CONTINUED EMA DELAYS A DISGRACE - STUNELL
January 21, 2009 12:30 PM
Local MP Andrew Stunell today hit out at the government over the continued delays in processing Education Maintenance Allowance payments for Stockport students.
In a response to a letter from Andrew, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) revealed that there were almost 1,000 students eligible for EMA who have still not received their payments - two weeks into the second term of the school year.
Of the 3,208 Notices of Entitlement issued by the LSC, 919 students had still not received any money by 7th January. With 3,791 applications overall, as many as 580 applications have still not been processed. The LSC also admit that they have no idea when all of the EMA applications will have been processed, nor when all students will have received the money they are entitled to.
The fiasco has been running for several months, with only 265 students having received their EMA payments in the first week of the school year, out of 2,151 applications at the time.
Commenting, Andrew said:
"The administration of the Education Maintenance Allowance has been a shambles, and has been letting down thousands of students across Stockport.
"Awarding the contract to Liberata was a mistake, but it would seem that changing administrator hasn't speeded up the process.
"It is farcical that we are already a few weeks into the second term of the school year, and there are still nearly a thousand Stockport students not in receipt of the money that is rightfully theirs.
"I will continue to take this matter up with the LSC until all the students in the borough have received their payments."
ENDS
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