We have submitted our response to the Scottish Government consultation on support for part time and disabled students, which closed on Thursday 9 October. The consultation has two sets of different questions: one set for students, prospective students, parents and carers and the other for providers.

The consultation includes questions on topics such as;

• Whether support for part-time and distance learning study needs to be simplified.
• Whether the introduction of living cost support for part time or distance learning study would mean the same eligibility criteria being used as it is for full-time study.
• Eligibility criteria for the part-time fee grant.
• Whether part-time and distance learning first-degree students should be included in the CoWA targets.
• Whether support for disabled students needs to be simplified.
• What improvements could be made to the administration of support for disabled students.
• Whether a single DSA allowance limit would better support students.

You can read our submission here.

In summary, our response;

• Broadly supports of the introduction of living cost support for part time students and move towards parity with full time but are wary about any unintended consequences.
• We believe any changes to the support of part time students would also need to be adequately funded so that there was no impact on the current funding available for full time UG students.
• We think part time students should count towards the COWA targets as a point of principle, but we think this would be most appropriate as part of an additional metric, rather than a combined one.
• States that the explanation of the support available for different groups could be improved.
• We highlight that disabled learners are not a homogenous group, and each person will have individual needs. This will determine how much financial or wider institutional support a disabled person will need.
• That it is important that any changes to financial support this does not move funding from SFC (e.g. unit of resource for teaching) to pay for this because finances are already stretched for the university sector.
• We think there is an opportunity to review the DSA application process. The Finance and Wellbeing Survey showed that one of the reasons why learners did not apply for DSA was not knowing that the support was available and not knowing if they would be eligible for it.
• We think that the current approach to how diagnostic evidence is provided can place additional burden on disabled applicants and we think any changes should be holistically considered from the learner’s perspective.