Partial Refunds
Given the disruption in education at Queen Mary in 2021-22, students can complain and request a partial refund. The procedure is straightforward. It takes one statement to get the ball rolling, and most of the procedure is undertaken by others. This document aims to guide students. If you were a finalist in 2021-22, you must submit a complaint within three months after the last day of enrolment.
If you want to appeal your marks, there is guidance here.
Contents [click to navigate]
1. Step-by-Step Guide
2. Complaint Statement
3. Complaint Evidence
4. Office of the Independent Adjudicator
5. Further Resources
1 Step-by-Step guide
1. Prepare your Complaint
- Gather evidence for your complaint (see section 3 below)
- Write a complaint statement focused on the disruption and uncertainty you have been subjected to (see section 2 below)
- Fill in the formal complaint form; the request can be a request for a refund
- Discuss your complaint with the Advocacy and Representation Officer
2. Process for the Complaint
- Email your completed Complaint form your Head of School (find their contact details here if you don’t know)
- Wait for the outcome, this can take up to 42 days (that is the official deadline, in most cases responses come much earlier)
- If the request is rejected, a student can request a Complaint Review
3. Complaint Review
- The Complaint Review form allows students to challenge an outcome of an Complaint procedure
- Submit this within 14 working days after receiving the outcome
- Email the form to the Appeals, Complaints, and Conduct Office (ACCO): appeals@qmul.ac.uk
- The student can then obtain a Completion of Procedures letter
4. Office of the Independent Adjudicator
- You need a Completion of Procedures letter to contact the Office of the Independent Adjudicator
- You can submit a form to the OIA
- They review complaints and issue case outcomes, and can recommend partial refunds
2. Complaint Statement
In your statement, focus on the amount of disruption to your education and education experience and lack of clear communication. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator supports requests for refunds where the university has not made reasonable effort to alleviate disruption, where communication by the university has been insufficient, and where complaint procedures were not adequate.
About teaching, your statement could include, but is not limited to:
- Number of hours of teaching missed
- Teaching not ‘made up’ despite management’s claims
- QMUL students faced local strike days on top of the national strike days, because of management’s policy to deduction 100% for every day staff did not reschedule teaching
- Students raising concerns about the disruption caused by the 100% pay deductions policy and not being heard
About assessment, your statement could include, but is not limited to:
- Screenshots of inadequate feedback (especially if that has since been replaced by the actual feedback of your actual teacher)
- The uncertainty you faced by the lowering of the progression threshold
- The lack of overall year mark for entire Summer, as you needed this for job and graduate programme applications
- Academic Registry’s last-minute communication about progression and the concern that raised about Late Summer Resits
- Inability to appeal your ‘pending marks’
- Having been progressed in July, but finding out in August that you failed a module
- Your dissatisfaction with the lack of moderation on the marks you have, and how that affects your mark since double-marking or intense moderation could have improved your mark
- Your worries about the integrity of your degree as the role of External Examiners has been drastically reduced
3. Complaint Evidence
To back up your statement, ensure you include materials that show the reality of your experience. This can include, but is not limited to:
- screenshots of QMPlus with wiped weeks
- emails about disruption from both your Head of School
- Links to the student Open Letter about the amount of disruption
- Links to student letters with concerns about marking mitigations
- screenshots of the letter from Academic Registry on 20 July that said students were progressed with pending marks
- screenshots of your Higher Education Achievement Record or of your gradebook on QMPlus with 'pending' marks
4. Office of the Independent Adjudicator
The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) reviews students’ complaints and ensures accountability where students feel none had been forthcoming within their institution.
After previous periods of Industrial Action, the OIA has ensured a partial refund for students who lost teaching. But they reject any application from students that haven't first exhausted the internal procedures, so you need the Completion of Procedure letter.
The case summaries about industrial action give you helpful examples to work with when writing your own Complaint Form.
Reach out when your complaint has not been upheld within QMUL and you want to appeal to the OIA. There is lots of further evidence about the vandalism done to Quality Assurances which will support your further appeal to the OIA.
5. Further Resources: