Staffing allocation blamed for delay to grants

Slow allocation of staff, poor communication, and inadequate planning were among the main causes of delay to thousands of student grants, an independent review has reported.

City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, which operates the Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) system, admitted yesterday that it had only 25 of the 65 staff it needed in March last year, three months before the system was launched.

The review of Susi by consultants Accenture found that resolving the resourcing issue took up a significant amount of time that should have been spent developing the system. Almost 38,000 students have received a grant or had their college fees paid but backlogs meant only 24,000 were paid or approved up to Christmas.