Student Loans Company

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

With reference to Mr Lamey’s dismissal, there was a thorough process of looking at the details of the allegations. In fact, there were two internal inquiries, one run by the Government Internal Audit Agency and the other by Sir Paul Jenkins. They both concluded that there were allegations that needed answering. In terms of the future, it is very important that the process to replace Mr Lamey as soon as possible is robust. We are delighted that Peter Lauener has agreed to take over as the interim CEO. However, the future process must be robust and we must make the right appointment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, would it not be a good idea if the empire of the Student Loans Company were slightly restricted, as it is now a very big organisation? Is this a good opportunity to remove the disabled students allowance from it as we could probably get better results if we had a more focused attitude towards that?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I do not agree. For some time, the Student Loans Company has had a strategy that includes an initiative to improve the SLC performance across the board and with a focus on user experience for borrowers and staff engagement. The DfE and the SLC are working very hard on this.