please note that the following............
Student Finance England is proposing that, to
facilitate purchasing of small consumables, all students in receipt of
DSAs are paid a small amount of money from their General Allowance, in
three instalments each year, to pay for small items such as
photocopying, printer cartridges, etc. Receipts will not need to be
provided. More information on this will be provided as it is known.
 
is NOT going to happen according to advice from Elaine Urquhart and Iain Thomson yesterday.
 
 
 
Dr John S Conway 
Principal Lecturer /Disability Officer / Chair, Research Committee 
Royal Agricultural college, Cirencester, Glos GL7 6JS 
01285 652531 fax 01285 650219 
http://www.rac.ac.uk/?_id=590 

________________________________

From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. on behalf of Jackson, Erin
Sent: Thu 22/05/2008 09:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New Arrangements for Student Finance Delivery in England



For information for those who aren't members of the NADP jisc...

Briefing from Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities and
National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP)

New Arrangements for Student Finance Delivery in England

Skill and NADP have produced this briefing to update their members on
the new arrangements for the delivery of student finance in England,
which includes the arrangements for processing Disabled Students'
Allowances (DSAs).

Background
In 2006, the then Department for Education and Skills (DfES), now
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), conducted an
end-to-end review of student finance in England. The Department
concluded that there should be a single national provider of HE student
finance in England, rather than it being delivered through the 150 or so
local authorities. As a result, the Student Loans Company was appointed
as this provider and will operate in this capacity, from September 2008,
under the brand name Student Finance England.

In Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the situation remains the same,
ie all student finance including DSAs will be administered through the
Local Education Authorities, the Education and Library Boards and the
Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) respectively.

The Student Loans Company itself will continue to administer the payment
and repayment of all student loans, tuition fees for all UK HEIs that
charge them, Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) for Wales and N.
Ireland, the Higher Education Bursary and Scholarship Service (HEBSS) in
England and the Welsh Bursary Service.

New arrangements from September 2008

General student finance for full-time undergraduates
Student Finance England will be the single national provider of all
information, advice, guidance and processing of applications for loans,
support grants including DSA, tuition fees, and bursaries from September
2008. This will cover all students applying to enter HE in 2009/10. All
returning students and students entering HE in 2008 will continue to be
processed by their relevant local authority. 

Student Finance England will have a customer contact centre in
Darlington, dealing with all enquiries, by phone, email, and letter.
Information and application for general student finance will be done
predominantly online.

University application cycle
The majority of full-time undergraduate students currently wishing to
enter HE start to apply to their chosen universities through UCAS in
September, a year before they wish to enter HE. The UCAS cycle finishes
the following January (with some exceptions such as medicine and
Oxbridge).  Student Finance England will move the student finance cycle
to coincide with the UCAS cycle, so that students can apply to UCAS and
to Student Finance England at the same time. Therefore, when students
are applying to UCAS, from the September before they start their course,
they will also be able to access information about, and apply for,
tuition fees, bursaries, maintenance grants, other grants, DSAs, etc
from Student Finance England.
DSA Applications
From September 2008, Student Finance England will process DSA
applications for students wishing to enter HE in 2009/10.

All students entering HE in 2008 and all returning students will
continue to liaise with their local authorities about DSA issues. These
students should contact their current local authority or, if their
authority was participating in the Darlington pilot, the appropriate
contact details for Darlington. Details for local authorities are
available at
http://www.studentfinancedirect.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=53,1259947&_da
d=portal&_schema=PORTAL

At the present time, those studying postgraduate courses or those on
courses funded through the NHS will continue to contact their relevant
Research Council, local authority or the NHS Bursaries Unit for
information about DSAs.

There will be a specialist team, based at the Darlington HQ, handling
and processing all new applications for, and enquiries about, DSAs.
Students will be given a named contact at the Darlington HQ in order to
direct any enquiries they have about their application.

Whilst the application for general student finance will be online in
various formats, from September 2008, the DSA application form itself
will only be available online as a PDF document until September 2009.

DSA Assessments
DSA Assessments will continue to operate as they do now. Once a student
has been assessed as eligible by Student Finance England, they will
contact a DSA-QAG audited Assessment Centre and undergo their assessment
in the usual way. For further details, refer to Bridging the Gap, which
is available at
http://www.studentfinancedirect.co.uk/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/SPIPG001/SPIP
S001/SPIPS008/SFD%20BRIDGING%20THE%20GAP%202008-09.PDF
(Please note this is a PDF file)

DSA payments will continue to be processed as they are now with one
notable exception. Student Finance England is proposing that, to
facilitate purchasing of small consumables, all students in receipt of
DSAs are paid a small amount of money from their General Allowance, in
three instalments each year, to pay for small items such as
photocopying, printer cartridges, etc. Receipts will not need to be
provided. More information on this will be provided as it is known.

Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG)
Student Finance England will also take over responsibility for all IAG
for HE student finance and this will be run centrally from the
Darlington Contact Centre, with the main channels of communication being
online and phone. Specialist face-to-face support will be provided for a
small minority of students who need additional support, such as disabled
students, those with English as a second language, carers, and students
from low-income households.  This will be delivered locally and
regionally through existing mechanisms (such as schools, connexions,
local authorities). Student Finance England are also in the process of
appointing 12 regional IAG consultants, who will work on the ground with
schools, HEIs, FECs, etc.

Student Finance England Contact Details
Website: http://www.studentfinancedirect.co.uk <http://www.studentfinancedirect.co.uk/> 
Tel: 0845 607 7577
Minicom: 0845 604 4434
Opening times: Mon-Fri, 8.00am to 8.00pm and Sat-Sun 9.00am to 5.30pm