Dear Jeremy,
I am not an apologist for centralising government tendencies by any means. However, the SLC administration of the DSA has been earnest, if subject to the horrible constraints of relying too much on technology on the one hand, and being new kids on the block on the other hand. Some of the advice they have had has been better than others. Endless bickering only serves the vested interests who create false controversies precisely so that no one has any time or orientation to notice where the relevant ones are.
The more than one quote system introduced has made it possible to bring down the prices of some of the services and products whose purveyors were just taking advantage. (I think that needs assessments are too expensive also, with prices being inflated partly by the bureaucracy that has invaded them on the one hand, (because no one trusts anyone and there is a craving to CYA) with others seeing a fat cash cow on the other hand and exploiting it wholesale and so making it the 'norm'.) Nothing against people making a living, even an good living..but don't like to see money being wasted to pay for the lifestyle choices of cynics.
As a sector, we have an opportunity to push for a principle of real quality. There have been others within the sector who have let students down and we need to recognise this and try to shift a culture that sustains it's blindness to it. The perverse thing is that many who have provided poor quality have also demanded a high price, and got it.
What ought to be a point of deep embarrassment to us is that there are fairly simple ways that we can change this. We can begin to make some credible representations to the SLC, which are already allowed for by their funding criteria. Eg, if there is no other computer supplier who can provide the quality that I believe is necessary for a particular student, then in principle, I can make that recommendation. It is not the SLC that is stopping this from happening, it is the recommendations policies of the access centres as well as the culture of misreading what the criteria allow for. In order to escape our embarrassment over this, we can adopt a policy of recommending what we believe to be the best specialist equipment, training, tutorial support, notetaking services, mentoring, etc. This is a challenge to assessors and access centre managers. The down side is that we have to be prepared to put our rear end on the line and assume responsibility for that judgement, ie be answerable for it.
If we put genuine and detailed student feedback on systems at the centre of our quality assurance systems, then some of the baloney made just fall away and we may begin to see the wood from the trees. Practitioners may begin to establish some well earned self respect, and may even begin to inspire the confidence of those we serve.
Kind regards,
Penny Georgiou
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. on behalf of Jeremy Fox
Sent: Fri 11/12/2009 11:23
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Hopkin Review
The CLASS submission made me wonder whether we are living on different planets.
Before the Hopkin report was published, in an exasperated fury, I sent off
the text below to the Guardian website comments section. It summarizes our
experience of what has happened since the SLC took over.
<<The SLC is basically a finance company that has blundered into the
disability field without making the least attempt to understand it.
In order to deal with DSA applications, the company employs a body of
desk-bound scrutinizers with minimal training who spend their time
second-guessing the recommendations of DSA assessors and student support
workers. Although some of the functionaries try to be helpful, the managers
who control this process are sniffily dismissive of the expertise and
dedication of those who work in this field. Their general attitude is one of
suspicion - that assessors' recommendations are over generous, that students
should receive less rather than more support, that everyone and their uncle
is on the make, that mistakes, errors, delays and mishaps are the
responsibility of applicants and their feckless advisers. They have
dreamed-up arbitrary rules based on a fundamental misreading if the
objectives of DSA itself as enshrined in the legislation and the published
government guidelines.
Under the pretence of "safeguarding public funds", the SLC has built a
bureaucracy that readers of Kafka will readily recognize: authoritarian,
impenetrable, impervious to entreaty. Doubtless its corporate eye is fixed
on the "savings" it can report to the government of the day, and thereby
justify its year-end executive bonuses
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/16/student-loans-company-bonuses).
Processing delays are not the only problem with the SLC. Under the guise of
seeking "cost-effectiveness", it has also adopted a policy of imposing the
cheapest solutions and the cheapest suppliers of equipment and services. As
a result, many students whose applications have, finally, emerged from the
SLC labyrinth find themselves with inadequate equipment, and training and
support provided by poorly-qualified personnel. In a field that demands
significant expertise and experience, the SLC is ineluctably downgrading the
quality of provision.
What is most dispiriting about this sad saga, is that when the Local
Education Authorities were responsible for administering DSA applications,
the programme was working pretty well. Was it ideology that led the
government to centralize the process; or a fantasy about saving money?
What about a solution? Best would be to return responsibility for DSA
processing to the LEAs. In any case, the SLC should be trimmed of its
superfluous bean-counters and their managers, and acquire a new executive
team and board of directors. Without fundamental change at the top, it's
hard to see how the SLC could justify any future involvement with DSA and
vulnerable students.>>
I believe Sir Deian Hopkin has been seriously misled by the CLASS submission
and that we owe it to future DSA clients to try to correct it.
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