They have shown themselves incompetent, understaffed and unable to deal with the new role. The vast majority of applications made under the old system were dealt with within six weeks. A review on behalf of the Government said this was far too long, and recommended action.

NOW, the majority of students who applied in February 2009 still have not (in July 2009) had their applications EVEN CONSIDERED YET! The SLC are running an emergency contingency plan of re-directing all their post to a warehouse in Glasgow (where it won’t be read for at least 8 weeks), and going through applications and awarding people assessments as if they had too much money coming in (so that they don’t have to work out the calculations), and giving them the bare minimum.

Callers to the SLC recieve an automated voice message saying that they are 8 weeks behind with post, so don’t ask them anything.

The party line is “don’t worry we have until September”, but that means there are six weeks of processing time left, with a week to get the payment runs set up, before September. They are eight weeks behind.

Will this get sorted out?

I think that this will need to go to Judicial Review, of the minister (who has ultimate responsibility under the Teaching and Higher Education Act).