I have worked tirelessly over the years to establish student money advice services that have safe service boundaries and appropriate quality measures in place. I have worked to ensure staff providing Information Advice and Guidance have the appropriate competency levels to be delivering such services.
When I first moved from Citizens Advice to the HE Advice sector my new manager told me that I would be able to "get my supervision from Citizens Advice" (where I still volunteered some of my time). I could not believe it!! It was clear I had joined an employer and a service that had no professional supervision mechanisms in house. No one was checking the quality or consistency of the advice been given by the various team members and the team were free to advise on what they fancied - from student money to benefits and debt matters, you name it. No framework, no limits no boundary.
I wondered whether to run for the hills immediately or stay and try and do something to change things. I chose the latter and over time introduced appropriate competency ring fencing around the advice service. I introduced a method for the advisers to peer review each others work and coach one another to ensure quality, consistency and improvement. I drew up clear distinctions between which areas of IAG we would provide specialist advice on and which we would limit to generalist guidance with signposting to specialists.
Over the years it became clear that the quality of money IAG provision in the HE sector is patchy to say the least. Student Unions are much more likely to be accredited with a recognised advice quality mark than services provided by the universities themselves. While the National Association of Student Money Advisers have introduced an "accreditation" , it seems to be limited to a form of confirmation of engaging with Continuous Professional Development rather than establishing any minimum standards or competency framework. That said I would argue it is not something they should be required to provide, rather it is the responsibility of the Higher Education Institutions (HEI's) to ensure the quality of the services they deliver.
There is a tendency in some HEI's to "keep it simple" when informing their prospective students and their families on money matters. They don't need to know the nitty gritty after all do they?. Unfortunately there is nothing simple about student finance rules and regulations and the way these impinge on and conflate with other rules and regs such as those governing welfare benefits etc. Open Days are often fronted by teams from Admissions or Recruitment who have little specialist knowledge on the complexities of money matters. They have a neat little powerpoint covering the basics (which is fine) but how many of these staff in the corporate T-shirt with the matching corporate smile, simply fold, guess and ultimately mis-guide when asked a tricky money question by a customer?
One such member of staff said to me that in their view it simply isn't appropriate to be talking about "personal stuff" like divorce or family break down or illness at an Open Day stand. I presume they felt a customer with a question about whether they might lose their benefits on moving university or what to do because they have been kicked out of home, needs to just step aside and stop putting a dampener on the lovely event. I mean look at the lovely balloons - we don' want to be talking about fleeing violence today!!
At one Open Day a concerned and confused staff member came to find me to say that in a lecture an Academic was telling a group of postgraduate pre-registration NHS students and their families that they could get a £13K tuition fee loan. Was this right she asked me. Er no!!
It was quite amusing and a tad intimidating when told of my concern, the Academic came marching up to me to inform me the law had changed for NHS students and now they could get the student loan to pay the fee. When I asked him what regulation he was referring to he was very light on detail. I made him aware of the regulations that had actually recently changed and the rules that limited the fee loan available to £9,250. Also of the right of institutions had to charge more than the £9,250 for this sort of course if they so choose. However I guide him and the faculty accountant and the finance director that it would be challenging for these students to make up the difference themselves for a course fee of £13K given (were eligible) they would only have access to the £9,250 fee loan. We took steps to contact all the customers and correct the mis-guidance, signpost them to our service for help and to bring in the Student Loans Company to provide some training in the Faculty of Health.
Given my role as a manger with student finance expertise - why hadn't I been consulted prior to the Open Day? Because Student Finance is a subject that many folk reckon they can have a reasonable guess at - because its bound to work like this, right??
I was talking again this week about discussing student finance with prospective students and their families. Keep it simple - a very short talk was the steer. In Citizens Advice if a client comes to talk about Universal Credit the advisers don't think, I will keep it dead simple, I won't mention this rule, or flag up that timeframe - its too complicated for this client and not simple. No - they have a duty to advise in a complete manner and account for the advice given in a thorough record. They are trained and skilled at ensuring clients receive appropriate, correct and complete information irrespective of the clients level of understanding, prior knowledge, vulnerability, level of English etc. It takes skill, patience, support but it doesn't involve giving incomplete help though...information about their rights and responsibilities are not dumbed down.
Universities and HEI's should have a similar duty of care and service quality standards or stop advising. How many students have made incorrect choices based on poor guidance they have received from an HEI? Who knows, as in many cases the conversations and "advice" given won't be recorded anywhere. In a recent role I faced a fairly high level of indignation when I joined as a new service as manager and insisted that the team stop saying they were Advisers. None of the required quality measures and competency frameworks where in place so I restricted their activities to Information and Guidance only. I brought in trainers from AdviceUK to provide some basic training on the difference between these and to add gravitas to my insistence of what changes would be needed before Money Advice could be given. This service had of course been running for many years before I arrived......
