Tuesday 25 May 2010

Hope you don't depend on your student loans…

The Labour government commissioned a report into the Student Loans Company's disastrous failure to, well, provide student loans to students last year. It found that


…only 46% of the applications last autumn were fully processed by the start of the term, compared with 63% in 2008. As the crucial date approached, calls from students soared, with 4m made in September.
Despite having a target of no more than 14% of calls left unanswered, some 87% went unanswered that month. Between February 2009 and this January, only a fifth of calls were answered in 60 seconds, with 56% left unanswered.
On average, it took more than 12 weeks for an application to be processed in 2009/10, compared with more than nine weeks in 2008/09, when local authorities were in charge.


Now, the chair and chief executive have 'resigned', which usually means that they've been sacked without losing benefits and will probably receive compensation.

Still, it's a good result, and not suspicious at all. It would be deeply cynical to think that their departure was delayed to make the new Tory government look good. Meanwhile, start saving up, because

 a damning report by the National Audit Office found that the system was at "substantial" risk of being hit by delays again this year, when it is expected to deal with twice as many applications,

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