despair at student finance-don't know what to do

divastrop

I don't know if anyone can help me but I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall regarding my SF application.

I will try and keep it short. I have been in receipt of IS ( recently changing to JSA ) for myself and my OH for the past 4 years, as well as CTC for my children. I have been offered a place on a foundation degree course starting in septemeber.
I sent my original application for SF at the start of April this year, along with identity evidence as requested. I checked with the student advisor at college who went through my application with me and she said I didn't need to send anything else. I sent my childcare grant application the following week.
On may 5th I received an email asking for more evidence in relation to the childcare grant. I phoned SLC to check what was needed and was told that,as well as my childrens' birth certificates, my OH needed to send a letter confirming he was financially dependent on me (he is going to be doing a FE course in september). I sent these things by recorded delivery straight away. Then in June I got a letter offering me the basic, non means tested amount of SF as they were 'waiting for more information'. I rang again and was told they were now asking for my final CTC award notice for 08/09. Neither the advisor nor his supervisor could figure out why I was being asked for this , so they spoke to the processing dept. and just said basically I had to send it in. I sent this by recorded delivery on 22nd June.
I am now being told that despite my application having already been processed and the CTC award notice having been received on 29th June, I will have to wait 6-8 weeks to find out what SF I can get.
I have just been on the phone to them for 45 mins trying to get an explaination as to why I have to wait 6 weeks for somebody to look at a piece of paper essentially, but they just kept repeating the same lines of 'that is the processing time'. They said I cannot speak to anyone in the assessment dept. as they don't take calls, the only thing I can do is write to the complaints dept.

I don't know what to do. I need to know if I can get the childcare grant before I can book childcare, and I need to know if I will be entitled to any housing benefit, which I can't find out until I know exactly what I am getting from SF.

Will writing to the complaints dept help? Is there anything else I can do?

starbies

hiya - sorry i can't really help apart from to sympathise - I'm still waiting after 6wks for the childcare grant response - they've already lost my tax credits award notice once and i only found this out because i called to chase progress. they now say it might be another 6wks before i hear and i've already missed out on a nursery place and because we live very rurally i'm really struggling to find anywhere else for my 1yr old.
hope it all works out for you very soon
x

barnabee

Bl**dy hell, just wrote a long reply on this thread and it hasn't gone on.
Grrr!! Briefly it involved much ranting and how SLC nearly made me go up to their offices and shout an awful lot.

Complaint procedure - waste of time. Infact, they may consider you lucky to have got through to them on the phone. Even when they finally admitted their huge mistake, nobody said sorry.

Be patient, keep on at them. Write to your MP if you have to. I took my case to the Welsh Assembly before I saw any light at the end of a gloomy, poorly built and frustrating tunnel.

wobblymummy

Hi there

I have had really poor experience with Student Finance, like you I am starting for the first time in September (2 kids)

I sent my form in May and I got the same "Its with the blah blah team and no you cant talk to them" its been sat in a pile for 4 weeks we will look at it after then. I asked for a manager to talk to, she was great, she checked all the forms and spoke to the special team and everything, I now have my estimate and payment schedule for this year. I would phone and ask for a manager

divastrop

Thank you everyone. I know many people had problems last year but I assumed that was because it was the first year of it being centralised.
They only gave me an address for the complaints dept. , which I asked for after they tried to fob me off with an email address. I just don't understand their system-the CTC notice has been registered on the system so someone must have opened the envelope and looked at it, so why does it still have to be 'processed'? I tried asking them what processing involves on an application which has technically already been processed, but they just said it was in a 'queue' with other peoples financial evidence.

Wobblymummy- did you just ring and ask to speak to a manager? I got put on to a supervisor and was told that there was nobody higher that I could personally speak to.

Lokolo

Student Finance are only doing forms recieved by 6th June, so if you applied after that then keep waiting.

http://www.facebook.com/SFEngland

divastrop

They got my application on 9th April.

Taiko

Lokolo wrote: »

Student Finance are only doing forms recieved by 6th June, so if you applied after that then keep waiting.

http://www.facebook.com/SFEngland

Not according to my stats.

Catbag

My dealings with SF have been a catalogue of disasters from start to finish. I have had every last bit of paper work in within 3 days of them requesting it, all by recorded delivery, and they have managed to lose it and/or consign it to the bottom of the in tray, i think.

I have 3 children and started Uni last September. Having finished for the year in May, i sent them my CG2 form confirming what i have paid for childcare since January. I keep ringing to find out what's happening with this, and student finance just keep saying that they haven't started processing these forms yet! Brilliant. Both my self and my partner are students and we had budgeted this as money to live on over the summer, in addition to the CTC. As it is, we've been left just living on the CTC ( £127 pw for 5 of us) and i'm being told that it could take another 6 weeks before we get the money. What is outrageous is that this is money that we have already paid to the nursery, out of other income and so we are just over two thousand pounds out of pocket. The call centre is utterly useless - you'll get a different answer each time you call, even if that's three times in one day.

My advice to you would be to keep on top of them, even if that means ringing every day. I worried myself sick about the childcare aspect of uni life before i started, but the Uni nursery has been fantastic and the money does come through eventually. Just dig yourself a little hole and stash away some money when you are paid to cover the periods when you're not.

Lokolo

Taiko wrote: »

Not according to my stats.

Yes but some people have inside access :P

wobblymummy

divastrop wrote: »

Thank you everyone. I know many people had problems last year but I assumed that was because it was the first year of it being centralised.
They only gave me an address for the complaints dept. , which I asked for after they tried to fob me off with an email address. I just don't understand their system-the CTC notice has been registered on the system so someone must have opened the envelope and looked at it, so why does it still have to be 'processed'? I tried asking them what processing involves on an application which has technically already been processed, but they just said it was in a 'queue' with other peoples financial evidence.

Wobblymummy- did you just ring and ask to speak to a manager? I got put on to a supervisor and was told that there was nobody higher that I could personally speak to.

No, I got someone incredibly rude on the phone and patronised me throughout the call, I then said I would like to speak to a manager please and told them what I'd had to put up with from the previous operator. The manager couldnt do enough for me, I cant fault them. The people on the phones dont have the correct information for a start I have been given several different answers to the same question over and over again, in the end I take everything they say with a pinch of salt and assume its incorrect and just ask at my uni as they seem to know more.

There has to be supervisors there, to say there isnt one, is rubbish.