COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

Our organisation aims to provide you with a high quality study experience and a high level of service provision. Unfortunately, things sometimes go wrong. It’s important that you contact us as soon as possible, within 28 days of encountering the problem. Most issues can be resolved straight away.

What is a Complaint?

A complaint can be defined as ‘an oral or written expression of dissatisfaction concerning the provision of a programme of study or related academic or administrative service. Concerns about the provision of a service or facility or the failure to provide a service or facility, where the standard of the service or facility has fallen below the standard that might reasonably be expected or where there is a reasonable expectation that the service or facility would be provided would be covered by the Complaints Procedure

Confidentiality

Your complaint or appeal will be dealt with in confidence and the detail will only be shared with staff who need to know in order to investigate and respond to the issues you have raised. It is possible that information you provide in support of your complaint or appeal may be shared with other department within the centre in order to resolve your complaint or appeal.

Any person identified in a complaint or involved in the decision being appealed will be given details of the complaint or appeal and have the right to respond as part of the investigation.

Data Retention

Correspondence, evidence and case files in relation to complaints and appeals will be held by the centre for a period of 6 years from the date of the last action.

Expected Standards of Behaviour

Our staff will deal with your complaint or appeal courteously and respectfully and, wherever possible, in such a way as to resolve any problems as quickly and effectively as possible.

We understand that you may be upset or angry when you call or write to make a complaint or appeal, but our staff also have the right to be treated in a courteous and respectful manner, and will not deal with your complaint or appeal if they are shouted at, threatened or abused. It is usually in all parties interests if complaints are able to raise their complaints or present their appeals as calmly and reasonably as possible in the circumstances, so that we can quickly understand the issues and, where appropriate apologies for any mistakes and put right what has gone wrong to your satisfaction.

If you are not satisfied with the behavior of a member of staff who is dealing with your complaint or appeal and you cannot resolve this informally with that person, or if you have made a complaint or appeal and have reason to believe that you have been disadvantaged as a consequence of doing so, you should make a formal complaint about the staff member concerned as soon as possible by contacting the Quality Manager who will deal with the matter directly and applying center’s policies and procedures as deemed necessary.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Review

Our responsible staffs will oversee the tracking of formal complaints and appeals and their review and will ensure that they are recorded appropriately on the necessary documentation and shared with authorised personnel during the investigation and resolution. Complaints and appeals will be stored in a secure area which only staff with appropriate permissions can access.

The information collated will be used to provide better understanding of the types of complaints and appeals that the we received and what the outcomes of those complaints and appeals are.

It will be used to inform good practice and to ensure that quality standards are being met. The data also enables us to ensure that our policies do not directly or indirectly discriminate against anyone. All data will be monitored in accordance with other polices where appropriate including Equality and Diversity, Data Protection and GDPR, and others. We will contact some of the complainants at random to ensure complaints have been handled effectively

Disabled individual

If you are a disabled person and you would like to receive this procedure in an alternative format, please contact the Quality Manager. You should also contact the Quality Manager if you wish to discuss any reasonable adjustments to this procedure to take into account your disability and any additional support you may need in raising and pursing your complaint due to your disability.

Studying towards an Apprenticeship (England)

The consideration of matters of complaint for apprenticeship students should first be referred to the Practice Tutor or alternatively the Employer Account Manager. Employment issues that do not form or contribute to the apprenticeship should be directed to the employer; however, the tutor or Employer Account Manager may be able to offer support. Consideration of a complaint about a service provided by the centre follows the same procedure as for the individuals on our other provisions or using our services. As with all other students, if an apprenticeship or employer exhausts the centre procedure and remains dissatisfied with the outcome they are entitled to request a review by referring the case to the Complaints Team of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) for investigation complaints.esfa@education.gov.uk; prior to presenting a complaint to the ESFA we would recommend that complainant to discuss the concerns with the Apprenticeship helpline for guidance on whether this an appropriate action (Telephone: 0800 015 0400; email:
nationalhelpdesk@apprenticeships.gov.uk ).
You must contact the ESFA within 12 months after the issue happened. You can do this by email or post to the ESFA complaints team.
ESFA complaints team
complaints.ESFA@education.gov.uk

Complaints team
Education and Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry
CV1 2WT

Where an apprentice wishes to appeal the grading of an End Point Assessment, the apprentice should follow the appeals procedure of the Registered Apprenticeship Assessment Organisation (RoAAO).

Time limits

A complaint must be brought to the attention of the centre as soon as practicable and, in any event, within 28 days of the issue occurring. Once your complaint has been dealt with there are further time limits within which, if you remain dissatisfied, you must refer your complaint to the next stage.

If you have concerns that you may experience some disadvantage if you raise a complaint, you should not delay raising your complaint. You should contact the Quality Manager as soon as possible to tell us what your concern is and to discuss the options available to you to ensure that you are able to raise your complaint without disadvantage.

