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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| 'Failure' by student loan company | 'Failure' by student loan company |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| Student leaders say that "heads must roll" after a report into university loan delays has found "conspicuous failures". | Student leaders say that "heads must roll" after a report into university loan delays has found "conspicuous failures". |
| There have been widespread complaints about the Student Loans Company - with the problems still unresolved as the end of the university term approaches. | There have been widespread complaints about the Student Loans Company - with the problems still unresolved as the end of the university term approaches. |
| The report found only 5% of phone calls were answered at the peak of delays. | The report found only 5% of phone calls were answered at the peak of delays. |
| In response the Student Loans Company says there will be a "restructuring" of senior management. | |
| The report from Professor Sir Deian Hopkin examined delays which saw universities having to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds in emergency funds to students left stranded without funds. | |
| 'Total fiasco' | |
| It found that the processing system had faced problems with lost documents, failures with equipment and difficulties with the online application system. | |
| "The poor leadership and management of the Student Loans Company has led to disruption and hardship for hundreds of thousands of students," says NUS president, Wes Streeting. | "The poor leadership and management of the Student Loans Company has led to disruption and hardship for hundreds of thousands of students," says NUS president, Wes Streeting. |
| "Given the catalogue of failures identified by this report, heads must roll if the public are to have any confidence in the SLC in the future." | |
| Sally Hunt, leader of the UCU lecturers' union said this has been "a total fiasco from start to finish" - with failures in service that "beggar belief". | |
| "Moving to university is a stressful and expensive time and to attempt to do that without finances that had been promised is just not on." | |
| The report also accuses the government of being "too distanced" from responding to problems with loans that had been widely reported since August. | |
| 'Breathtaking incompetence' | |
| In response, England's Higher Education Minister David Lammy says there should now be changes in how the Student Loans Company is managed. | |
| "I am now clear that decisive action is required to change the service and that the key to this is strengthening the leadership of the company," Mr Lammy says in a written statement. | "I am now clear that decisive action is required to change the service and that the key to this is strengthening the leadership of the company," Mr Lammy says in a written statement. |
| But he said it was for the Student Loans Company board to hold the executive to account. | But he said it was for the Student Loans Company board to hold the executive to account. |
| The Liberal Democrat university spokesman Stephen Williams said: "The government must not be allowed to shrug off all responsibility for this fiasco. Ministers failed to ensure the SLC was delivering what was expected of it and they must explain why they did not intervene earlier." | |
| "This report is truly damning, revealing a breathtaking level of incompetence within the Student Loans Company." | |
| The Student Loans Company chairman, John Goodfellow, says the agency recognises the need to "engage more effectively with its customers" - and says it will be "restructuring the senior management team". |