Learning lessons from grant fiasco

Stringent efforts must be made to ensure the problems with Susi this year are not repeated, writes Niall Murray

LESS than 25,000 of the 35,000 students expected to qualify for a grant have been paid, as colleges reopen for the second academic term.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has been forced to give an extra €3m to the Student Assistance Fund that helps those struggling to pay for rent, food, books or other vital costs.

With continuing anger about the situation in the news, on radio talk shows and social media, here is a brief overview of the Susi debacle.

Q: Who or what is Susi?

A: Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) was set up this year, following a decade of plans to replace the handling of student grants by 66 councils and vocational education committees with a single agency.

Rather than taking over all applications in year one, Susi has been handling those of first-time applicants this year but will be in charge of all grants within two to three years. It is a sub-unit of City of Dublin VEC which won the tender from the Department of Education last year.

Mr Quinn promised that, through a simple online application process and centralised staffing, it would make the grants system quicker and easier for students and their families.

Q: How does it work?

A: Instead of applying to their local council or VEC, students submit their detailsdirectly to Susi through its website. By allowing applicants provide initial personal and family income details without all the heavy paperwork, the idea was to eliminate a lot of unnecessary red tape in the early stages at least.

Q: Who does the work?

A: City of Dublin VEC outsourced much of the early stages to a private company, Abtran, with Susi itself deciding applications based on the information it gathers. Based in Cork, Abtran staff are also operating the Susi helplines and email support desk.

Abtran sends out requests to applicants for the documents such as taxation and income forms like P60s or P21s, bank statements and other paperwork needed to support grant claims. The completed packs are then sent to Susi to decide if a student qualifies, and for what level of support.

Q: Where have problems arisen?

A: Many of the complaints made by members of the public, through the media and politicians, have been about basic communications.

Firstly, students and parents have been spending a lot of time and money trying to get through on the phones with queries about their applications. Susi officials say they have the option of leaving a message to have somebody call them back, but many people claim to have waited weeks for a return phonecall.

Secondly, parents have insisted that documents Susi has written to ask them for have already been sent in.

Q: So is it the fault of parents and students not reading the forms properly?

A: There is little doubt that, as has long been the case with council and VEC grant applications, many families omit certain information or send back the wrong forms. But by their own admission, Susi has been having trouble logging or keeping track of some documents it receives.

Q: So are documents sent in the post lying uncollected somewhere, or liable to turn up ?

A: Unlikely. More likely, from the description of Susi of what happens at the Abtran offices, is that computer or other system errors are to blame.

As Susi unit manager Tom Prizeman told the Oireachtas education committee in November, documentation packs from applicants arrive to a postal room at Abtran and are scanned onto an internal system. But in some instances, and for unexplained reasons, not all those scans are being merged onto the applicants’ files on another computer system.

This may be a significant factor in why so many people are getting unnecessary requests. Although Mr Prizeman insisted that all documents received are scanned, Sinn Féin’s education spokesperson Jonathan O’Brien told him that did not tally with what hundreds of students have been telling him and other politicians.

Q: So is it Abtran’s fault instead?

A: It is very hard to know. The company is operating system requirements set out for it by CDVEC so, between them both, the design and/or the operation of that system clearly leave a lot to be desired.

Q: What happens next?

A: Hopefully, the remaining 16,000-plus students awaiting payment or a decision should have their cases finalised in the coming weeks. But an external review of Susi’s operation is due to begin shortly.

Q: What will it do?

A: The terms are not known, but a few improvements are already planned for the operation of Susi for the next college year, with applications likely to open in June or sooner. These include plans to make the sharing of information with Susi easier, with the prior permission of students and their families, from the Central Applications Office, Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social Protection. It may also be possible this year for applicants to submit scans of documents, instead of posting them.

Q: Why were such measures not in place from the start?

A: That is a question the review should be asking, with answers to be expected also from Mr Quinn and his department, who set the parameters for the scheme by legislation and statutory instruments.

Q: What has the minister done about it to date?

A: He apologised to students and their families for the difficulties in November, and sanctioned additional staff to help deal with the backlog.

Q: What other improvements should be included for next year?

A: IT systems that will ensure documents submitted by families are properly recorded, avoiding repeated requests for the same paperwork and any subsequent delays to applications.

Better communication to students and their families, particularly the ability to track their applications without having to wait hours or even weeks for a response from Susi.

Allowing students the option to supply Susi earlier in the process, subject to data protection, with details like bank accounts or confirmation of college registration. These matters have seemingly added weeks to payment dates for some students already approved for grants.

Better public awareness for families to understand the ability to apply early, even before they have got exam results or been offered a college place.