Any complaint or referral received after a time limit has expired time will be out of time and will not be considered unless there are exceptional circumstances which prevented you from submitting your complaint or referring it to the next stage within the time limit. For example, if you have been seriously ill, we will take this into account when considering if your complaint can be accepted. You will need to provide evidence, such as a medical note, to show that you were unable to submit your complaint within the given time limit.

The centre will make every reasonable effort to meet the time limits as stated in this procedure; however, for complex cases additional time may be required to ensure a thorough investigation and review of a submission. Where an exception to the standard time limit is needed you will be notified of this and will be kept informed of when you can expect to receive an outcome response.

Procedure:

Submitting Complaint

In order to ensure that your complaint is dealt with as quickly and effectively as possible, you should submit your complaint or appeal in the way set out in our Complaints Procedures. You are required to raise your complaint by completing the Complaint Form.

If you choose to submit your complaint or appeal in a different way or format, it will be acknowledged but you may be requested to submit in the stipulated format.

Early Alternative Dispute Resolution

If you are dissatisfied with any of our services, provision and facilities, you are required to contact us within 28 days and raise your concern. This can be done by verbal or written communication through email, phone call or in person. Learner are expected to contact their tutors, employers contact the Employer Account Manager and other to contact our administrative office.

At this stage if you are not satisfied that the centre is satisfactorily meeting your expectation, mediation can be an alternative route to resolving matters of concern. There will be opportunity for the concern to be listened to and work towards an amicable resolution. We endeavour to complete any mediation at the earliest possible preferably within 5 working days and also acknowledgethat some situations may require more time. This will be discussed and agreed mutually. Any agreement and resolution will be recorded. If mediation is attempted and it does not resolve the issues to both parties’ satisfaction you will be able to follow up your complaint to stage 1. If any complainant does not wish to consider any mediation, the stage 1 can be used immediately.

Stage 1 Formal Complaint

If you are dissatisfied with the mediation offered or wish to make a complaint without going through the early alternative dispute resolution stage, please complete in full the Complaint Form below within 28 days of the concern.

1-Once the complaint form has been received an acknowledgement will be sent within 5 working days.
2- The complaint will be dealt with by the Quality Manager who would carry out an investigation (check evidence you have submitted and seek report from staff members as appropriate) and work towards meeting your expectations to things right.
3- Complaint will be dealt with within 15 working days. If a time extension of time is required, you will be informed of why and extension required to ensure that we are able to offer a satisfactory solution to your concern.
4- Within 5 working days after your compliant has been fully investigated, you will be sent a Decision Letter with matters of complaint, a timeline of events, details of the information or evidence which was taken into consideration, and the outcome of the complaint. More importantly, this will include action taken to address your concerns.
5- Once you have received the decision letter you can accept it, and this will lead to the closure of your complaint. Otherwise if you are still dissatisfied with the outcome you need to raise your concern by requesting a review by following stage 2.

Stage 2 Requesting a Review

1. Within 7 working days of receiving the decision letter you are required to write to the Director to express your dissatisfaction of the outcome of stage one.
2. You will be sent an acknowledgement within 5 working days.
3. You must explain why you remain dissatisfied with the outcome to your complaint.
4. Set out one or more of the following grounds on which you believe the centre should review its decision
a. that relevant evidence has not been taken into account
b. that irrelevant evidence was taken into account
c. that any relevant centre regulations, policies or procedures have not been applied correctly;
d. that the reasons for the decision were not fully and clearly communicated to you
e. that there was bias, or the likelihood of bias in making the decision
f. that the procedure followed was not fair or adequate
g. that the decision made was not fair or reasonable in all the circumstances.
h. Any other reason being very specific.
5. You may submit any new evidence which has not previously been submitted in support of your complaint. Where new evidence or a new element of complaint is introduced at the Review stage, to be eligible for further consideration you should provide a valid reason to explain why this could not have been provided earlier in the process.
6. You must clearly specify if you are dissatisfied totally or partially and making suggestion of your expectation following the outcome of stage one.
7. The director will review your concerns and consider any new piece of evidence assuming it has been accepted for the further investigation. Report from all appropriate member of staffs will be obtained.
8. The matter will be dealt with within 15 working days. However, if an extension is required to deal with stage 2, you will be informed of how long more it will take and why.
9. After the matter has been fully investigated, you will receive a Final Decision Letter with the outcome within 5 working days. The decision of director is final.

Closure of Complaint Procedure

1. The outcome of stage 2 is final and there is no further review consideration after this stage.
2. If you are still dissatisfied with the outcome and has exhausted our centre’s complaint procedure, you can contact a number of other institutions. You need to refer your complaint to them and follow their complaint processes.
a. OFSTED- https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted
b. ESFA- https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/education-and-skills-funding-agency
c. CQC- https://www.cqc.org.uk/
d. Register of End Point Assessment Organisation(R)-
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/register-of-end-point-assessment-organisations
e. Find Apprenticeship Training-
https://findapprenticeshiptraining.apprenticeships.education.gov.uk/
f. Office for Independent Adjudicator- https://www.oiahe.org.uk/