Student Loans Company rewards bosses
It has emerged that bosses at the Student Loans Company (SLC) have been rewarded £2m in bonuses, whilst some students are still suffering without funding due to the company’s inability to deal with the backlog of applications for loans.
Ten senior executives were rewarded with five-figure bonuses for the year 2008-09 and 1,603 of the SLC’s 1,876 staff picked up other rewards. Meanwhile, 150,000 students were left without funding at the beginning of the academic year.
Furthermore, according to the figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats, the company racked up over £1.2m in expenses, with bosses accounting for £110,596.31 of that bill.
Wes Streeting, President of the National Union of Students (NUS), said; “It beggars belief that while hundreds of thousands of students have been affected by the bungling incompetence of the Student Loans Company, SLC bosses have been enjoying significant bonuses. There should be no reward for failure. The SLC chief, Ralph Seymour-Jackson, should have resigned already given the debacle that he has overseen. Based on the mounting evidence of poor leadership, planning and communication, if he fails to resign, government ministers should sack him.”
This is the first time the new system has been implemented, meaning that students have had to apply directly to the SLC for funding. It has not been a successful start as the company has been beset by problems from the very beginning. Universities have been left to shoulder the burden of the shortfall; the University of Portsmouth has paid out £80,000 to students in need of funds.
The Liberal Democrat universities spokesman; Stephen Williams, said: “It is absolutely outrageous that the Student Loans Company, which has acted so incompetently this year, has been paying out these massive bonuses. While students have been left struggling to make ends meet, the company’s top executives have been enjoying five-figure bonuses. Some of these pay-outs are more than many people earn in a year. Rewarding failure in this way is totally unacceptable.”
One lecturers’ union even warned that students needed protection from a growing number of loan sharks who are descending on campuses to cash in on the problem.
