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If you are unhappy with any aspect of your university experience, you can submit a complaint. This needs to be directed to whomever is responsible that aspect of your academic experience, whether that be your department (via the Universities Complaints Process) or your College (via their Complaints Process).

Each of the college's and permanent private hall's (PPH's) have specific responsibilities within the Universities federal system. Due to their independence from the central University, if you experience a difficulty with any college specific matter, these need to be challenged via each college's complaints process.

What are college and PPH's responsibilities?

Colleges and PPH's have responsibility for: 

  • • Selecting and admitting undergraduate students
  • • Selecting postgraduate students (after they are admitted to the University)
  • • Providing non-academic provision for students including:
    • • Accommodation
    • • Meals
    • • Common Rooms
    • • College libraries 
    • • Sports and social facilities
    • • Pastoral care
    • • Financial support (if they choose to)
  • • Undergraduate students tutorial teaching and welfare 

What are the Universities responsibilities?

The University has responsibility for:

  • • Determining the content of the courses within which college teaching takes place
  • • Organising lectures and seminars
  • • Providing resources for teaching and learning (in the form of libraries, labatories, museums, computing facilities etc)
  • • Admitting and supervising postgraduate students
  • • Examining theses 
  • • Setting and marking examinations 
  • • Awarding degrees 

Complaints about these matters can be raised via the University Complaints Procedure. You can also submit a complaint via this procedure if you are unhappy with the outcome of your Bullying, Harassment or Discrimination complaint and feel the process wasn't followed properly.

The Advice on this webpage relates to submitting a complaint to the University, you can find advice on other types of complaints on the relevant pages below.

College Complaints   Bullying, Discrimination or Harassment Complaints   Sexual Misconduct or Violence Complaints

Unfortunately we are unable to advise on complaints relating to admissions.

Stage One: Local Resolution 

How do I do a Stage One Complaint?

Firstly, you are expected to approach your department to discuss your concerns with an appropriate member of staff. In most cases, this would be by raising it directly with the person responsible for your concern. However, if you aren't comfortable with that you could contact the Director of Undergraduate or Graduate Studies or, if they aren't appropriate, the Head of Department/Faculty or Director of the service provider (e.g. Director of the Disability Advisory Service).

In this approach, you should explain clearly, concisely and politely:

  • • What's happened

  • • Why you are unhappy about it (including if relevant, if it breaches any university policy or something listed in your course handbook)

  • • What your ideal solution is

You can do this in person or via email. If you do have this as an in-person conversation, we'd recommend you follow up the conversation with an email confirming what you'd shared with them and their response -e.g. the steps (if any) they agreed to take.

Stage Two: Proctors Consideration

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the local resolution, then you can raise this formally with the Proctors. Ideally, this should be submitted within three months of when the matter you are complaining about occurred or when you sought informal resolution, or if it has been a series of events, three months from the last date that something occurred.

You should submit this via the form, ideally digitally (you can use a digital/typed signature too). You can find a copy of the form here: https://www.proctors.ox.ac.uk/forms. Here's some guidance on how to fill it out:

Section 1: About you

This is factual information as to your current academic situation. Status on course refers to whether you are currently studying, suspended or completed your course. If you are a non-matriculated student, you can write non-matriculated in the 'course' section. Ensure you have included an alternative email to your university email in case your university IT account closes down before your appeal is able to be concluded, as all communication with you will be done via email.

Section 2: Complaint Summary

What University matter is your complaint about?

  • • Failure to provide a service
  • • Quality and standard of service
  • • Failure to follow an appropriate process
  • • Quality of facilities or learning resources
  • • Quality of teaching/supervision
  • • Other (which you should explain in no more than 10 words)

Failure to provide something which should have been provided whereas quality of something is about the provision being available, but it not being of sufficient quality for your expectations.

When did the matter you are complaining about occur? Give date of when it happened, or if it happened over a period of time the time period (e.g. December 2024-April 2025).

If your complaint is about a matter that took place over 3 months ago, or it has been over 3 months since local informal resolution, please confirm your reason for lateness. If you are within the time period, you can leave this blank or write n/a. If you are not submitting your complaint in the deadline give a brief explanation e.g. you were waiting to hear back from a Subject Access Request, you were only recently made aware of the circumstances or you had other mitigating circumstances. You should attach evidence of whatever your reason for lateness to the complaint.

 

Are there any time-critical factors that the Proctors should be aware of? [max 150 words]. Explain any reasons why the Proctors may need to consider your complaint as a priority, for example if this is impacting your ability to progress into the next year of your studies.

