Apologies if you have already received this message.  I tried to send 
it on Friday but my email went a bit strange so I thought I'd better 
try again...


Further to my email of Tuesday, here is the feedback from the meeting 
of the monitoring group held last Friday.  Sorry for the delay.  
(This message is quite long; please feel free to delete now if this 
is not an area of interest to you!)

Generally, the DfEE were happy with the way the new student support 
arrangements were going.  As a result of the CVCP's latest survey, 
however, Baroness Blackstone has written to a handful of LEAs (10) 
who by 7 December had processed less than 60% of fee assessments.

We discussed the problems caused by the great variety in format of 
LEA's notifications although, as I understand the 99/2000 
arrangements these will be a standard format in future.  
Unfortunately there was nobody there from the DfEE with sufficient 
knowledge of the new system to confirm this.

The DfEE unit in Darlington was expecting c12,000 EU students and has 
so far processed c10,000.  Again, this should hopefully improve in 
99/2000 as a result of the new strategy (dealt with in one of the 
SSINs fairly recently).

The DfEE's survey of a sample of LEAs showed that most were fairly 
well prepared as far as paying fee invoices was concerned, but the 
sample is only 25 and they had only actually managed to reach about 
half.

The problem was raised of changes to assessments mid year, 
particularly those for small amounts (one example given was for 
15p!).  The DfEE said this should not be happening to any great 
extent:
(a)	LEAs should be dealing in whole pounds anyway;
(b)	most provisional assessments are done to the nearest £500 or 
£1,000.
All those present who work in institutions, however, were able to 
cite examples and it was agreed that this area should be picked up by 
the CVCP/SCOP in one of their future surveys.

We looked at some data on student intakes and award holder numbers 
which, to be honest, confused me somewhat because it came from 
different sources which were not always counting the same students!  
However, the bottom line appeared to be that overall student numbers 
were broadly in line with planned numbers but that the drop in award 
holders was greater than expected.  It was assumed that this was 
largely as a result of students not applying to their LEA this year 
if they did not think they would receive any financial support.  
There was some discussion about how to get information to such 
students about the need to apply for 1999/2000; the SLC has written 
to all students who have taken out a loan this year to tell them of 
the new arrangements but institutions may have a role to play in 
getting information to those who have neither applied to their LEA 
nor the SLC this year.  I was assured that LEAs are being urged to be 
sympathetic towards such students who are technically outside the 
four month period during which they should have applied to establish 
eligibility.

There were reports from the SAAS, DENI and SLC who all reported no 
major problems at this stage (although some earlier problems were 
acknowledged by the latter two).

There was some discussion about the problems caused by students 
transferring between institutions with different policies on payment 
of fees.  The DfEE basically didn't want to know about this and said 
it was for institutions to sort out.  The suggestion was made that 
representative bodies such as CVCP should be looking at this issue.

Finally, we were asked how the DfEE could best go about getting 
information to institutions about the arrangements for 1999/2000 but 
I will send a separate email message about this.

Hope that is helpful.  The next meeting is likely to be some time 
in April if anyone has issues which they would like me to raise then.

Pam
----------------------
Pamela Bell-Ashe
University of Liverpool

Chair
Association of Managers of Student Services in Higher Education

Tel:  0151 794 2243
Fax:  0151 794 2249
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

--- End Forwarded Message ---


----------------------
Pamela Bell-Ashe
University of Liverpool

Chair
Association of Managers of Student Services in Higher Education

Tel:  0151 794 2243
Fax:  0151 794 2249
e-mail: [log in to unmask]



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%