complaints

Accommodation Services Complaints Procedure

Newcastle University Accommodation Services aims to provide high quality services to all of our customers.  We work hard to achieve this and welcome feedback.  We view any feedback as an opportunity to improve our services.  This procedure includes a form you should complete to make a complaint, and explains what you can expect from us.

What you can expect from us:

  • We will accept complaints, made in person, telephone, letter, email, fax or from our complaints form on our website
  • We will deal with your complaint quickly and communicate the outcome clearly to you
  • We will apologise, provide an explanation and seek to find a solution when things have gone wrong
  • We will ask you if you are satisfied with the way your complaint was handled
  • We will use the information from complaints to identify areas of our service that need improvement
  • We will publicise how we manage our complaints on our website

Service Standard:

  • We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within two working days
  • We aim to provide a full written response within 10 working days and will keep you informed if this is not possible

The Complaints Process

If you have a complaint about any aspect of our service, in the first instance please discuss this with the member of staff concerned or with your site reception to try and resolve the matter.  Complaints should normally be made within four weeks or as close as possible to the time the issue arose.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is when you tell us about something that Accommodation Services have done or should have done that you are not happy about.

What is not a complaint?

There are some issues that we do not consider to be complaints.

  • We do not consider a request for us to provide a service to you to be a complaint. For example if you are asking us to do a repair to your accommodation for the first time. You should report your repair request to the site reception.
  • We do not consider a complaint about the behaviour of other residents to be a complaint about us. You should report any anti social behaviour to your site reception, which will have the matter investigated.

It may be possible to sort things out quickly and the issue is resolved without the matter going any further.  However, if you feel that your complaint has not been dealt with appropriately, or to your satisfaction, then you may initiate a formal complaint.

So that we can deal with your complaint effectively, we have a four stage process.  We will strive to respond to your complaint to your satisfaction at stage one.  Your complaint will only proceed to the next stage if you advise us that you are not satisfied with our response.

Stage One

Please complete our Complaints Form, and email it to Accommodation Services, where it will be acknowledged by a senior secretary within two working days.

A manager will consider the complaint, investigate and aim to provide a full written response within 10 working days and will keep you informed if this is not possible. If you are not satisfied with the response received at stage one, then you should move on to stage two but this should be within 10 working days of receiving the stage one decision.

Stage Two

The Director of Accommodation and Hospitality Services or a nominated manager will review your complaint.  We aim to provide a full written response within 10 working days and will keep you informed if this is not possible.

If you are still unhappy with the response received at stage two, then you should move on to stage three but this should be within 10 working days of receiving the stage two decision.

Stage Three

If you have completed stages one and two and you remain dissatisfied with our response, you may wish to refer your complaint through the University's Student Complaints Procedure. This is managed through Student Progress.

Stage Four

Newcastle University is signed up to The Student Accommodation Code, an approved code of practice for accommodation managed and/or controlled by Higher Education Establishments;

  • if you have completed all stages of the complaints procedure and
  • you are still not satisfied your complaint has been resolved and
  • your complaint relates to an element of the Student Accommodation Code you can refer your complaint to the SAC Code Management Committee at www.thesac.org.uk/

Confidentiality

All complaints will be dealt with confidentially, though enquiries may have to be made with third parties to investigate the complaint fully.  For this reason anonymous complaints will not be accepted.