Section 3: Complaint Details - Stage One

What steps have you taken to try and resolve your complaint informally at a local level? Here, you should explain what you did in stage one of the process above to try and resolve this with the relevant department directly. Explain in chronological order: the date, the action you took, who you spoke to and the outcome from that communication. Speaking with us in the SU doesn't count as a step of this process, so you don't need to include it in there. If you had these conversations via email or followed up the verbal conversation with an email, then you should attach a copy of these emails to the complaints form as evidence. Some departments will provide a formal outcome letter or email from your stage one complaint/ If they have, you should include this here too.

Please explain why you are dissatisfied with the local informal resolution outcome: Give specific details on why you are unhappy with the response from your department. Is it that they have not accepted all parts of your complaint? Is it that you are unhappy with their proposed solution/outcome?

Section 4: Complaint Details - Stage Two

There are three sections to the main part of your complaint: a description of your complaint, your evidence and your ideal outcome.

Key points of your complaint

You can write up to 700 words to explain your issue, so be clear and concise yet polite in your explanation. Ideally, use the parts the proctors have laid out as sub-headings to help direct the Proctors to your point. Here's some specific guidance for each of the sub-headings:

  • (i) What has happened to give rise to the complaint - explain briefly what your complaint is in relation to

  • (ii) The underlying facts, including key events and dates - explain in chronological order what happened on which dates which created the timeline of the complaint. If you are unsure of exact dates, its ok to give best guesses - for example 'in the first few weeks of Trinity Term'

  • (iii) What you think the subject of the Complaint did wrong - explain where you think the university has failed to meet the obligations they promised you. For example, it was advertised that you would have ten hours of face to face teaching a week and you are only getting five hours per week

  • (iv) The evidence that supports your Complaint - direct the Proctors to specific pieces of evidence which prove this (for example, write: see annex C) and explain how the evidence proves this. This evidence could be emails or a copy of your handbook explaining what you could expect from the university.

  • (v) The impact you have faced as a result of this - explain the impact this has had on you, this could include if it has exacerbated or caused any health (including mental health) difficulties, if its impacted your ability to engage in the course/Oxford life fully or any other impacts on you.

Evidence

Evidence is really important, as the Proctors will primarily determine your complaint outcome based on the statement and evidence you put forward. Whilst they do open an investigation, this is primarily to hear the universities response to your complaint, rather than finding additional evidence to support your complaint.

For each piece of evidence, you should rename it as the Annex number it is, and a brief description. E.g. Annex A, email from Head of Department. On the form, for each piece of evidence you are providing you should give a brief description, explain who authored it (e.g. yourself, your doctor, your senior tutor), the date it was created and how it is relevant to your complaint. For example, does it prove that you attempted stage one resolution? Does it show a process wasn't followed correctly?

To make it as easy as possible for the Proctors to understand the relevance of each of your pieces of evidence, in your main statement when you are explaining something which is evidence, you should write (see: annex xyz).

If you have more than five pieces of evidence, then you can add additional rows. However, be careful to ensure that every piece of evidence is complete, relevant and proportionate. Therefore, be concise in what you are presenting whilst ensuring the whole picture is showcased.

Outcome

Whilst the Proctors cannot guarantee any particular outcome, it is helpful for them to have an understanding of what would feel like a good outcome for you. Generally, the outcomes fall into any (or all) of the following:

  • • An apology
  • • An policy change
  • • An revisiting of a previous decision (note: this doesn't include academic decisions, the complaints process cannot be used to challenge an academic decision such as your final grade, this would need to be done via the academic appeals process)
  • • Compensation

    The University of Oxford subscribes to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, who are an ombudsman of Higher Education institutions. If you go through all of the Universities processes without a satisfactory resolution, you can complain to them for a final decision. Therefore, the University looks to their guidelines in how to satisfactorily resolve situations. Their guide to 'Putting things right' is therefore a helpful place to get suggestions on different types of remedies available.

Section 5: Declaration and Submission

Have a read through each of the statements, and check you agree with them all. Then, sign (its ok to just write your name in the box) and date it.

You can submit your complaint by emailing it, alongside your correctly formatted evidence to casework@proctors.ox.ac.uk. They will confirm they've received it within five working days of this date, and aim to get back to you with an outcome within 30 working days.

A formal investigation of the complaint will be opened and carried out by one of the permanent caseworkers. They will generally do this by sharing a copy of your complaint (including your identity) with those responsible for the matters being complained about to hear their perspective. They will then make a decision on whether the complaint is to be upheld (in full or in part) and if it is upheld, what outcome should be offered.

Stage Three: Proctors Review 

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint, you can request a review of this decision if you meet the grounds. You can find out more about this below.

Proctors Review

If you have a question not answered by the above or would like your draft appeal/evidence checked over by a member of our team, then read our Advice Agreement then Contact Us and we'd be happy to help.

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