Review highlights student finance meltdown

By Cathy Reay

Thousands of disabled students are being let down over funding critical to their studies.

An investigation by Disability Now (Loan Danger: students on the breadline) has revealed the students’ plight resulting from poor performance at the Student Loans Company (SLC) which processes grant applications. 

And now an independent review of the company has called for the disabled students still waiting for their disabled students allowance (DSA) to be given the “highest priority” for receiving it.

The review, led by Professor Sir Deian Hopkin and commissioned by the Minister of State for Higher Education David Lammy MP and chair of the SLC John Goodfellow, coincides with the investigation by Disability Now (issue 27, January 2010) that showed that the company has a huge backlog of claims it hasn’t yet fulfilled.

The review highlighted the delay in servicing disabled students with their DSA, the inexperience of staff dealing with the administration of DSA and the lack of communication between SLC staff and disabled applicants.

It said: “There were initially 15 members of staff to deal with this work and, [as the SLC acknowledged], at peak demand the processing of DSA application forms did not meet the Service Level Agreement.”

Professor Hopkin, who is co-chair of the higher education engagement board for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, presented his recommendations to David Lammy MP and John Goodfellow last week.

Among the recommendations made the report said that support for “special interest groups”, which includes disabled students, needs to be revised, and improvements in the training of specialist advisers must be made.

In response to the review, Mr Lammy said: “There remain problems with DSA and I have asked the SLC to engage directly with universities and assessment centres to speed up the process and to increase staffing resource for these activities.”

The recommendations have been accepted by the SLC.