Heads roll at the Student Loans Company

After months of  incompetence and thousands of students stranded at university without any money, two members of the Student Loans Company have resigned. The man who oversaw the entire sorry operation remains, however.

The two who took the buck were Wallace Gray, the SLC’s ICT director, and Martin Herbert, the marketing and customer services director. But Ralph Seymour-Jackson, the Chief Executive – who described 50,000 students being without any funding as ‘reasonable’ – is still in charge.

There is a logic to forcing out the persons responsible for ICT (which was one of the main reasons for the delays) and customer service (which has been indescribably crap). But the failure wasn’t simply down to some dodgy software and crap communication with ‘customers’, it was systemic.

A number of dumb ideas caused the cock-ups. My favourite has got to be that the ‘SLC staffed its call centres to meet average demand throughout the year, rather than putting extra staff in place in busier times.’ In other words, a systemic problem.

The scanning equipment failed and the decision to process applications by hand was taken far too late for many students – particularly the ones who were income assessed, i.e. the ones who really need the money. Again, a systemic problem.

Also ‘board members were unaware of many of the company’s problems, partly because key information was not revealed to them by the executive, but also because “the non-executive directors did not challenge the executive team sufficiently”.’ Another systemic problem.

The system failed, but the man who presided over it remains. Ralph Seymour-Jackson should be sacked.

Related posts:

1. Student Finance woes for Freshers
2. Bog-roll in the student house

Tags: Martin Herbert, Ralph Seymour-Jackson, Resignations at Student Loans Company, Student Finance, Student Finance Direct, Student Loans Comapny England, Student Loans Company, Wallace Gray