September and October’s Student Loans Company (SLC) board papers are out, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to review everything published from 2025, along with the Annual Business Plan for 2025-26.
With lots of work going on to make the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) a reality, the papers give some detail on various operational and policy developments.
Its Enable programme, referenced throughout the minutes, is a major technology transformation project aimed at consolidating five platforms into one. It’s positioned as critical to delivering both the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and Alternative Student Finance.
The minutes also reference various operational improvements, including the introduction of Cost to Serve metrics, multi-disciplinary team pilots, and efforts to improve “digital containment” and “channel shift”. Basically, there’s all sorts of ongoing work to modernise service delivery while managing current operational pressures:
CL had been pleased to host the Wonkhe deputy editor, David Kernohan, in Glasgow Clyde Place earlier in the week. David had welcomed the progress made on LLE, the academic cycle, and how much the customer was at the centre of the SLC design thinking.
The SLC first identified potential fraud in franchised provision in 2022. Since then, the issue has been subject to reviews by the National Audit Office and Government Internal Audit Agency, with CEO Chris Larmer appearing before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee in February 2024.
As we’ve covered on the site, the scale of the issue is notable. The NAO found that in 2022/23, 53 per cent of the £4.1 million fraud detected by SLC was at franchised providers, despite these institutions serving only 4.7 per cent of the total student population.
The minutes indicate that the SLC's Economic Crime Unit achieves a 29:1 return on investment – but its powers are limited to addressing individual fraud cases rather than systemic issues.
The Secretary of State tasked the Public Sector Fraud Authority with investigating suspected exploitation of the student loan system back in March. As of October, there’s nothing in the minutes indicating that the work has been completed.
The reform programme to the Disabled Students' Allowance was formally closed in October 2025, with the board noting both achievements and ongoing challenges. According to the minutes, 10 per cent more students had their entitlement confirmed compared to the previous year, and customer satisfaction reached 69 per cent, up from pre-reform levels but below the 70 per cent target.
Journey times remain a concern. The October minutes note that:
...although the customer journey time was higher than in 2023-24, the primary driver had been the time taken for students to book and attend their needs assessments.
Both contracted suppliers (Capita and Study Tech) are meeting their KPIs according to the papers.
So what’s going on? The October minutes note that "research was now being considered to assess why students were choosing to delay their own assessment." Earlier this year, the Thomas Pocklington Trust reported that as of February 2025, average DSA processing time had increased to 119 days, up from 92 days previously – a 30 per cent increase.
It documented issues including eight-week waits for assessments, booking system failures requiring students to contact Capita directly, and assessors lacking knowledge of specific impairments. It also noted that:
...processing time was significantly impacted by a systems failure at Capita, impacting around 4,500 students.
Hopefully that research will get to the bottom of the issue. At least enquiry response times have improved.
The board papers indicate that the Disabled Student Stakeholder Group and Vulnerable Student Stakeholder Group are being merged, with the combined group meeting at key points in the application cycle. Maybe they’ll put a student on now.
The March minutes detail what's described as a "complex, cross-product, cross-platform loan" issue affecting Advanced Learner Loans. The problem arose from a policy requiring certain loans to be written off when students progress to specific higher education courses.
According to the board papers, the complexity of the system meant some loans that should have been written off were not processed in a timely manner, with interest continuing to accrue. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman reported that approximately 4,000 students were affected by this system error.
When the case opened, Rob Behrens – formerly England and Wales’ Independent Adjudicator for HE – was the PHSO. In June, Paula Sussex was named as the new PHSO – Paula was CEO at the SLC from 2018 to 2022, and the Charity Commission from 2014 to 2017. It’s a small world.
The PHSO's investigation, prompted by an individual case, found that one student's loan should have been cancelled in September 2019 but wasn't written off until September 2023. The Ombudsman recommended increased compensation and that SLC provide clear communication plans for affected customers. The board minutes indicate that all eligible loans have now been written off and interest corrected.
Alternative Student Finance - that’s Sharia-compliant student loans to me and you – continues to face delays according to the board papers. The October minutes describe it as a "publicly stated Government commitment" with Chris Larmer and Board Chair Peter Lauener holding monthly meetings with the Minister about delivery.
Having been reassuring that it would come alongside the LLE for a few years now, the government has now confirmed that ASF will be introduced "as soon as possible" after the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, which in and of itself has been delayed to January 2027. ASF was first promised by David Cameron in 2013.
The papers reference a quarterly working group including Baroness Smith, Lord Sharkey, and representatives from the Islamic Finance Council UK. Muslim census research cited in Parliamentary debates shows that over 6,000 students annually don’t attend university due to the lack of Sharia-compliant finance.
The February minutes noted that ASF inception work was scheduled to begin in October 2025, although the final implementation date remains… uncertain.