The chief executive of the UK¡¯s Student Loans Company has said that she ¡°doesn¡¯t recognise¡± the reputation that the scandal-hit organisation has carried in recent years.

Paula Sussex joined the organisation, which administers the country¡¯s ?100?billion student loan book, in 2018, after her predecessor, Steve Lamey, was dismissed for gross misconduct in public office. He was found to have failed to protect a potential whistleblower and to have been responsible for a ¡°failure in leadership¡±. Not long after, Times Higher Education revealed that the SLC had awarded compensation worth more than ?70,000 over two years to students who had suffered financial hardship or inconvenience as a result of errors in payments.

Ms Sussex has now launched a three-year strategy to improve governance and customer service, and also aims to make the organisation a better place to work.

She told Times Higher Education that she ¡°felt privileged¡± to lead the company but recognised that ¡°we all want it to be better¡±. For example, ¡°it could be better certainly for the more complex of our customer enquiries¡±, she said.

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One of the main ways to do this will be to ¡°seriously focus¡± on technology, which had been historically underdeveloped at the organisation, Ms Sussex said. The SLC now has a customer base who ¡°don¡¯t expect to be sitting on the phone¡±, she said. ¡°So we¡¯re looking at using software technology they would recognise, such as web chats.¡±

Earlier this year, it emerged that more than ?28?million of overpayments by graduates on their student loans made between 2009-10 and 2017-18 . Payments are supposed to stop when a loan is fully repaid, but, in a number of cases, they continued.

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According to Ms Sussex, the upgrading of technology will tackle this ¡°because it can help significantly with the timeliness of data exchange between ourselves and [HM?Revenue and Customs]¡±.

¡°We¡¯ve been working really well together [with HMRC] to come up with a much more accurate system and much more accurate statement,¡± she said.

Another priority for Ms Sussex is to improve communication with customers and the public to show that the SLC performs strongly for the ¡°majority of its customers¡±.

The SLC¡¯s strategy points out that two recent reports ¨C the Augar review of post-18 education funding in England, and a review of the SLC itself ¨C have stated that communication and the ¡°language of loans and debt¡± could be improved to reflect the unique nature of income-contingent repayments.

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These changes include the potential to rename Ms Sussex¡¯s organisation. Although she emphasised that the nomenclature of the wider funding system was not within her remit, she said ¡°it does strike me that our very name, Student Loans Company, is not as accurate as it could be¡±.

The SLC is also facing ¡°political and economic uncertainties¡±, including the post-18 review¡¯s recommendation that tuition fees be reduced to ?7,500 a year, Brexit, a general election that could potentially herald the scrapping of fees altogether, and a possible Scottish independence referendum, according to the strategy.

¡°We do have contingency plans for whatever the world could throw at us,¡± Ms Sussex said. ¡°You always have to be able to correct course. Of course, we would like it to be plain sailing for a few years, but that won¡¯t necessarily be the case.¡±

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com