HEP bulletin - August 2024

Student information for academic year 2024/25

You should now be reviewing and correcting your academic year 2024/25 approved applications in the Student Information Service (SIS) before the first day of term. You can use the appropriate pre-liability CoCs to change the tuition fee amount, the course, or details of the receiving provider.

Please also compare SIS to your own student management system records and prompt students to apply for support if they’ve not already done so. This will help us to process applications before the start of term and minimise any shortfall on our initial tuition fee payment instalments.

Students should be encouraged to use our self-service system, available to all Student Finance England and Student Finance Wales undergraduate customers. Scottish students can sign into their online SAAS account to apply and check their application status. Northern-Ireland domiciled students can apply for student support on the Student Finance NI website.

Change of Circumstance (CoC) status definitions

For incorrect student applications you must submit a CoC notification as soon as possible. This will let us know what changes are needed.

Our service level for CoC processing is 20 days in off-peak periods. During peak periods (August to end of November) it’s 30 working days. Once you've submitted a CoC, you can view its status on the Change of Circumstance tab of the Detailed Student Information page on SIS.

It’s important you follow this process and adhere to these timescales before contacting us about routine CoCs. You should still direct any exceptional queries to our Partners Support Desk.

Awarding body registrations

You must make sure that students are correctly registered with the relevant awarding body before you confirm attendance on SIS. Whether you validate your own university courses or they're validated by another awarding body, you must check that all student details are correct on both systems before you confirm attendance
This includes:

• student details
• the level of qualification
• the student's application is against the correct course and the course names match

Academic year 2023/24 registration and attendance confirmations

Please continue to prioritise any outstanding registration or attendance confirmations for academic year 2023/24 courses. Particularly for later intakes, for which we have outstanding attendance confirmations. These could potentially generate maintenance support overpayments or represent a shortfall in your fee loan income.

You should follow up all registrations with an appropriate attendance confirmation. Please also clear your CoC worklists to ensure student accounts are accurate and up to date.

Studying a full-time course on a part-time basis

Where a student is taking a full-time year of study on a part-time basis, guidance states they're ineligible for additional years of fee support for compelling personal reasons (CPR). In this circumstance, students can still access an additional year, however they’re not eligible for CPR.

We've recently received related queries, so wish to clarify this position. You can find specific reference in the supporting materials for our student finance products and services on the practitioners website.

Cyber-attacks

Cyber-attacks or security incidents are becoming more prevalent in the education sector. These can result in the loss of our data or restricted access to our systems. This in turn can affect our ability to make student payments. If there is a cyber-attack or security incident that affects your student data system you must contact your HEP Account Manager immediately and in any event within 24 hours of becoming aware of the incident.

You can find our guidance for further information on what to do if you experience a security incident.

Maintaining contacts

The HE Gateway holds a list of contacts at HEPs (universities and colleges) that use each service under the Maintain Contacts tab.

Each contact is assigned one or more contact roles. If we need to contact someone at your university or college, we use this list to identify the most appropriate person. We’ll also send service updates and news bulletins to this list of contacts.

Please take the time to review and update your contact information to ensure it’s up to date.

Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) updates

There are no further updates regarding Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) at the moment. We’ll update you as soon as we have further information.