The current Student Bursary Support Service (SBSS) is a service to: • process student applications for Care to Learn financial support, which involves eligibility checks of the student (circ 4,000 applications annually) • process institution funding claims for 16 to 19 Bursary Fund vulnerable bursaries (4,000 claims annually). • process student application details for Professional and Career Development Loans (circ 38,000 applications/data adjustments annually) • carry out verification of course attendance at educational institutions (circ 4,000 students annually) • carry out verification of child attendance at eligible/registered childcare providers (circ 4,000 students annually) • carry out verification of Ofsted registration of childcare providers (circ 1,000 childcare providers annually) • provide customer support for students, education institutions and childcare providers that need additional information and advice (circ 50,000 enquiries annually) • The SBSS makes circa 25,000 support payments annually to educational institutions (schools, colleges and providers) and childcare providers worth approximately £40 million per academic year.

DfE provides the funds to make these payments on a weekly basis. • Students are the primary customers for the Student Bursary Support Service and they must receive the payments and support to which they are entitled. • Data capture for the applications for financial support will be through a secure portal, which must meet government security standards for official - sensitive data. • The current contract to provide the Student Bursary Support Service will expire on 31 August 2018. • The Department for Education are currently exploring options and seeking supplier engagement regarding the provision of these services from the 2018/19 academic year.

It is envisioned that we will be looking to procure a 3 year service with set up time of up to 9 months. • Please note that the future delivery requirements are still under development and as such are subject to change.