As review begins, 7,000 students still await grants

A review of the failings of the Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) grant system will focus on problems around documentation, processing and payments, with around 7,000 eligible students still waiting for their fees and grants to be paid.

City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee will consider tenders next Friday for an independent review of the system’s first year. Susi is part of CDVEC, which was picked by the Department of Education to take over the grants schemes still partially run by 66 councils and VECs.

With delays, errors and poor communication frustrating thousands of students, the review will report back on what caused the delays and recommend how to avoid them this year. The backlog reached crisis point before Christmas.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn promised last summer that Susi would make the application process quicker and easier, but had to apologise in November for the problems the new system has caused.

The review will get under way as 71,186 students have so far sought college places later this year, as the main CAO deadline passed yesterday.

Susi will be responsible for all first-time grant applications again this summer, while councils and VECs will continue to handle renewals of pre-2012 grant recipients. Susi will also handle grant renewals for this year’s grant recipients, thousands of whom are still awaiting first payments.

About 35,000 students were expected to qualify for a grant or to have their college fees paid by Susi. Up to Wednesday, fees and grants were paid for 28,180 applicants and 3,142 were due a payment once they provided bank account details.

Susi said all appeals made up to Jan 17 have been completed and it has 760 yet to be processed.

The review will pay particular attention to shortfalls in documentation, processing and payment, identifying the causes of delays and blockages, and the adequacy of communication and support for students.

Most of the initial anger was over the seeking and checking applicants’ documents, work being done by private company Abtran for Susi. But there has also been criticism of the assessments by Susi itself and delays caused by appeals over simple administrative errors.

While the review will examine the problems over the past six months, a number of changes for this year’s applicants are already in motion, such as greater sharing of information with Revenue Commissioners, Department of Social Protection, the State Examinations Commission, and the CAO. This should help eliminate many problems that have arisen, as fewer copies of documents may have to be sent to Susi.

CDVEC bosses were asked by TDs and senators at the Oireachtas education committee in November why such measures were not in place from the start.