Mr. Philip Connolly:

I thank the joint committee for inviting representatives of SUSI to attend. I am the grant operations manager. SUSI has also been invited by the committee to make a written submission on the grant eligibility criteria which are prescribed in the Student Support Act and the student grant schemes and regulations issued annually by the Minister for Education and Skills. Our written submission summarises the statutory provisions for the information of the committee and outlines the administrative processes and procedures SUSI implements to enable students to avail of grant funding under the schemes.

I take the opportunity to inform the committee briefly about our work and current focus on processing grant applications for the forthcoming 2019-20 academic year. The core work of SUSI is the processing of large volumes of applications within a short timeframe to determine eligibility under the criteria outlined in the legislation. Almost 100,000 applications are received annually and almost 80,000 grants awarded, representing a sum of €350 million annually in grant support for students.

SUSI workflows and staffing levels are seasonally variable, as grant applications are processed from April to October and grant payments made to students and colleges from September to June. Additional temporary assessment staff are recruited annually, while scaleable customer support and document management functions are delivered through outsourced providers. The SUSI support desk provides advice and information for students at all stages of the process through telephone, e-mail and social media communications and our website. We also attend college open days and other information events for students nationwide.

As a modern, centralised Government service, the continuous improvement of service delivery for students is central to our planning and work cycles from year to year. The SUSI application submission process is online and further online services continue to be added. The assessment process is streamlined through the use of information technology. Applications are verified through extended data sharing with other Government agencies. Maintenance grant payments are made directly to students' bank accounts, while fee grants are paid to colleges on their behalf.

Based on these improvements, students have been able to apply to SUSI earlier each year. Application turnaround times are shorter, while the requirement for supporting documents has been greatly reduced, with increasing numbers of students receiving a decision on the basis of their online applications alone without the need for supporting documents. All students receive earlier decisions on their applications and earlier payment of their grants. A very high level of customer support is provided for students throughout the grant application and payment process, including increased communication on opening and closing dates. A service level agreement is in place with the Department of Education and Skills to ensure SUSI continues to meet and improve on its performance targets in all of these areas and, for their part, students are encouraged to apply to SUSI as early as possible to ensure a decision on their grant applications before they accept a college place or return to college.

Since our online application system opened, following the publication of the 2019 grants scheme in April, we have received 90,000 of an expected 96,500 grant applications for the forthcoming 2019-20 academic year. A total of 81% of all expected applications were received before the priority processing dates in June and July. To date, we have finalised 74,000 of these applications. Of the remaining applications, 9,500 are awaiting receipt of documents requested from students, while SUSI has 6,500 applications in hand for processing. Average turnaround times for submitted applications and documents are running at less than two weeks. SUSI is processing more than 5,000 applications a week. A total of 63,000 grants have been awarded to date this year. Subject to confirmation by colleges in the coming weeks that students are registered and attending their courses, we expect to commence payment of 50,000 grants by the end of this month. This represents 69% of the expected total number of grants to be paid this year, a figure which will rise to 91% by the end of October and 98% by the end of November as students enter or return to college. SUSI will also be making payments on a weekly basis from September to December to ensure students receive their first monthly grant payment as soon as possible after their registration is confirmed.

While SUSI does not have an advisory or policy-making role on student grants, we will be happy to answer members' questions about the operational arrangements in place to make the grants scheme accessible to students and ensure grant applications and payments will continue to be processed fairly, uniformly and efficiently.