Who do I complain to about this?

[JanH]

I have banged on here before about the unfairness of the means testing used to assess for parental contributions for student loans and tuition when the parents are divorced and there is a lot of capital swilling around but no earned income.

Have just heard of the same happening with the £30 a week EMA payable to 16-yr-olds if they stay in education. A boy in DS1's class lives with his mother and stepfather - they have a £500k+ house, the stepfather sold his business for £2m+ and does not work, the boy's father just bought a Ferrari, and yet the boy is getting the full £30 a week. And he thinks it's funny!

Infuriating isn't it? It's a perk of running your own business as well. I doubt much can be done- its been going on for years....

I don't know really... sorry.
Do you read the Sunday Times?
You could always write to Chris Woodhead who answers questions relating to education, he'll probably know who you could complain to.
You can write to him at Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST or email him, with your name and address, at [email protected]
HTH

Oooh, thanks, lmb, it's a place to start anyway.

Jimjams, I remember from when I was at college (35 years ago!!!!! ) that there were people whose daddies' accountants did fiddles like this for them and I'm really depressed that it still goes on. Surely with all the Big-Brotheresque technology there is now they can put together postcodes and tax details and welfare payments etc and see who needs it and who doesn't???? Unearned income should go on the form as well as earned income? Gnash gnash.

That sort of thing makes me cross too, Janh. One of ds1's friends got a full grant because of his parents 'low income'. Daddy was a self-employed dentist, earning around 100K, ten years ago.

Message withdrawn

we had something similar here where uni students were eligible for assistance based on parental income. Luckily I qualified for full assistance - due to my mum's low income job at. However there was a girl I knew whose father was very wealthy and then sold his business for millions and she too got the full allowance - as well as a generous allowance from daddy.

Could you not dob them in to the gov't?? Not sure which gov't dept that would be though sorry!

The problem is that technically this isn't illegal. The boy is presumably mainly resident with his mother? His stepfather would not be expected to help out so if his mother has no income of her own he can claim.

TBH I do know of cases where this rule benefits students who do need help (although it may not seem they need it on the surface), e.g. where parents are divorced, daddy is loaded but for his own reasons won't pay up.

If you think this system is open to abuse you should see the proposed rules for the new access to learning funds for students in H.E.

I know it's not illegal ml, but it's time the rules and assessment method were changed! If this then penalised families with non-contributing-but-wealthy divorced parents there could be a procedure to validate their claim and make sure the ones who really needed it got it - instead of this stupid situation where students with serious wealth get money and "middle-income" students don't. Otherwise they should all get it, like child benefit.

Go on then, tell us about the new rules for HE!