Welcome to the National Student Ombudsman
In our last blog post we discussed the increased funding being allocated to the Disability Support Fund, effective from the 2025 calendar year. The Fund was originally established to remove various impediments to full participation in Higher Education for students with disabilities. Broadly speaking, these resources could be seen as proactive in that they are provided to remove or minimise barriers that may limit a student with a disability from progressing through their studies with minimal disadvantage. The increase in funding (a quadrupling of previous funding levels) was welcomed across the sector.
While the Disability Support Fund was focused on addressing disability, the beginning of operation of the National Student Ombudsman provides an avenue for any student with a complaint against a university to raise their complaint with an independent agency dedicated to fairness and resolution of their complaint.
Based on recommendations in the Australian Universities Accord Final Report released in February 2024, the office of the National Student Ombudsman has been established, beginning operations early in 2025.
The National Student Ombudsman is a free and independent service to facilitate resolution of student complaints against their higher education provider.
The NSO has a wide remit and considerable power to resolve student complaints.
In the context of the establishment of the NSO, universities need to be sure they have robust systems to capture and record responses to student complaints including complaint processing and remediation efforts.
So what can All the Ducks offer?
Consultancy: Analysis of existing systems with a view to improving integrations to boost efficiency for staff responsible for assessing, documenting and reporting on student complaints. We are known for providing high quality reports that objectively assess existing operations and provide clients with recommendations that lay out their options clearly. Typically our reports provide ‘ways forward’ and recommendations, leaving critical decisions to our clients, confident that they have honest and objective advice to support their decision making.
System design and blue sky planning: Coming into a university environment as informed analysts often assists us to take a 'big picture' approach that isn't bogged down in 'this is how we do things here' mindsets and that can leverage our awareness of what is trending across the sector.
Integrations: Where work is required to refine existing system integrations or to simply improve efficiencies by developing middleware tools using contemporary technologies, we can assist. We have extensive experience working in environments where multiple systems from different vendors need to exchange data in secure and robust ways.
Please feel free to talk to us if any of the services outlined above are of interest to you. We pride ourselves on taking a collaborative approach to analysis and the identification of opportunities for operational improvements.