I thought this letter from the SLC was poor.
I have written to complain (edited version below):
... my wife and daughter also received letters and I beg to point out this is a waste of resources.
... it is not clear to whom I should respond. Granted the Northampton address appears at the top of the letter but so does the student finance England information and logo; a Bristol address appears at the foot of the letter.
... First and foremost I take issue with the
threat included in the letter, which appears in bold type, that failure to reply may result in tuition fees becoming the responsibility of the student. You cannot mollify a threat by including the word ‘may’ because you have also used the threat ‘otherwise’. I really object to being addressed in this manner.
... The SLC has recently been in the news because of the backlog of work it has to do. Now you are demanding further documentation. A statement by David Lammy MP says
“…and their sponsors will not need to send paper evidence of family income”. Although I appreciate (from the future tense) that this is not yet the case it seems to beggar belief that you are making further work for yourself when you are already hard-pressed.
...The timing of the letter is unfortunate since 3 weeks from the date of the letter is Christmas Eve and I hardly think you will be working over Christmas so, effectively, we have less than 3 weeks to respond. This is at a time of year when we are all in need of a rest and busy at work. Additionally I am not minded to send original documents through the Christmas post.
... I need to question the financial year for which you are asking information. You say for the tax year ending April 2008. Why on earth is this? Had you requested details for the tax year ending April 2009 I could have understood it. Furthermore, in another letter to my daughter, (5th December) you inform her that she can start the process of applying for her financial award for 2010/11 from January 28th, 2010. Surely it would be more efficient to request supporting documents from us when we ourselves go through the necessary steps to back up the next application.
... I regard it as very inefficient to delay a review of applications which relates to the Tax Year 2007/08 until December 2009 and then expect sponsors to scurry around to meet your short deadline. When you delay in providing funding sponsors have no form of redress, neither can they take punitive action against you.
... my wife was contacted for details of her income and she emailed the SLC to explain that she is a housewife with no additional income. This was acknowledged by a message on your site which she read, having logged in. Following your most recent letter she logged in again to access this message only to find it had been removed. What documents do you now expect her to send you?
... I fail to understand the text at the top of the page “You only need to provide evidence of the type(s) of income you received in the text year 2007-2008” yet the P60 and other forms would surely give you the amounts of earnings and that would be the whole point of the sample of applications you wish to take.
... In his report, Professor Sir Deian Hopkin said,
“It is our view that the highest priority should be given to ensuring that the processing of applications for the 2009/10 academic year is completed and that full payment is delivered to students; in particular, every effort must be made to ensure that students still seeking targeted support are provided with the funding they need.” And here you are checking on the accuracy of previous awards.
I would also draw your attention to the following from the same report:
…
customers should be encouraged to apply as early as possible in order to help the Company to smooth its peaks in contact and processing demand. Whilst this applies to new applications the principle is the same. Is your idea of
encouraging customers to send you information promptly that a
threat or warning needs to be included in your letters?
The report continues:
...
The Company should give far greater attention to the messages it communicates internally and externally to ensure that they are correctly understood and their potential impact on customer behaviour effectively anticipated.
If you will address my concerns, tell me where exactly I need to send the documents I will set time aside to look out the information you require within a reasonable time scale.
