Professional and Career development loan advice

Hello,

This is my first post on MSE and I wanted to avoid creating a new thread completely to see if I can get some advice on this existing one!

I've taken on a professional career development loan with Co-op in 2015 and can no longer afford the repayments of almost £300 per month as initially agreed and signed contract. I've been explained by the bank that I cannot lower the monthly repayments and can only default on my payments and that eventually Co-op will pass on my debt to Wescot debt collectors. Despite of written warnings on every page of my loan agreement stating that should I default on payments at any point my credit history may be "seriously affected", I have been reassured by co-op on several occassions that although they cannot put this into writing to me they can guarantee that as it's a "government backed loan" as opposed to a normal loan and therefore my credit history will not be affected as I default on payments to Co-op Or even when they pass on my debt to Wescot. It is my understanding at this point that should I then default on my agreed payments with Wescot only then would my credit history be affected. My question is, can anyone confirm that this is in fact true for career development loans not affecting credit histories upon defaulted payments with the bank? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Many thanks in advance.