Exemplar 6: Student finance
Published 1 June 2013
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Supporting 1.3 million people using student finance services
Department responsible
| Department | Permanent secretary | Digital leader |
|---|---|---|
| Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Student Loans Company | Martin Donnelly | Tim Knighton |
Status
Service is live for part-time student loan applications and is being expanded to include applications for full-time and Advanced Learning loans.
Watch a short demo of the service:
Demo: Exemplar 6 - Student finance , filmed January 2014:
Watch a short film about the making of the service:
Exemplar 6: Student Finance , filmed in June 2013:
Successes
More than 1 million digital applications for full-time students (academic year 2014 / 2015) were made using the publicly available beta service service between January and September 2014.
Service delivery team awarded TechExcel Best Agile Project at the European Testing Awards.
Courses Management Service launched in October 2014, for 700+ Higher Education Institutions to create a single source of funded course information.
Challenges
Incorporating service manager roles within the organisation’s transformation programme.
Current hosting won’t meet the future needs of the service, and upgrading is taking longer than expected.
Next
Rebuild the core service based on user feedback to include additional products.
Continuously improve the applications to achieve even higher levels of completion and user satisfaction.
Create a performance platform for public-facing real-time information about the service.
Continue work on core banking platform for loans and grants.
Release 24+ Advanced Learning loan applications service.
Release full-time student applications service.
Live service performance
Digital take-up: applications made using the digital service.
See user satisfaction data for the Student finance service.
Scope of exemplar
The Student Loans Company are planning a major upgrade of their systems to deliver services that are simple, transparent and user-friendly.
The transformation programme will modernise and provide resilient systems in order to deliver the government’s higher education reform programme and better meet the needs of users.
New online application process for loan products such as full-time, part-time and 24+ Advanced Learning Loans have already been released.
Digital inclusion
GDS has mapped the exemplars against the digital inclusion scale to help show where these services may be difficult for some people to use. See the rating for Student finance.
Delivery Status
Discovery
Completed: Discovery - March 2013.
Read about the discovery phase.
Alpha
Completed: Full-time student applications alpha - December 2013.
Completed: 24+ Advanced Learning loan applications alpha - August 2013.
Completed: Course Management Service system for Higher Education Institutions alpha - February 2014.
Completed: Application processing system alpha - January 2014.
Beta
Completed: 24+ advanced learning loan application public beta release - August 2013.
Completed: Start full-time student applications beta development - January 2014.
Completed: Start application processing system beta development - July 2014.
Completed: Start Course Management Service system for Higher Education Institutions beta development - October 2014.
Live
Completed: Part-time student loan application service goes live - October 2012.
Completed: Course Management Service system for Higher Education Institutions goes live - October 2014.
For further information about this project please visit our blog or contact us.
Anticipated volume
1.3m Students supported