Before making a complaint, either formally or informally, students are encouraged to seek advice from the University’s Student Support Services, the Students’ Union’s Advice Centre, and/or their Personal Tutor. The contact details for these services can be found below.
Student Support: +44(0)1522 837080 studentsupport@lincoln.ac.uk
SU Advice Centre: +44(0)1522 837000 or advice@lincolnsu.com
Further information on Support Services can be found here.
Students making a complaint have the right to be accompanied to meetings by a member of staff, student of the University, or a staff member from the Students’ Union Advice Centre.
It is expected that most complaints can be resolved at a local level, on an informal basis, without the need to escalate it to a formal complaint via the Governance team. The type of complaint will determine who you should direct it to. In the first instance, you are advised to talk to the person or service the complaint relates to. For academic matters, your Personal Tutor can assist you in taking your complaint further or direct you to the relevant colleague. If you are unsure who to direct your informal complaint to, please consult Student Support or the SU Advice Centre.
Providing evidence
For informal complaint resolution, students may be asked to summarise or clarify the key parts of their concern in writing. Students should not usually be asked to provide significant evidence during an informal resolution. If the matter cannot be resolved without gathering extensive evidence, then it is usually best to escalate the complaint to the formal stage.
All evidence should be provided in an accessible format, where associated evidence is not in English, you will be required to provide a translated version. The translation may later be verified by an appointed translator.
Complaint about another student’s behaviour
If your complaint relates to another student’s behaviour, then this will not be handled under the complaint procedure, instead, please refer to Part P of the University General Regulations which outlines the Student Misconduct Process. Further details about student misconduct can be found here.
Accommodation maintenance/complaints
Where your problem relates to accommodation maintenance, please register this with the Accommodation Services team. Should you wish to raise a complaint in regard to the service provided, please first aim to resolve this informally by contacting those involved and/or speaking to the reception team in your accommodation.
Escalating a complaint
Where you are unable to resolve the complaint informally, or the complaint is severe enough to warrant a formal investigation the complaint will be investigated in line with Part O of the University General Regulations. You can submit a formal complaints form using OneUni.
