by GR Evans

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) has stressed in its Annual Report that the system it operates is under strain. The expectation that universities would offer a route for students to make  complaints became a requirement at the turn of the century as  providers began to recognise the existence of a ‘student contract‘. That made the student a ‘consumer’ of the ‘higher education provider’. ‘Complaints procedures’ for students to use began to appear alongside ‘grievance procedures’ for employees. Scrutinising the performance of higher education providers in that task falls to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA).

The OIA was created as a company in 2003 and began work as a voluntary scheme. It was designated as operator of a student complaints scheme in 2005. Its current ‘members’ are various sector bodies including  Universities UK and GuildHE. Its Board, headed by the actual Adjudicator, and it includes student representatives.

It first needed to show itself to be independent. The OIA faced criticism early on when a petition with 43 signatures, called for its abolition, complaining that it was a ‘biased, unreasonable, and non-impartial organisation. The petition called for:

Full evidence-based investigation into student complaints, fully independent of the University’s internal processes, and in accordance with existing educational and non-educational law,

and ‘a public enquiry into all decisions made against student complaints, by the OIAHE since its inception’, withnew rules:

to provide full legal aid cover for all students whose employment prospects are, or may have been, damaged as a result of their adverse experience with a public educational institution, and who remain unemployed as a result.

This was not followed through in those express terms. The stated objective of the process now followed by the OIA is to ‘put the student back in the position they  would have been in if the problem hadn’t occurred’.

Meeting that demand presents difficulties in two respects. The relationships of students to their ‘higher education provider’ have changed. They are its ‘members’ in the case of Oxford and Cambridge but in other providers a governing body of between twelve and twenty-four constitute the ‘members’ under the Higher Education and Research Act 1992. Elsewhere  they are likely to be, in effect, paying customers ‘buying’ a course. There is a contract and if the providers does not fulfil its part, the student may complain and seek redress in the form of repayment of fees.

A sense of student entitlement may arise from the sheer cost to a student. In England, tuition fees for the academic year 2026-7 will rise to £9,790 for standard full-time courses, £11,750 for full-time accelerated courses and £7,335 for part-time courses, for providers with a Teaching Excellence Framework award and an Access and Participation Plan. That will increase for the year 2027-8 to £10,050 for standard full-time courses, £12,060 for full-time accelerated courses  and £7,530 for part-time courses.  Costs for ‘maintenance’ and accommodation are additional.

The procedures to be followed in making a complaint have needed repeated updating. Key terms have had to be defined. For example, the Annual Report of Oxford’s Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service reports ‘an increasing complexity of cases, and those requiring a longer duration of support’. Where there is a complaint it recognises the need for clarity as to whether a dispute is a ‘University’ or a ‘college’ matter, noting ‘a marked increase in college-based, student-to-student reports of reported incidents’. The University is therefore improving its provision for training to ensure that those with responsibilities for students are clear about what constitutes ‘consent’.

Nationally, is the system now simply overloaded? The OIA published its Annual Report in April, recording the scale of the  rise in the number of complaints it receives. In 2008 the OIA received 900 complaints against an England and Wales enrolment denominator of 2,117,535 – a rate of 42.5 complaints per 100,000 students. In 2025 there were 4,234 complaints, an increase of 17 per cent from the previous year. The 4,234 complaints in 2025 ‘translate’, it says, ‘to roughly 165.8 per 100,000. in 2025’. In October 2025  alone there had been 516 complaints, recorded as the busiest single month in its history. In the face of this demand the OIA  resolved 3,950 cases within six months and brought the average case handling time down to 81 days.

Stress-points are evident. Its Report notes that the complaints the OIA receives ‘prematurely’ are brought by students who ‘have begun the process but feel that they have waited too long for a decision’:

most of the complaints raised with us prematurely are brought by students who have begun the process but feel that they have waited too long for a decision. Delays are a symptom of a system under strain and may be one impact of the financial challenges facing providers.

Jim Dickinson’s blog for WonkHE on 26 April 2026 pointed to further evidence arguing that the fact that 42% of complainants now disclose a disability could mean a sector which is still structurally unable to accommodate them. So even if the growth in complaints may reflect an increasing sense of entitlement among students, the OIA suggests that the Adjudicator makes recommendations – or requires compensation to be made – that is ‘an indication that a student has not received the service they expect at a time when fees and cost of living pressures are increasing’.

The continuing multiplication of ‘alternative providers’ seems likely to lead to more complaining. They may admit unqualified students and be imperfectly regulated. The OIA publishes a list of ‘case summaries’ on providers where problems have emerged. The ‘worked example’ given in the OIA’s Report is that of Brit College, on which the OIA had already published concerns as of ‘public interest’ in November 2025.

The OIA had made Recommendations and had reported the College’s refusal to comply with its Recommendations to its Board in September 2025 and shared information about the complaint with the Office for Students (OfS), Department for Education (DfE) and Ofqual.  None of this led to reform. Companies House reports that Brit College Ltd is subject to Receiver Action, with its accounts and confirmation statement overdue and apparently heading for liquidation.

There seems, then, to be a question as to the effectiveness of the OIA not in terms of its work but in terms of its powers, where a provider of higher education falls beyond the reach of a complaints procedure.

SRHE member GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.