Problems getting answers from Student Finance England

YesCJ

Does anyone know how to talk to an actual human at Student Finance England? Every channel - and I mean everything, from email to phone lines to social media - is operated by automated technology and is designed to stop you querying their processes and decisions (sounds cynical I know, but I have some knowledge of how and why this software is used by large organisations).

My son has been awarded less than half the financial help he received last year, even though our financial circumstances have not changed. My suspicion is that because they worded some of the application form questions differently this year, they have made incorrect assumptions about our household income. We can't go back and check this because the application disappears as soon as it is submitted, and none of the so-called help sources are in any way helpful. All I want is to speak to a human, understand what has happened, and appeal their award. As it stands, the loan won't even cover my son's accommodation costs...

Can anyone help in terms of how to speak to a real person at SFE?

[Deleted User]

YesCJ said:
 Every channel - and I mean everything, from email to phone lines to social media - is operated by automated technology

Not everything . Their Facebook page has humans responding and I would expect letters will also get a human response.

nomorekids

Exactly the same boat here, only our income is much less and yes we too are left wondering why our daughter has been awarded less than half of what she received last year.   Spent hours on phone to get no where, sent tax returns, copies of every bit of financial information they could possibly need and still no actual answer as to what has gone wrong so at the moment we've no basis to appeal.   Also annoyingly Thursday last week and this morning they have started to answer the call, verify you and then hang up  charming 

kaMelo

Assuming you've only got one child at University, for the loans to drop by half they've assessed your household income has almost tripled. As the calculations used are fairly simple taking into account numerous factors such as where the student lives, whether you've got more than one child at University and of course household income it would imply either your household income has tripled or a mistake has happened.

Something else to bear in mind, SFE bases household income on the last but one full tax year so, for someone going this September it's based upon household income from 2019-2020. If you are or are expecting household income to be significantly lower then you can ask them to use this reduced income for their calculations.  They determine "significantly lower"  as a percentage but can't remember what it is.  As this years loans will be based upon pre-pandemic household income it could potentially apply to many more people than usual. 

YesCJ

nomorekids said:

Exactly the same boat here, only our income is much less and yes we too are left wondering why our daughter has been awarded less than half of what she received last year.   Spent hours on phone to get no where, sent tax returns, copies of every bit of financial information they could possibly need and still no actual answer as to what has gone wrong so at the moment we've no basis to appeal.   Also annoyingly Thursday last week and this morning they have started to answer the call, verify you and then hang up  charming 

I feel your pain. And this is outrageous. Everything is set up in such a way as to thwart people's efforts to get clarity. I've no idea where to turn to, to appeal - or even investigate!

YesCJ

Deleted_User said:

YesCJ said:
 Every channel - and I mean everything, from email to phone lines to social media - is operated by automated technology

Not everything . Their Facebook page has humans responding and I would expect letters will also get a human response.

Sadly it's robots. Answers always in the same format. Never deal with a question directly. Always direct you back to the SFE site...    Letter and email being sent today, but I'm not hopeful.

MallyGirl

the best response seems to come from twitter or from posting in The Student Room 'ask' section https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=910

kaMelo

To all those who are complaining about getting the minimum maintenance loan, have you only recently, as in the last six weeks or so, applied/filled out the household income form ?
If so it would appear that there are delays in processing the data, rather than just not do anything it would seem SFE are giving out the minimum loan and then updating the amount once they process the actual data.

Have a read of this thread on the studentroom forum.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7089027