Case 200801217 & 200900897 - Gwynedd Council & Welsh Assembly Government (Student Finance Wales & Student Loans Company Ltd)

Summary

Mr K complained about the way in which his claims for Assembly Learning Grant and Disabled Student Allowances (“DSAs) had been processed by the Council and Student Loans Company Ltd (“SLC”)(which was carrying out student finance functions on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government). He complained that following his withdrawal from a PGCE course on health grounds, and despite repaying a proportion of the grant, the Council made a number of unnecessary reassessments of his grant entitlements resulting in 7 notifications from SLC demanding the repayment of all or varying parts of the grant. He complained further that SLC unreasonably withheld payment of his DSA claims (which he was entitled to in respect of the PhD course he was pursuing at another university) pending repayment of the grant which it claimed had been overpaid. Mr K complained finally that neither the Council nor the SLC responded to his complaints adequately, and that each blamed the other.

I upheld the complaint. The investigation showed that there were failures by the Council and SLC respectively to make correct reassessments and to issue correct overpayment recovery letters to Mr K following his withdrawal from the PGCE course. The Council and SLC also failed to communicate with each other promptly and effectively to resolve the difficulties on Mr K’s account when these became manifestly apparent from his correspondence with both organisations. Instead, they blamed each other and withheld payments to which Mr K was entitled. There were also failures to respond to Mr K’s correspondence and his subsequent complaints in a proper manner. In particular SLC’s statement to Mr K that it had no record of his emails (including hard copies forwarded subsequently) was dissembling and disingenuous given that as a result of other action being taken by SLC at the time, the email facility was not available.

I recommended that the Council and SLC apologise to Mr K and pay him a total of £700 to compensate him for the injustice he sustained. The Council, SLC and the Welsh Assembly Government indicated that measures are being taken to address the difficulties occurred in Mr K’s case including the “system” problems. Nevertheless, I recommended that all three bodies should provide me with an update on these measures, including arrangements for identifying problems at a much earlier stage, the improvement of communication between the SLC and local authorities in Wales, and improvements in dealing with correspondence and complaints from students.

Case 200801217 & 200900897 - Gwynedd Council & Welsh Assembly Government (Student Finance Wales & Student Loans Company Ltd) (PDF: 339.67Kb)

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