Student Loans Company – Complaints procedure

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Making a formal complaint

At the Student Loans Company (SLC) we always try to get things right first time. However, sometimes things can go wrong and you may not be happy with our service. If so, let us know and we’ll do all we can to put it right. Queries can often be settled quickly and easily by phoning us and speaking to one of our customer advisers.

SLC can accept complaints from third parties if the customer (student or repayer) has given them permission to do so on their behalf. If you are acting on behalf of a student or repayer, be aware that we will not provide you with information we hold about a student unless we know that the student has given their consent. This can be done via SLC’s own ‘consent to share’ process.

For more information and help with our complaints process please see SLC’s Complaints Leaflet for guidance.

Information you need to include in your complaint

To help us deal with your complaint quickly please give us as much information as possible as this will help us to understand the issue and gather all the relevant information quickly.

You should include:

your Customer Reference Number (CRN)
your date of birth
your full name and address (this should be the same as the one we hold in our systems for you)
details of what happened and when – include everything you want us to consider or investigate
what you think we should do to put it right
a contact number and a convenient time to call you

By providing these details this will allow us to deal with your complaint as quickly as possible.

Our commitment to you

We aim to fully investigate and resolve all complaints in our first response.

We will be in touch to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days of receiving it. It will then be assigned to one of our dedicated Customer Relations Officers to investigate and you can expect a comprehensive response within 15 working days from receipt of your complaint.

We aim to complete all complaints within these timescales. Sometime a complaint can be very complex and we may need to extend the time beyond 15 days to enable us to fully address and respond the complaint. If this is the case, we will be in touch with you and promise to keep you informed of progress with the investigation, the reasons for the delay, and any new deadline.

What to do if you’re still not satisfied

If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your complaint, you can ask for it to be escalated to an Independent Assessor by replying to the Customer Relations Officer who has been dealing with your case.

Independent Assessors (IAs) are appointed by Ministers and are not employed by SLC. The IAs conduct an impartial review of your appeal/complaint but have no legal powers to overturn correctly made decisions. The IAs may make recommendations which SLC will implement unless instructed not to do so by Ministers. The independent review concludes the complaints process.

Contact us

You can make a formal complaint by phone, email or post.

By phone

We welcome Relay UK calls.

Find out about call charges.

By email

You should include your customer reference number in the email subject header.

[email protected]

By post