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Can anybody advise me how many weeks the following loan for this student should be averaged over :
The student is doing a 1 year BSC occupational therapy course at Nothampton Uni and she receives an NHS Bursary each month.
The course dates are 25.09.06 – 24.09.07
— Should the loan be averaged as a one year course, ie from the first Monday in September to the last Sunday of the course ? This would be from 04.09.06 – 23.09.07 which is 55 WEEKS.
OR be treated as more than one academic year as it goes up to 24.09.07 and be averaged from first Monday in September to last Sunday in June – 42 WEEKS, or some other way ?

[Kevin D]

Student loans should (normally) be apportioned as prescribed in [b:4e621a14ac]HBR 64[/b:4e621a14ac].

new.hbinfo.org.com/menu2/hbregs06/064_06.shtml

[chrisb]

The problem is that we are not sure whether or not the course is or isn’t “of a single academic year or less”
As the course starts in the autumn, Reg 53 states that the academic year is the 12 months starting on 1 September 2006.
This implies that the course (although it is only one calendar year), may last for more than one academic year, due to the few weeks in September 07. If this is the case, the loan would be apportioned over the 42-week period, but is there a need to apportion the amount of the loan, as is doesn’t seem as though any loan will be payable for the 07/08 year?

[chrisb]

Any takers?

Course is definitely one calendar year long (25.9.06 – 24.9.07), but is it “a single academic year’s duration or less”, or “any other case”? [both quotes from HBR64(2)]

[Anonymous]

Will the student be attending the course during what is normally the summer vacation?

[Anonymous]

Going back to the original posting, it looks as though she is a NHS student receiving a bursary. The guidance manual says:

NHS student income
5.350 Take loans into account as normal.

5.351 Bursaries in England and Wales are generally paid in 12 monthly instalments and should be taken into account over this period. Bursaries are subject to the normal disregards, but not to the £10 loan disregard.

[Anonymous]

I have just deleted a load of analysis of Regs 53 and 64 because, on reflection, it was too confusing to make any sense.

But the conclusion I came to was that you are right to spread the loan over 55 weeks in accordance with Reg 64(2)(a), because:

– the course only lasts for a single academic year
– the Reg 53 definition of “academic year” shifts it back to cover the period 1 Sept – 31 August, but it’s still only a 12-month academic year any way you look at it. In real life it is 12 months from 25/9, in Reg 53 it is deemed to be 12 months from 1 September, but still 12 mon ths either way. [b:2df6db2d8e]However[/b:2df6db2d8e]
– the apportionment of loan income is only tied to the academic year at the start of the course – the end of the apportionment period is not the end of the fictitious academic year but the actual end of the course itself. In your case, that takes it a couple of weeks beyond the end of the fictitious academic year

I think the income thus apportioned should be taken into account from 25 September 2006 until the final Sunday of the course, because the claimant is not a student before 25 September and so the whole student chapter doesn’t apply to her until then. So, like many English and Welsh students, she gets three weeks’ free income at the start of the year.

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