Having big, worrying problems with SFE

kymbogs

Hi guys,
I used to frequent this board and haven't been around for a while but I hope somebody can give me some advice.

I'm in my second year of uni at the moment.
In the 09/10 academic year I received CCG to the full amount I could, ADG of £499.02, PLA of £1508 (full amount I think?) and the usual maintenance grant and loan, to the full amount.

There was an issue towards the end of the year when I realised I hadn't been paid enough CCG so wrote to them in explicit detail with dates and weekly payments, basically the problem was that they hadn't put me down for payments for after the uni term ended and the nursery was actually open until the schools broke up for the summer (so I had to pay for these extra weeks in order to keep the nursery place for my kids). So they then made another payment to me, thought all was fine until they sent me a letter stating I'd been overpaid by £593.75. After much to-ing and fro-ing they figured out that they had in fact paid me for the WHOLE summer, when the nursery was closed for 5 weeks or so, which I accepted and they said they would take the money from my payments over the year. All fine, all happy.

When I was originally granted the ADG I was sceptical about it, my husband works. I called them, more than once, to check that I was definitely entitled to it and they said yes, no problem, do what you like with it basically.

In September I received a letter on a Saturday morning stating that SFE would like to assess my entitlement for ADG for the 09/10 year and could I please send them bank statements for September 2009 to August 2010, council tax bills, insurance documents, mortgage statements....by the following Friday.

I was then in a total panic as we were going away on the Monday until the following Friday. I don't get paper bank statements, I access them online, and when I checked the Santander online banking I could only access statements back to January. I knew for a fact that I didn't have my 09/10 council tax bill or insurance documents covering September 09 to June 2010 as we'd have a recent clear out and I couldn't think why anybody would want them. I also only keep the two most recent mortgage statements. I was pretty angry as if I'd known I'd have to send all this off I would have kept it all together, printed bank statements off each month over the year etc. So I called in a panic saying there was no way I could get all this to them in time and the woman on the phone essentially said I should have known they would want it and if I didn't send it all to them by that Friday I would have to pay the ADG back and she said if I was really concerned about getting it sorted out I wouldn't go away on the Monday and if I could afford to go away I clearly didn't need the ADG (as it happens it was me and the girls going to the seaside with my mum for 4 nights, as a treat from my mum, and I was absolutely brassic by that point!). Before I got really cross with her I told her I would send everything I could that day along with a letter.

At the beginning of November I received another letter asking for some more bits and pieces, again on quite short notice. In this time I'd managed to get a copy council tax bill and some bank statements but the bank had for some reason missed out December 2009 so I was still waiting for these. This letter stated that actually my council tax bill wasn't any use as it didn't prove that I had paid it....they also wanted a particular letter from the Tax Credits office which I knew I had already sent so I rang them to tell them this and they said they were sure they probably just hadn't got around to opening it yet. Just in case, I ordered another copy of the letter from the Tax Credits people and posted it to SFE as soon as it arrived, on the 12th of November.

I received a letter dated 15th November saying that they were still waiting for evidence but I still had time to send it as the final cut off was 15th November.....

Last week I came home to a letter from SFE saying I wasn't entitled to ADG and actually I'd been overpaid by £2181 from the 09/10 year (I am assuming this includes the previously agreed £593).

The new notification has taken off the £499.02 ADG and my CCG has reduced from £7357.17 to £6268.

The letter just says it is due to confirmed income and expenditure figures. As far as I am concerned our income and expenditure have remained virtually the same, and I am in charge of the household finances. For the ADG I was told they just looked at mortgage, council tax, insurance and....oh I can'tremember the other thing now. They have all remained the same. Income from tax credits has remained the same. My husband's income has remained the same (net income of £12619.80).

I fully intend to contact SFE but have been trying to get advice from finance advisers at college etc beforehand, they are being slow to respond though and there've been disruptions due to the weather. I also was hoping to put it off until after I'd handed my assignments in next week. Seeing as the letter I received last week had a cheque slip with it I reckoned that theoretically they could still be expecting a cheque from me and that if I waited a week or so to contact them it was my best chance of my January payment going unaffected.

However I have just logged in to check my payments and my January payment has been reduced by over £1000 and my May payment is also down £500.

What I'm being left with isn't even going to cover the nursery fees between January and May.

I'm completely baffled by it all and really upset as it really feels like they are trying to make life difficult! I don't understand how I can have been overpaid when nothing has changed. I wish I could see what information they are going off so I could check it was all correct.

I know I'm going to have to contact them by phone ASAP regarding the January payment but wondered if anyone had any advice beforehand. I know in the past there've been posters here who work in college finance departments and hoped someone might be able to tell me if it sounds right. I'm happy to disclose outgoings etc if anyone has access to the same sort of calculations that they use at SFE to calculate entitlement.

Sorry for the rather long post. I really appreciate any input.

Kimberley