Support a student's application

Important: Please read the following before continuing with your application

Assessing your income

Please answer all questions accurately. You may be required to supply evidence to support the information you provide.

Data Protection Act 1998

This statement sets out who will use the information you have provided in connection with the applicant's application for student finance and what they will use it for.

The information which you give will be used to process student finance applications for persons dependent on you. The Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills has transferred certain functions relating to student finance applications to the Student Loans Company (SLC).

This Data Protection Statement applies generally to all sponsors of applicants.

SLC will use the information provided in connection with the application to determine whether applicants dependent on you are eligible for student finance and assess the maximum amount of financial support they are entitled to.

SLC is the data controller for this information. By law, SLC and the applicant's university or college must protect the public funds they handle and may use the information you have provided to detect and prevent fraud.

SLC may also share the information with other Government bodies such as HMRC, DWP and IPS and may contact your employer to verify its accuracy and to prevent and detect fraud.

We may also share the information with other bodies, such as credit bureaus, for this purpose. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention and law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering.

SLC will have access to your personal data in order to provide customer services to you and to respond to your questions.

SLC will need to keep personal information about you, your partner and your relatives so that it can audit its assessment of financial support.

The Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills is also a data controller for all of this information as he is responsible for it by law. However, if you would like to see your information please contact SLC.

SLC may also use your information to maintain or develop its systems and processes.

The applicant's university or college may ask for financial information that you provide in connection with the applicant's application for student finance for bursary administration purposes from SLC or the Secretary of State. This information will only be shared where you have consented for the information being shared for bursary administration purposes.

In this instance, the university or college will be the data controller of the information and will use it to assess eligibility and make payment of any bursary or scholarship to which the applicant may be entitled. If you would like to see this information please contact the applicant's university or college.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) may use the information you have provided to monitor the performance of the student finance system and to develop future policy. Any published output from this statistical work will be anonymous and will not identify individuals.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) which carries out certain functions on behalf of HEFCE may, in carrying out HEFCE's statutory functions relating to the funding of education, use the information provided for statistical analysis. HESA and HEFCE will not identify individuals in any published results.