To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that the application for disabled students' allowance (a) recognises the challenges of the applicant's disability and (b) is (i) straightforward to complete and (ii) processed in a timely manner.
Answered on
25 November 2020
The Student Loans Company offers a telephone service, to help students who are unable to complete either an online or paper application, for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs).
Parts of the online DSAs application are pre-populated from a student’s main Student Finance application. The online application therefore requires the student only to add information concerning their disability. Paper DSAs applications are not pre-populated, are more detailed, and will consequently take slightly longer to complete.
Initial applications are currently taking around 19 working days to be reviewed, but the Student Loans Company is working to process all DSA applications within a reasonable timeframe. Updates on processing times are published regularly at: https://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/exchange-blog/.