× Search rightsnet
Search options

Where

Benefit

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

From

to

Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Calculating student loan income

Timothy Seaside
forum member

Housing services - Arun District Council

Send message

Total Posts: 539

Joined: 20 September 2018

One year course running from 13/09/2021 to 27/05/2021.
Claimed UC 06/10/2021 unfortunately.
How many APs are there for the purposes of calculating the loan income in each AP?

Do we just count APs from the start of the claim to the long vacation/end of course (i.e. 7), or do we include a nominal AP that would have started 06/09/2021 (total 8 APs)? Seems remarkably unfair to squeeze the whole loan into however many APs happen to be left from the date of claim (although I am not suggesting fairness is an intrinsic part of the UC system).

Loan is £6,801 (there is an additional £4,014 special support grant which should be disregarded).
I calculated income as £740.13 per month (£6,801/8 - £110).
UC have calculated it as £1,121.71

Am I doing something wrong? Can anybody see where £1,121.71 could possibly come from?
Obviously we’re putting in an MR request, but it would be nice if I could be confident not just that UC are wrong, but also what the correct answer is.

Charles
forum member

Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

Send message

Total Posts: 1411

Joined: 27 February 2019

It would appear they have added a Parent’s Learning Allowance (£1,821).

So, £6,801 + £1,821 = £8,622. They have then divided it by 7 and deducted £110, which equals £1,121.71.

If that is correct, they have made two mistakes: including the PLA is wrong, and they should account for the notional AP before she claimed UC (as you identified).

See the example in the ADM at H6137 which shows that the PLA should be ignored.

See Example 2 (Imelda) in the ADM at H6142 which shows that notional APs should be counted.

I should note that from a purely technical perspective, the legislation does not actually appear to allow notional APs to be included.


I recently noticed on an outside forum mention of this same issue:
https://forum.uceplus.co.uk/forum/entitlement/students/11432-student-finance-calculations
https://forum.uceplus.co.uk/forum/entitlement/general-queries/12449-journal

Timothy Seaside
forum member

Housing services - Arun District Council

Send message

Total Posts: 539

Joined: 20 September 2018

Thank you Charles, that’s very helpful.

As far as I’m aware, she’s not even getting the PLA, but I’ve asked her to clarify this for me. Either way, we’re just waiting for the MR to come back now.