Question

To ask Her Majesty's Government why the Student Loans Company does not provide up-to-date online information about the state of an account, detailing all repayments made into the account via the PAYE system since the last statement was issued.

HMRC collates employer information on student loan deductions at the end of each tax year and provides this information in P14 “end of year summaries” to the SLC. The SLC calculate interest and statements are issued to borrowers, advising them of their deductions, interest and outstanding balance at the end of the tax year. This process is repeated annually until all student loan repayments are collected.

The repayment information held by the SLC will, as a result of this system, be accurate to the April of the previous tax year. The SLC is not in a position to provide an accurate settlement of a borrower's balance more recently than the previous April. However, the borrower can track and monitor their own settlement balance online if they retain a note of all their repayment deductions made over the tax year.

HMRC, BIS and SLC are currently discussing arrangements to share student loan repayment information more quickly, but there is no mechanism to do so in the current tax system and necessary changes will take some time to implement.