Student grants to processed online

New student grant applications will be processed online and paid electronically through a single grant body from September 2012, it was announced today.

This would address the problem of some 60 per cent of hard copy grant applications being returned because they are incomplete or inaccurate, the Department of Education said.

This problem was a “serious contributor to causing delays in assessing applications”, it said. “The grants online system only allows correct and complete information to be input,”the department's statement added.

The new system will give students up to date information on the status of their grant application and will also give them provisional assessment before they submit documentary evidence, the department said.

The Public Service Reform Programme launched yesterday said it would “lead to greater simplicity, speed and efficiency in the processing of grant applications for more than 72,000 students”.

As announced in April last, the existing City of Dublin VEC will operate as the grant awarding authority to replace the existing 66 councils and VECs.

Students renewing a grant next year will continue to deal with the existing grant awarding body “on a wind-down basis over a three to four year period,” the Department of Education said.

The Department of Education declined to specify the amount of savings which the change will generate except to say that they would be “substantial”.

“It is expected that when the transition to the single grant awarding authority is completed there will be substantial savings accruing to the Exchequer,” the statment said.

Students will no longer be paid by cheque under the new system, but the frequency (monthly or each semester) “will be addressed in the course of the formulation of the service level agreement with the VECs”, the department said.

The move was welcomed by Union of Students in Ireland president Gary Redmond. He said: “It’s one thing to make it more efficient” but this didn’t matter if there is would be “nothing there to claim” he said, in reference to threats to student grants and fees in the forthcoming budget.