On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Roger Clark wrote:

> I should be grateful if you could let me know by the middle of Friday
> afternoon (say 3 pm) of any specific proposals you would like me to take
> forward, and of any specific problems you would like solved.

I would like to see a revision of the standard "Financial Assessment" form
(as defined in SSIN 21/99 at present) such that there is a much clearer
distinction between these two cases:

 a. those who are not in principle eligible for Fee Support;
 b. those who are in principle eligible, but are getting zero Fee Support
    in practice.  

At Oxford and Cambridge, there are internal accounting implications
between the colleges and the university that hinge upon this distinction.
Other universities might also be interested in having this distinction
made more explicit.  (? don't we need to know this for the HESA
statistics collection ?).

At present, the distinction is supposed to be signalled, in the case of
those not eligible in principle for Fee Support, by the presence of
hyphens instead of figures in boxes 36-38. I would prefer to see the text
INELIGIBLE rather than mere hyphens in boxes 36 and 38.  Box 37 should
contain no implication on what fees the student might have to pay.

The present situation is not made any easier by the fact that at least one
of the software houses is not handling correctly the case where the
student applies for the minimum non-means-tested-loan only, with no LEA
assessment of parental or student income.  We are getting Financial
Assessment forms coming through with zeroes in boxes 36-38, when they
should be 1025, 1025, 0 respectively.

It might be noted in passing that it does not appear to be possible to
distinguish cases (a) and (b) from a standard SAAS award notification.

-- 
Robin Walker, (Junior Bursar), Queens' College, Cambridge, CB3 9ET, GB
[log in to unmask]  http://www.quns.cam.ac.uk/  Tel:+44 1223 335528 Fax:335566




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