If something has gone wrong

To us, the publisher

A fact on this site that is wrong or misleading. An enquiry that went unanswered or was answered badly. Advice on an enquiry call that you believe was inaccurate or self-interested. Concern about how we have handled your personal data. Anything about the fee relationship between us and LSPM.

To LSPM, the approved centre

Your application, interview or offer. Teaching, supervision, seminars or tutor conduct. An assessment decision you disagree with, a resubmission outcome, or a decision about malpractice or a reasonable adjustment. Fees, refunds or payment plans. Registration with the awarding body or your certificate.

If you write to us about something that belongs to LSPM, we will tell you so within three working days, give you LSPM's complaints contact and, with your permission, forward what you have sent. We cannot investigate LSPM's decisions because we have no access to its records and no standing in its procedures.

1. Write to us

   Use Enquiry form with "Complaint" in the subject line, or post to LearnLoom Consultants, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. Say what happened, when, and what you would like done. We acknowledge within three working days, Hong Kong time.

2. Our response

   Within fifteen working days Education adviser, LearnLoom Consultants, who is responsible for the site, writes back with what was found, what has been changed and, where a page was wrong, a note of the correction on the page itself. If it will take longer we tell you why and when.

3. If you are still dissatisfied

   Ask for the matter to be reviewed by someone at LearnLoom Consultants who was not involved in the first response; we will confirm who that is when you ask. Beyond that, three external routes remain, and all of them apply to us even though we are based outside the United Kingdom, because we market to UK readers. A complaint about misleading marketing can go to the Advertising Standards Authority. A complaint about your personal data can go to the Information Commissioner's Office. And a complaint about our conduct as LSPM's agent can go to LSPM itself, which is responsible under its centre conditions for the agents it uses, and we will give you the contact for that if you ask.

As an approved centre LSPM is required by OTHM and Qualifi to operate a written complaints procedure and a separate appeals procedure for assessment decisions, and to make both available to learners. Ask LSPM's admissions team at LSPM's website for the current documents, or request them at induction; they set out the stages, the timescales and who decides at each stage. What follows is the outline the awarding bodies require of any centre, not a description of LSPM's internal arrangements, which are LSPM's to state.

A complaint is about a service, the conduct of staff, or a decision other than an assessment result. It normally begins informally with the tutor or programme lead, proceeds to a written complaint that the centre investigates and answers, and ends with a review by someone senior who was not involved.

An appeal is a challenge to an assessment decision on the grounds that the criteria were not applied correctly, that the procedure was not followed, or that circumstances you disclosed were not taken into account. At Level 8 every assignment has already been first-marked and internally moderated before results are released, so an appeal is asking for a further look at work two assessors have seen. The awarding bodies require that a re-mark is carried out by an assessor who has not previously seen the work, that the appeal is free of charge, and that the outcome is given in writing. An appeal cannot lower a result already awarded.

Once LSPM's appeals procedure is exhausted, you may take an assessment appeal to the awarding body, OTHM or Qualifi, under its own published appeals policy. The awarding body may uphold the centre's decision, direct a further review, or substitute its own. Its decision is final within the regulated system. Complaints that are not about assessment may also be escalated to the awarding body where they concern the centre's compliance with its conditions of approval, which include the conduct of any agents the centre uses.

Ofqual does not consider individual complaints or appeals, but it does accept information about an awarding organisation's compliance with its conditions of recognition, and you are free to contact it.

We keep a record of every complaint made to us, how it was handled and what changed, for three years. Complaining to us, to LSPM or to an awarding body will never affect the advice you receive here or, as far as it is in our power to say, your treatment by anyone else; LSPM is bound by its centre conditions to the same principle in assessment and in every other dealing with a learner.