The problem lays with the senior managers who appoint staff to deliver these services with little to no understanding of what is required and what "good practice" is. Like I did way back when, many staff try to make these services safe themselves where there is a dereliction of responsibility by their employer. That's not okay and it's not fair.
I would love the Office for Students to set minimum quality standards for HEI's delivering Student Money Advice services - and it should never be dumbed down.
When I first moved from Citizens Advice to the HE Advice sector my new manager told me that I would be able to "get my supervision from Citizens Advice" (where I still volunteered some of my time). I could not believe it!! It was clear I had joined an employer and a service that had no professional supervision mechanisms in house. No one was checking the quality or consistency of the advice been given by the various team members and the team were free to advise on what they fancied - from student money to benefits and debt matters, you name it. No framework, no limits no boundary.
I wondered whether to run for the hills immediately or stay and try and do something to change things. I chose the latter and over time introduced appropriate competency ring fencing around the advice service. I introduced a method for the advisers to peer review each others work and coach one another to ensure quality, consistency and improvement. I drew up clear distinctions between which areas of IAG we would provide specialist advice on and which we would limit to generalist guidance with signposting to specialists.
Over the years it became clear that the quality of money IAG provision in the HE sector is patchy to say the least. Student Unions are much more likely to be accredited with a recognised advice quality mark than services provided by the universities themselves. While the National Association of Student Money Advisers have introduced an "accreditation" , it seems to be limited to a form of confirmation of engaging with Continuous Professional Development rather than establishing any minimum standards or competency framework. That said I would argue it is not something they should be required to provide, rather it is the responsibility of the Higher Education Institutions (HEI's) to ensure the quality of the services they deliver.There is a tendency in some HEI's to "keep it simple" when informing their prospective students and their families on money matters. They don't need to know the nitty gritty after all do they?. Unfortunately there is nothing simple about student finance rules and regulations and the way these impinge on and conflate with other rules and regs such as those governing welfare benefits etc. Open Days are often fronted by teams from Admissions or Recruitment who have little specialist knowledge on the complexities of money matters. They have a neat little powerpoint covering the basics (which is fine) but how many of these staff in the corporate T-shirt with the matching corporate smile, simply fold, guess and ultimately mis-guide when asked a tricky money question by a customer?
One such member of staff said to me that in their view it simply isn't appropriate to be talking about "personal stuff" like divorce or family break down or illness at an Open Day stand. I presume they felt a customer with a question about whether they might lose their benefits on moving university or what to do because they have been kicked out of home, needs to just step aside and stop putting a dampener on the lovely event. I mean look at the lovely balloons - we don' want to be talking about fleeing violence today!!
At one Open Day a concerned and confused staff member came to find me to say that in a lecture an Academic was telling a group of postgraduate pre-registration NHS students and their families that they could get a £13K tuition fee loan. Was this right she asked me. Er no!!
It was quite amusing and a tad intimidating when told of my concern, the Academic came marching up to me to inform me the law had changed for NHS students and now they could get the student loan to pay the fee. When I asked him what regulation he was referring to he was very light on detail. I made him aware of the regulations that had actually recently changed and the rules that limited the fee loan available to £9,250. Also of the right of institutions had to charge more than the £9,250 for this sort of course if they so choose. However I guide him and the faculty accountant and the finance director that it would be challenging for these students to make up the difference themselves for a course fee of £13K given (were eligible) they would only have access to the £9,250 fee loan. We took steps to contact all the customers and correct the mis-guidance, signpost them to our service for help and to bring in the Student Loans Company to provide some training in the Faculty of Health.
Given my role as a manger with student finance expertise - why hadn't I been consulted prior to the Open Day? Because Student Finance is a subject that many folk reckon they can have a reasonable guess at - because its bound to work like this, right??
I was talking again this week about discussing student finance with prospective students and their families. Keep it simple - a very short talk was the steer. In Citizens Advice if a client comes to talk about Universal Credit the advisers don't think, I will keep it dead simple, I won't mention this rule, or flag up that timeframe - its too complicated for this client and not simple. No - they have a duty to advise in a complete manner and account for the advice given in a thorough record. They are trained and skilled at ensuring clients receive appropriate, correct and complete information irrespective of the clients level of understanding, prior knowledge, vulnerability, level of English etc. It takes skill, patience, support but it doesn't involve giving incomplete help though...information about their rights and responsibilities are not dumbed down.
 |
| Money Wordcloud |
The problem lays with the senior managers who appoint staff to deliver these services with little to no understanding of what is required and what "good practice" is. Like I did way back when, many staff try to make these services safe themselves where there is a dereliction of responsibility by their employer. That's not okay and it's not fair.
I would love the Office for Students to set minimum quality standards for HEI's delivering Student Money Advice services - and it should never be dumbed down.
