Equality and Complaints Policy

EQUALITY & COMPLAINTS

EQUALITY

1.1 Scope of the policy

This policy covers the principles of diversity and equality for anybody using our products and services.

1.2 Purpose of the policy

The purpose is to set out our commitment to ensuring we adhere to the diversity and equality legislation and principles in our responsibilities as an educational provider, and what we expect our partner providers to do. We fully support the principle of equal opportunities and oppose all unlawful or unfair discrimination on the grounds of ability, age, colour, culture, disability, domestic circumstances, employment status, gender, marital/civil partnership status, nationality, political orientation, racial origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, social background or any other grounds or status.

1.3 Copies of Policy

You can request copies of our policy by emailing learn.online@smartacademics.co.uk.

1.4 Review of the policy

The policy will be reviewed annually and revised if and when necessary in response to customer and feedback, changes in our practices, actions from the regulatory authorities or external agencies, or changes in legislation.

Our Aims

We aim to ensure that diversity and equality is promoted in the development and delivery of our courses and services, and that unlawful or unfair discrimination, whether direct or indirect, is eliminated. As an educational provider, we’ll ensure that:

  •  this policy is made freely available to our customers and our partner providers
  •  the widest possible diversity of candidates can access the content and assessment of our products and services
  • the entry requirements, content and assessment demands of our products and services are appropriate to the knowledge, understanding and skills specified and do not act as unnecessary barriers to achievement
  • all our products and services will ensure fair assessment for all candidates
  • the language we use in our materials is clear, free from bias and appropriate to the target group
  • we aim to produce and endorse material that does not cause offence
  • all our products and services are reviewed against this policy
  • we’ll always act fairly when working with candidates
  • we’ll always support and demonstrate the principles diversity and equality

COMPLAINTS POLICY/PROCEDURE

Smart Ed UK entities are referred to as “Smart Ed UK” throughout this document

Smart Ed UK
High Street Eston TS6 9EH
United Kingdom

By complaint, we mean

Any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a person about the provision of, or failure to provide educational services as outlined on our website and those of our third party providers.

Complaints then refer to any expression of dissatisfaction, whether oral or written, and whether justified or not, from or on behalf of an eligible complainant about the firms provision of, or failure to provide, a educational services and alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.’

Who can complain?

A complaint can be made by any customer or potential customer of the Smart Ed UK Group.

Customers can complain to Smart Ed UK Group by:

  1. E-mail;
  2. Online;
  3. Letter;
  4. Phone; or
  5. Verbally to a Smart Ed UK employee, for example, during a visit.

How do we view complaints at Smart Ed UK?

Complaints are a source of customer feedback and an opportunity to identify how to improve our performance.

The benefits are:

  • Ensuring that customers can be confident that they’re dealing with a company who has the customer
  • central to its corporate culture.
  • Customer reassurance that their opinion matters.
  • Identification of any problems, trends of potential customer detriment or lack of understanding and
  • then take action to put things right;
  • Rectifying potential problems before they become an issue for other customers or colleagues.
  • Higher levels of customer satisfaction and recommendations to other potential customers.
  • Demonstrates we’re committed to continuous improvement.

How do we deal with complaints?

We want to make it easy for customers to complain and want to be reasonable towards our customers, seeing their side and treating them as we would like to be treated. Sometimes we don’t get things right and when this happens, we want to encourage our customers to tell us about their concern so we can put it right. We’ll investigate complaints fairly, consistently and promptly, determine whether we’ve done something wrong and ensure the appropriate action and redress is made. We’ll set out our conclusions to complainants in a final response.

Complaints must be in writing if they are to be followed up adequately.

Please email us or your tutor in the first instance; we will attempt to resolve the issue promptly. Following this, we can escalate any unresolved issue with our third party course providers or with our admin services.

Our purpose is to help our customers achieve their academic goals. To do this our customers must feel we put them at the heart of everything we do, to please our customers and exceed their expectations.

We will

  • be clear simple and transparent in what we do and say;
  • ensure there are no barriers in place for customers to submit a complaint;
  • put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and treat them as we would wish to be treated, and
  • put things right for the customer when they complain and learn from our mistakes.

We achieve this by carrying out the following activity.

Record the life of every complaint

We record all complaints at the earliest opportunity to fully and accurately capture these details:

  • Receipt – where and when we received the complaint
  • Ownership – who dealt or is dealing with the complaint
  • Progress – update on current position
  • Investigation detail and outcome
  • Customer feedback

We retain all complaint records for a minimum of six months. However there may be instances where we may elect to retain them longer.

Resolve all complaints

We manage and exceed our customers’ expectations by:

  • showing a positive attitude to complaint resolution;
  • agreeing and meeting realistic timescales for updates and resolution;
  • providing regular updates on progress;
  • using the customers preferred method of communication, and
  • resolving the complaint.

Empowering our colleagues by giving them appropriate authority to own and resolve complaints at first point of contact wherever possible.

Our colleagues understand our complaint handling procedures and have the skills to deal with cus- tomers who complain.

  • The person investigating or managing the complaint has sufficient competence and independence
  • to make a fair and unbiased assessment.
  • We have defined hand-off processes and systems agreed and implemented between our depart- ments to provide a seamless service to customers.

Rescue Customer Loyalty

  • We give customers the benefit of doubt where it would seem fair to do so.
  • We reimburse customers who have suffered a financial detriment as a result of our error fairly and quickly.
  • We compensate customers who have suffered trouble or inconvenience fairly and quickly.
  • We identify frequent problems involving our systems, processes, products and policies and implement actions to resolve them. Where appropriate we also ensure action is taken on behalf of customers affected who haven’t complained.

How do we communicate with complainants?

Complaints are acknowledged promptly and the customer will be kept updated on the progress of their complaint.

We’ll contact our customers via their preferred method of communication.

Business day 1

We aim to resolve concerns promptly and at the first point of contact. If complaints are re- solved at first point of contact immediately a summary communication summary is issued by email or letter whichever is the customers preferred method of communication.

Business day 30

For any complaints which can’t be resolved immediately we aim to resolve them by working day thirty days after date of receipt. These customers will be issued with a summary resolution communication by email or letter on resolution whichever is their preferred method of communication.

Business day 31

If we’re unable to resolve the complaint at this stage we will aim to issue a written acknowledgement by email/letter by close of business of working day 31 at the latest. This will include our complaints procedure. We’ll contact the customer by phone to agree a contact strategy with them regarding updating them and resolution. If we’re unable to contact them by phone, we’ll email them or if no email address is available, we’ll write to them by post.

Updates to the customer will be at a frequency agreed with them and by their preferred method of communication. We’ll advise why we’ve not been able to resolve their complaint and when we hope to be able to do so. If we’re unable to contact the customer by phone we’ll update them at least every 10 working days.

Business day 60

In exceptional circumstances where a complaint is particularly complex it may take over 40 business days to resolve. If a complaint isn’t resolved by business day 60 we’ll email/write to the customer requesting more time and explaining why we’re not able to provide a response.

We’ll also advise the customer they’ve the right to refer their complaint to the Pensions or Financial Ombudsman if they’re unhappy we’re still not in a position to reply. We also advise them of the time limit of six months by which they have to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman from the date of our response. If referring the customer to the Pensions Ombudsman the time limit is three years from the date of maladministration.

Contact point for queries or guidance

Please contact the compliance officer at Smart Ed UK Group, using the following electronic address: resolutions@smartacademics.co.uk