Student loan system failure could happen again
An investigation into the failure of the Student Loan Company to properly process applications has revealed the disaster could be repeated later this year. Spending watchdog the National Audit Office said that failures of oversight from the company's board, and from Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills …
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Student Loans Co ARE failures
"The NAO warned that the company is expected to process twice as many applications this year with no proof that it will be able to provide a decent service."
They've never provided a decent service. If they're not losing your application for deferment, they're taking money from your account AFTER you've recieved a deferment letter.
If I had a shotgun...
Saw this on BBC this morning.
They had an interview with the head of the Student Loans Company - what a sleazy, typical stereotype of a senior civil servant he was. He attemped to weasel out of every question posed to him, not by the legendary Jeremy Paxman, but by Charlie Stait, the Friday morning stand-in for Bill Turnbull.
He was questioned on whether he and his management would receive any bonuses for their abysmal performance last year, and he weaseled out saying "any bonuses would reflect performance", he weaseled out when he was asked if he'd resign if the same problems arose this year, and it appears their solution to the problem with late processing of student loans was to hire more non-executive directors and managers - as if either of those two groups of people ever solved a fucking operational problem anywhere ever!!!
Moron.
In the old days...
...students would of took to the streets in running battles with the authorities. Tear gas would of been fired and baracades set up.
These days they will write a few whingy tweets....
C'mon kids, where's your spirt!
WouldWork
'In the Old Days' they would of sed 'would have', but then tehy woz eddicated.
Simple answer
Stop the government encouraging everybody and their stupid brother to go to uni to do mickey mouse degrees such as 'media studies' and devaluing the benefits of having a degree.
Less idiots cluttering up the system, therefore everybody else gets their money on time.
Simplez!
Simplez!
Yes, that's a good solution BUT where would the government (euphemism) get the money? I suppose they could make all students get a CBR check and an ID Card ... they'd get some money in from those!
Cynicalz!
I'm annoyed
Because I missed several months worth of stock market investments due to loan delays. Yes I'm one of those people that doesn't need the loan but claims it anyway to invest.
For real?
Assuming you're being serious that's a rather twattish thing to do. Can you think of a good reason why the entire nation should fund your investment plans - do we get any kind of return on the investment we made on your behalf?
RE: Erm...
After 25 years whatever you owe is written off* as any graduate who only earns average wages will discover.
*New loans since 2006-07 acedemic year.
Never mind 'erm'
Indeed - and the money that you have made with our money: This is repaid too?
SLC
My partner works for a local university in the loans and bursaries department and deals with SLC on a daily basis. They have been being told for months (by various different universitities) that their plans are unfeasible, brittle and liable to failure and they have simply ignored everything they've been told and ploughed on regardless.
If it weren't for the fact that it's not the SLC that will be massively inconvenienced it would be laughable. I can't see many of the poorer students laughing about this though.
Knock on effects
The situation may have changed, but the Benefits Agency treat a student loan as income for a period equivilant to the length of your course, but starting from the date you receive the money. So if your loan shows up 6 months late and you can't get a job on graduation, you can't claim benefits, even if you used the loan to repay the debts run up while waiting for your application to be processed.
SLC incompetence
One small insight suggests that SLC are a hopeless shower.
A reasonable proportion of students end up accepted by their second-choice university. How does SLC handle this change?
SLC get the applicant's First-choice and Second-choice offer details from UCAS - so students should be able to tell them "I am going to my Second choice university" by a few clicks on their online system.
Not so - SLC's online system requires the student to download a (badly designed) "Change of Circumstances" form - 8 pages long, requiring lots of information that the student has already provided to SLC. The student then visits their Post Office to send it off (the form is too fat to go as a standard letter). And then they wait two to four weeks for it to be processed manually.
Sheer Genius.
I think you're all missing the point
A certain non elected Lord made a tidy sum by giving this job to SLC, so we should all be grateful. And the SLC board made sure he got the money in a timely fashion, so should all get nice bonuses too.
Don't any of you understand how Government works these days?
It seems..
.. we have exactly what the government wanted to give students. A kick up the arse for being a burden on society.
The government knew this system would not work but went ahead any way and this will continue into next year with SLC making a minimal investment in the extra staff needed (if the original setup had worked) to process the additional work they can expect, while claiming to have made a significant investment in staff.
Shame SLC where not in charge of the replacement expences scam which sprang seamlessly into being when the old scam was exposed. If that had happened we would have saved a shed load of cach as PM's strugeld to get their snowts in the new trouth.
SYSTEM?? FAIL
Do college, meeja studies or something worthwhile, whatever
get a mc job after.
SLC WILL steal from you.
Change bank accounts and default on agreed repayments/SLC thefts.
go to court.
SLC will not sent any reprasentatives - and that will not piss the courts off in the slightest, at least it will not have donr on the 100 occasions they have failed to send any reprasentatinve this week :-)
friendly chat with magistrate who's day is wasted just like yours.
so says beak, what can you afford?
ten bob a week says i
done says beak
they have been says i
£1800 loan will be repaid in 75 years.
no intrest and no more theiving from my account. all handled via courts :-)
go get a proper job.
f*** them AND the horse they rode in on.
WIN
Yeah sounds like a good idea.................
Fackers like you caused the credit crunch.
I'm sure you contributed to the backlog seeing as you can't even spell and they had to employ extra people just to get you to fill the form in correctly.
That’s my money you have no intention of paying back!
I assume by the standard of your spelling and grammar you are one of the thickies Labour encouraged to go to university when you should have been down the DHSS looking for more free hand outs.
Magistrates
If it's a civil court you attend when the SLC tries to recover money, then that's not a magistrate, it's a judge.
A judge is legally qualified, typically a degree in Law, a professional. A magistrate is supposedly an upstanding member of the public that doesn't have legal qualifications. The magistrates deal in criminal court cases. Judges deal in county court - civil cases and serious criminal cases in the county court.
I suspect that non-payment of the loan would result in a civil court case in the county court and hence a judge...as most cases for non-payment of debt do. However, given the Labour government's propensity for liking crminal law, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility they've made non-payment of the loan to the SLC a criminal matter..and requires a magistrate to ajudicate on. But I think it's more likely it's a civil matter.
Magistrates
Correction:
Judges deal in county court - civil cases and serious criminal cases in the crown court.
they really should run our healthcare
This is the same government that runs the department of motor vehicles, social security, the postal service, and every other wrecking ball to the free market.
If things continue on the path they are on pretty soon you'll be waiting in line at your government ran grocery store for a loaf of bread.
The question to the people of this once free republic is, if we woke up tomorrow without a federal government, would you notice?
Production line conveyer job, nobody sweeping the floor
From an interview seen on BBC TV, it seems like a re-run of the DEFRA Single Farm Payment fiasco: application goes down a production line, operatives peck at it as it goes past, nobody does anything if it falls on the floor, can't find out where it is. Blair created a policy called Information Assurance, but those who let these service contracts do not have a clue about implementing quality methods.
its not like...
They just turned into a bunch of useless wankers recently, they pretty much always have been.
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