Chris Larmer, Student Loans Company, Chief Executive Officer, commenting on the National Audit Office (NAO) investigation into student finance for study at franchised higher education providers said:
“SLC is grateful to the NAO for its work, which in part, builds upon the investigatory work of our Financial Crime Prevention Unit.
“We routinely perform monitoring activity to detect suspicious activity and have robust controls in place to ensure all payments are made, as stipulated by the student finance regulations. This includes ensuring that we have confirmation of registration and attendance from Higher Education Providers (HEPs) before any payment is released.
“We take financial crime seriously and as noted in the report, we proactively raise issues of concern with the Department for Education (DfE) and Office for Students (OfS), taking action to protect public funds wherever possible, within the scope of our powers and remit.
