Written answers

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Department of Education and Skills

Student Grant Scheme Delays

Photo of Arthur SpringArthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on difficulties facing students who are unable to provide social welfare offices with proof of being enrolled in full-time education when applying for social welfare payments, as they are unable to pay registration fee while waiting for Student Universal Support Ireland to approve their grant applications and are designated as temporarily registered in college, a status which is not accepted as full time enrolment by the Department of Social Protection; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54647/12]

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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It is understood that the Deputy is referring to students who are on the back to education allowance (BTEA). Officials in my Department have confirmed with officials in the Department of Social Protection dealing with BTEA claims that students who have not yet received a decision from Student Universal Support Ireland on their student grant are not being disadvantaged in relation to their approval of their back to education allowance.

Photo of Arthur SpringArthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the contingency plans in place when awarding the Student Universal Support Ireland grant application processing contract to Dublin Vocational Education Committee should a delay in the processing of grants arise; if a contingency plan for dealing with delays was submitted by each entity that tendered for the contract; if a condition of the contract stipulated that each company should have employees with appropriate project managment experience; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54648/12]

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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In January 2011, VECs, local authorities or other public bodies interested in taking on administrative responsibility for the centralised student grants awarding and payments function were invited to submit proposals to the Department detailing how they might best deliver the overall service. The criteria used to evaluate the proposals were set out in the Expressions of Interest invitation and were as follows:

- Organisational capacity to perform the function

- Experience in dealing with comparable schemes/services

- Existing core management, expertise and resources available to be deployed to the function

- Capacity to deliver strong cost and efficiency benefits

- Overall quality of the proposal for delivery of a central student grants function.

While a contingency plan for dealing with delays was not specifically part of the proposals submitted by each of the bodies, the ability of the bodies to perform the function and respond to challenges was however considered by the independent selection panel when evaluating the proposals against the evaluation criteria. The project management capacity and proposed organisation structure were also considered in the context of the evaluation criteria. The resource structures proposed and subsequently put in place by SUSI provided it with the flexibility to ramp up and resources to respond to unforeseen challenges in the processing of grants.

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