Student Loans Company acknowledged its adviser made the wrong assumption about Mr A's case

What happened

Mr A was studying for a two–year course. In the first year he applied to the SLC for student finance and received a grant of approximately £500. The next year he applied again, but received nothing. When he telephoned the SLC to query this, the adviser assumed Mr A's household income was zero, without asking him for any evidence. Mr A therefore received a student grant of approximately £3,000. Mr A queried this, but was told it was correct.

When Mr A finished his course, he gave the SLC his financial information for the year. When he did this the SLC discovered it had overpaid his student grant by approximately £2,500. It asked Mr A to repay this sum. He complained because he believed it was not his mistake that had caused the overpayment. The SLC apologised for what had happened and offered Mr A £100 for the inconvenience he had suffered. However, it did not waive Mr A's overpayment.

Mr A asked the SLC's independent assessor to investigate the case. It upheld the SLC's original decision. Mr A therefore complained to us. Mr A also complained about the SLC's handling of his case.

What we found

We did not uphold this complaint. The SLC had not given Mr A any funding for the second year of his course because he had not completed the application forms. The SLC was not at fault on this. However, it was at fault when Mr A telephoned it, because the adviser he spoke to made a wrong assumption. The adviser assumed Mr A's household income was zero. In fact it was not. But the adviser told Mr A the assumption he was making, and Mr A did not challenge the assumption. The SLC therefore paid Mr A nearly £3,000 in student grant. The mistake was only discovered when Mr A finalised his grant when he finished his course. At this point, the SLC found out Mr A had been overpaid about £2,500. It asked him to pay this back.

It was reasonable for the SLC to ask Mr A to pay back the overpayment. He had effectively received an interest–free loan from the SLC, and there was nothing wrong with asking him to pay back money that he was not entitled to.

The SLC had dealt with Mr A's complaint appropriately, and it was reasonable for it to offer him £100 as compensation for the inconvenience he suffered. Mr A said the SLC had not answered many of his questions. We found the SLC acted reasonably when it did this, but we asked for more information to answer those questions, and we passed that on to Mr A.