Chair's statement on Disabled Students' Allowance
13 March 2015
A statement from The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts:
"It feels just wrong that Access South West, the company that assessed the support requirements of disabled students at Plymouth University, was the same company as Claro, which was providing support to disabled students using taxpayers’ money.
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills did not spot soon enough the conflict of interest between Access South West and Claro, where the assessor of students’ support requirements at Access South West was married to the director of Claro. Furthermore, the chief executive of Claro was the line manager of the regional manager of Access South West.
The Department missed a red flag by not noticing that the average payment for students assessed by the Access South West centre in Plymouth was more than double what disabled students received nationally on average – an average total per student of £4,759 assessed by Access South West centre in Plymouth compared with an average total per student of £2,227 assessed by centres nationally.
Time and time again my Committee has raised concerns about the risks to public money posed by conflicts of interests. In this case the Department needs to get a much better grip on its oversight of Disabled Students’ Allowance if it is to make sure that the public purse is not put at risk."