Case Summaries

The provider asked for more information so it could investigate the complaint. It asked the student to provide further detail about the allegations, and said that it would need to discuss the complaint with the staff member involved.

The student asked the provider to confirm that their complaint would be handled by someone who had no prior involvement with the issues. They also asked for alternative supervision during the complaint investigation. The provider confirmed the complaint would be dealt with by someone with no prior involvement. But arrangements for supervision during the complaints process remained unclear.

The provider asked the student for more information about their complaint on two further occasions, but the student continued to seek assurances about who would handle the complaint and repeated their request for alternative supervision during the process. The provider decided to terminate the student’s complaint as “frivolous or vexatious” because it believed the student was refusing to provide the information it needed to investigate the complaint. It issued the student with a Completion of Procedures Letter.

The student complained to us. They said the provider’s position was a misrepresentation and they were willing to provide further information to support the complaint. They also explained the issues had negatively affected their mental health, which had impacted their ability to properly communicate their concerns to the provider.

We settled this complaint. It was clear from the student’s complaint to us they were willing to share information with the provider that would enable it to investigate their complaint, but they were concerned about impartiality and the implications for their supervision. The provider offered to investigate the complaint under its internal procedures if the student agreed it could contact the supervisor. The student agreed to this but asked for permission to be legally represented during the procedure – both as a reasonable adjustment and because they had lost faith in the process because of the provider’s initial response to their complaint. The provider agreed to this, and we settled the complaint to us on the basis that the provider would now investigate it under its internal complaints procedure.