Complaints

What can you do?

The school Complaints procedure is a policy which encompasses anything which is “an expression of dissatisfaction by one or more students about an academic or administrative service or facility” during your time at LSE. This could include unhappiness with the standard of teaching, instances of bias or prejudices from academics to much more.

The Complaints procedure is a two-stage procedure.

Stage one: informal complaint

First, an informal complaint should be raised, i.e. speaking to your department or the individual involved with the view to resolving the issue.

Stage two: formal complaint

After the informal stage, if you are still unhappy with the situation then a formal complaint can be submitted. This is where you can pursue the complaint with the School Secretary and it will be assessed by people independent of your situation. One important thing to note is for a complaint to be successful, there will generally need to be evidence to support it. It would be a good idea to have a think about if there is anything you can provide in support of your complaint, such as email communications. You can pursue the complaint alone or in a group. You can also skip straight to this formal complaint stage, if you do not feel it was appropriate to approach the individual involved via the informal route.

Outcome

Finally, all complaints need an outcome. It is not enough to just raise the complaint, an outcome should also be requested. This could either be a resolution for yourself or something which will stop the issue arising in the future. The complaints form can be found at the bottom of the guidance policy.

LSE Complaints Policy(Opens in a new tab)

Please note: you cannot make a formal complaint about your individual grades through this process. This should be done via the appeals process.

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What can we do?

Our advisers are more than happy to look over any draft complaint forms before you send them or provide you advice on the process if there are elements you would like further clarification on.

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