Postnominals

Dear D Willingham

I refer to your email below requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act and I respond using your numbering.

1) The Student Loans Company do not have a specific field in order to add
post-nominals to a borrower’s record. There is not a specific field for
this, however, it can be inputted after the borrower’s surname which
would then show on correspondence (in both the address and salutation).

2) There are currently no plans to add a separate field for post-nominals.

3) Student Loans Company has received one complaint in relation to this.

4) Whilst we do not have a specific field for post-nominals on our system,
as stated above, we can add this information to a borrower’s record on
request. SLC’s function is to provide student finance. Therefore, we have
no way of knowing whether a student goes on to complete their course. It
would be a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 for us to assume all
customers go on to complete the course that they applied for funding for
and automatically add post-nominals to our customer records. If a customer
contacts us to ask that post-nominals are added to their records we will do
this (provided it does not mean that they exceed the maximum number in that
data field). Therefore, we are of the view that we are in full compliance
with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

5) The Student Loans Company have not sought advice from the ICO on this
matter.

6) Not applicable as per Question 5.

7) Our CLASS System is used to manage borrower’s records. This is a bespoke
system built by SLC’s internal Systems Development Division. The system is
subject to change annually to meet with policies and legislation laid down
by the UK Government and in order to apply thresholds and improve
processes. Changes are currently in development for the new Academic Year
which will be introduced in phases between now and September 2010.

8) We are unable to provide a full specification of the data fields in a
customer record. Such a specification would contain confidential
information in relation to business and data rules and therefore, is exempt
in terms of section 36 of the Act. However, I can advise that the following
data fields appear on a borrower’s record;

Title, Forename, Surname, DOB, Country of Birth, Town of Birth, Address,
Telephone number, Email address, Course start date, Graduation date and
Customer Reference Number.

I trust that my answer to you is satisfactory, however if you are unhappy
with the decisions made by me in relation to your freedom of information
request, you may ask SLC for an internal review. Any such appeal would be
conducted by Chris Andrew, Company Secretary, 100 Bothwell Street, Glasgow,
G2 7JD. You may request a review by writing to Chris Andrew or by emailing
the FOI Office ([SLC request email]). SLC will only consider
requests for internal reviews which are made within 3 months of the date of
our original response (except in exceptional circumstances).

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Kind Regards

Freedom of Information Office
Student Loans Company

|---------+------------------------------------------->
| | D Willingham |
| | <request-21307-ab065aba@whatdoth|
| | eyknow.com> |
| | |
| | 17/10/2009 22:59 |
|---------+------------------------------------------->
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: FOI requests at SLC <[SLC request email]> |
| cc: |
| Subject: Freedom of Information request - Postnominals |
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have the following question about the use of professional,
educational and other postnominals in automated communications with
borrowers. As you should be aware, any person with a degree is
entitled to use and be addressed with their postnominals included
after their name on the envelope, but it is not appropriate to use
them after their name in the salutation. For example;
the envelope would be addressed "Mr Jon Doe BSc,"
but the salutation would be "Dear Mr Doe,".

1) Does the Student Loans Company have the ability to add
postnominals to a borrower's record so that they can be correctly
used in correspondence with that borrower?

2) If the SLC does not have that ability, why has it not been
corrected, and what plans are there for it to be corrected?

3) Has the SLC received any complaints about its past failures to
recognise borrower's achievements by including their formal
postnominals on correspondence? If so, how many?

4) If the SLC's computer systems do not have a postnominal field
for borrower's, does the SLC have an opinion on whether it would be
in full compliance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act?

5) Has the SLC sought advice from the ICO with respect to its
compliance with the Data Protection Act in the absence of a data
field for postnominals on borrower's records?

6) If answer to 5) is yes please publish this advice.

7) What computer software is used to manage borrower's records? Who
supplies it? Is this a bespoke system, or an off the shelf product?
When were the systems that manage borrower's data last subject to a
major change? When are they next due to be upgraded?

8) If the computer software was a bespoke or highly customised
version of an off the shelf product, please supply the formal
specification of required data fields in a borrower's record.

Yours faithfully,

D Willingham

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