Student Loans Company (SLC)

4. Miss Y complains about the length of time it took student loans company (SLC) to process her disabled student allowance (DSA) support application. Specifically, she says she submitted her application in June 2021, but SLC did not make a decision until January 2023. Furthermore, she says she was given incorrect information by SLC.

5. As a result, she says she was left without financial support, which meant she failed her university course. She says this meant she was financially disadvantaged and has been left mentally traumatised.

6. As an outcome she is seeking compensation.

7. Miss Y started a two year (part time) on-line postgraduate course in the 2019/2020 academic year starting in March 2020. She applied for a postgraduate loan in November 2019.

8. On 15 June 2021, Miss Y called the DSA team to apply for DSA (support to cover the study-related costs you have because of a mental health problem, long-term illness or any other disability). She was told to complete a DSA1 form (application form used to apply for DSA) and provide medical evidence; the call handler emailed the form to her.

9. Miss Y said she would be applying for the 2021/22 academic year. The call handler said, if Miss Y was in study at that moment, she would be in the 2020/21 academic year. Miss Y agreed and said she would be studying in the following year, with her course completing in 2022, but it may extend into 2023.

10. The call handler said they would send her next year’s form as well; Miss Y did not need to complete it unless she went into a second year.

11. Miss Y confirmed she had previously received DSA for her undergraduate course. The call handler confirmed SLC had the previous evidence, so no further medical evidence was required unless Miss Y wanted new medical conditions to be considered.

12. Miss Y then provided a DSA1 form for the 2019/20 academic year saying her course started in March 2020, and she was in the first year - and a DSA1 form for the 2021/22 academic year, saying she was in year two of her course.

13. SLC says the forms were received in August 2021 and some errors occurred which resulted in delay.

14. On 1 September 2022, Miss Y called SLC for an update and her call was transferred to the DSA team.

15. On 16 September 2022, the disability service at Miss Y’s university called the DSA team to see if SLC had received a DSA application from Miss Y. The call handler advised there was an application for the 2020/21 academic year which had been approved. Miss Y was doing an extra year, and a 2021/22 application was required. The call handler said Miss Y had previously submitted an application, but on an incorrect form, which was only partially completed and contained incorrect information.

16. On 9 December 2022, Miss Y called SLC for an update. The call hander explained they had asked for an application for the 2021/22 academic year as Miss Y’s course started in March. There appeared to be some confusion surrounding what form Miss Y needed to complete and subsequently, Miss Y wanted to complain.

17. On 31 January 2023, Miss Y called SLC again and is told she was sent a letter on 16 January confirming her support. Miss Y said she did not receive it, and SLC emailed to her.

18. On 1 February 2023, Miss Y officially raised a complaint. She explained that she applied for DSA in the middle of 2022 and because of more than one error/wrong information it took over six months, which resulted in her not having the correct support in place to complete her studies. She says this resulted in her failing her modules and caused her stress.

19. On 15 February 2023, SLC responded to the complaint and apologised for the delay. it also offered £100 as an ex-gratia payment and explained that steps had been taken to prevent similar issues reoccurring in the future.

20. Miss Y responded saying she was not happy with SLC’s response and ex-gratia offer.

21. On 8 March, Miss Y requested her complaint be escalated to the independent assessor (IA) for further consideration.

22. On 29 June 2023, the IA issued its report and recommended SLC increased its ex-gratia offer to £250 in acknowledgement of service failings and the distress and inconvenience caused.

23. Miss Y declined IA’s recommendation, and she was signposted to our office on 17 July 2023.

26. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to an MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to an MP after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

27. In this instance we have not seen sufficient evidence to apply our discretion and put the time limit to one side in this case. This is because, Miss Y contacted SLC in December 2022 and was clearly aware at that point of issues with the processing of her DSA application and information SLC had given her. Miss Y even expressed her desire to raise a complaint at this time.

28. Miss Y was aware (at the very latest) in December 2022, given it was clear SLC had still not processed her DSA application, and it had given her incorrect information. She even expressed her desire to raise a formal complaint at that time, demonstrating she was aware the ongoing problems.

29. It appears Miss Y contacted SLC on 31 January 2023 and it explained she was sent a letter from them (date 16 January), confirming her DSA support. Miss Y explained she had not received it so, the letter was emailed to her. Miss Y raised a complaint with SLC the following day.

30. SLC subsequently responding on 15 February 2023, where it made a recommendation of £100. Miss Y rejected this award and escalated her complaint to the IA. IA concluded its investigation in June 2023 and recommended SLC increased its award to £250.

31. Miss Y was clearly still unhappy with the outcomes of both the SLC complaint response, and the investigation carried out by IA, as she declined both of their recommendations. We would have expected her to escalate her complaint at this stage given the impact the issue she raised were clearly having on her.

32. SLC signposted Miss Y to our office on 17 July 2023 but she failed to contact her MP or bring the complaint to our office until 14 February 2024. This is seven months after she was made aware of our office and over one year since she initially raised her complaint with SLC.

33. Having read through Miss Y’s correspondence and spoken to her on the telephone, it is clear how much she has said not having access to the DSA support has affected her (i.e. not being about to complete her course, financial debt and mental trauma).

34. Given this, we would have expected her to have progressed the matter as quickly as possible. This means bringing the complaint to her MP and our office as soon as she was signposted to us in July 2023 and not waiting seven months.

35. Notwithstanding, once she did raise the complaint with her MP’s office it took several months for her to provide information to our office to allow us to open her case.

36. We can see from our records the case was brought to our office in February 2024 but subsequently had to be closed as ‘insufficient information’ had been provided by Miss Y. The case was subsequently reopened on 27 May 2025.

37. We do appreciate Miss Y has told us she was seeking an ADHD diagnosis during the period in question. However, we cannot see how this was a barrier preventing her from contacting her MP sooner. From initially being aware of the issues in December 2022, it took Miss Y 14 months to raise the matter with her MP and over two years to provide our office with sufficient information, to allow us us to investigate the matter.

38. As such, given the significant amount of time that has passed since the initial matters being complained about occurred, we have seen no strong justification to apply our discretion and put the time bar to one side.

39. It is important we are consistent with how we apply our discretion and given this case is significantly out of time we will not be taking any further action.

40. Finally, we wish Miss Y all the best moving forward with her university course and have no doubt how badly the issues with SLC have affected her.

1. We were very sorry to learn of Miss Y’s concerns about her experience with the student loans company (SLC) and the significant impact she says this has had on her.

2. We have decided not to consider Miss Y’s complaint further because she brought the complaint to her MP’s office considerably outside of our time limit. We carefully considered the reasons Miss Y gave for this. We do not think there was sufficient reason to set our time limit aside.

3. We recognise the time and effort that has gone into making this complaint and are sorry for any disappointment our decision may cause.