SUSI ‘bad planning’ cost €5.9m in year one

Bad planning, outsourcing core services with no contract, and inadequate staffing contributed to student grants agency SUSI’s disastrous first year of operations that cost €5.9m — more than three times its budget.

Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) took over the system for all new applications in 2012 as part of City of Dublin VEC, now City of Dublin Education and Training Board (CDETB). However, students experienced long delays getting their grants, with many forced to wait until early 2013.

A special report by Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) Seamus McCarthy says certain elements were poorly planned, with no proper benchmarking of the likely volume of business or work required. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sanctioned establishing a grant-awarding body on condition that staff be redeployed from elsewhere in the public service, but the process started in late 2011 and took much longer than expected.