Care Experienced Students Bursary in session 2017-2018: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01579
Date received: 6 June 2018
Date responded: 19 June 2018

Information requested

The number of applications received for and the number of recipients granted the Care Experienced Students Bursary in session 2017-2018.

Response

Number of Applications received for the Care Experienced Students Bursary: 1745
Number of Recipients granted the Care Experience Students Bursary: 565

Please note the numbers are rounded to the nearest 5.

As the National Publication will not be released until later in the year the information is not finalised and therefore subject to change.

Please note that the number of applications received also includes those who applied for the bursary in error, were ineligible for student funding and those who did not meet the criteria to be a care experienced student.

We identified that a large percentage of students were incorrectly ticking the box on their application and declaring their status as a care experienced student, due to misinterpreting the definition of "care experienced". Our Colleagues in operations and IT worked together closely throughout the year to trial improvements to our SAAS online account to reduce the number of applications submitted in error and we have seen a significant reduction.

We have also made significant improvements to our online application for session 2018/19 including asking students to provide details of their care experienced placement, which will reduce the number of students applying for the bursary in error.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses