Changes to the Student Complaints Scheme for Higher Education – Consultation

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator, the OIA, the independent body that deals with student complaints about their higher education institutions, is consulting on some changes to its complaints scheme.

Background – what is the OIA consulting on?

The OIA is consulting on changes that it is proposing to its current complaints scheme.

We are sharing our initial ideas here for you to consider in preparing your response. Note that the consultation requires completion of an online form and some of the responses are in the form of a simple rating on a five point scale. You can find a full list of the consultation questions on the OIA website and, while they say you can only respond through the online form, it is likely that they will accept comments via other routes too.

The deadline for responses is 31 July 2026.

What are the major changes?

The new approach presented by the OIA separates out a set of high level principles – ‘the Scheme’ – and places behind it a more detailed explanation of how the principles are enacted – ‘Explanatory Note.’ The other changes proposed include the point at which someone may be considered a student for the purposes of the Scheme, the time limit for bringing complaints, changes to reflect the OIA’s intended future role in Wales, removal of the stage of sharing recommendations and a re-wording around the compliance with OIA recommendations.

Below we set out some comments on the major changes. We have not followed the format of the questions in the online form but rather focused on what we see as the most significant issues.

From a Single Document to Two

The move from one set of rules to a set of high level principles, the Scheme, and the Explanatory Note behind it is not one we feel is necessary. While the clarity of the principles in the scheme is welcome it is not clear to us why this is not simply a single document incorporating both the principles and the explanations. Indeed this is just what the Explanatory Note does except that the principles are set out in a different order.

There may be a need on occasion to highlight the principles separately from the explanatory notes but this could be done as required. We would suggest that it does not need two separate documents.

While it may be felt that presenting the principles in this way ensures they appear more fixed and less likely to change and contrasting this with the explanatory notes which it is said can be amended by the OIA Board, in reality both can be amended by the board with equal ease, should it be required (although, as now, consultation with stakeholders would be appropriate on some matters).

We would assume that, beneath the level of the current rules as they are now and as the Scheme would be in future, there is a set of operating procedures and practices, internal to the OIA, which will also be adjusted to take account of the proposed changes and the operational detail which has been removed and can continue to be amended in the light of experience. This seems to us to be appropriate.

The lack of visibility of the OIA and consequent limited awareness on the part of students of their route to complain, combined with what appears to be a general sense of disempowerment on the part of students, is not necessarily going to be helped by brevity and plain English in terms of these documents, even though both of these are laudable aims and certainly delivered here.

The big test will be how this operates in practice and until it is introduced we won’t know whether the redrafting and clarification has genuinely improved things for all parties.

Time Limit for Complaints

The draft Scheme would reduce the time limit for bringing a complaint from 12 months to six months from the Completion of Procedures Letter, or the provider’s final decision if no Completion of Procedures Letter is issued. The OIA argues that, given the average time taken for a complaint to reach the OIA after the end of an institution’s procedures was just over three months in 2025, reducing the time limit to six months should not cause problems for the majority of students. We would be supportive of this change.

Extension of Right of Complain to Students Pre-Enrolment

The revised Scheme would enable a student to complain to the OIA about anything an institution has done or failed to do from the point at which they accept an offer to study instead of the point at which they register. Given that there exists at this point a contract between the applicant and the institution, this would seem to us an appropriate step. We would note though that there will need to be some clarification of the potential grounds for such complaints. For example, while it may be reasonable for a student to complain that they should be able to reclaim their deposit if they have had to withdraw because of actions taken by the institution, say, it would not be reasonable for a student to complain about matters beyond the institution’s control such as the allocation of a visa.

 Changes to reflect the OIA’s intended future role in Wales

The consultation includes proposals to reflect the OIA’s intended future role in Wales arising from the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022. This would see the OIA’s remit being extended to cover further education learners and apprentices in Wales from 1 September 2027. These changes look to be unproblematic to us.

Compliance with OIA Recommendations

There appears to be a strengthening of the OIA’s position here. At present the rules state:

14.7 We expect the higher education provider to comply with any recommendations we make in full and within the time limits we set, and to report to us when it has done so.

Whereas the new Scheme has:

12 d Providers must comply with any recommendations we make in full within the time we set and report back to us. We act if a provider does not comply with a recommendation within the time we set.

While it could be argued that this is not a hugely significant change we would suggest that, in the light of the removal of the stage for a student and institution to consider and comment on a draft recommendation, the risk of an error in a recommendation is increased and therefore raising the compliance level in this way is unwise. We would also observe that the language of expectation (rather than compulsion) sits more comfortably with the sanction, as set out in the Explanatory Note:

The independent adjudicator may report a provider to the OIA Board for non-compliance and may publicise it in the Annual Report and/or by other means.

Removal of the Stage of Sharing Draft Recommendations

We have a concern that removing the stage of sharing draft recommendation with both student and institution risks more contested decisions, albeit speedier ones. While it could be said that this was an unnecessary additional step in a scheme which has now matured and no longer requires it, this is a feature which we suspect many institutions will argue should be retained.

It could be argued that it rebalances matters in favour of the student but if it is intended to continue with the increase in the emphasis on compliance to “must” then it is possible there will be many more institutions pushing back against decisions they see as faulty.

Other comments

We have several other less substantive observations:

• The scheme only refers to deciding not to consider complaints and terminating them. There is reference to suspension in the Explanatory Note but it does appear that the only real reason for this is illness on the part of the student. We suggest ‘suspend’ should be included in principle 9.
• An updated version of the current OIA process flow chart, once the new scheme has been finalised, will be helpful.
• The OIA is also planning to change its name, so it becomes the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Student Complaints, but this is not formally part of the consultation. We see no particular problems with this and indeed it may help with promoting the work of the OIA to students.

Conclusion

Overall, we welcome the willingness of the OIA to engage in an open consultation of this nature and engaging as we know it has with sector bodies. We are generally supportive of the proposals, subject to the comments above.

As ever, if institutions require any advice or guidance on these or related matters please do not hesitate to contact the experts in our education team.

This content is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is not intended to address the circumstances of any individual or entity, nor should it be relied upon as a substitute for specific advice from a qualified solicitor. The information reflects the legal position as at the date specified and may be subject to change. If you require advice on a specific matter, please contact us directly.