Written question asked by Mark Todd (Labour) on Thursday, 10 March 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 7 April 2005. It was answered by Lord Hutton of Furness (Labour) on Thursday, 7 April 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what evaluation has been made of the performance of the unit processing student grant applications for postgraduate courses in terms of (a) accuracy of information given, (b) quality and speed of responses to telephone calls and (c) quality and speed of responses to written communications.

Answer: Mr. Todd: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what evaluation has been made of the performance of the unit processing student grant applications for postgraduate courses in terms of (a) accuracy of information given, (b) quality and speed of responses to telephone calls and (c) quality and speed of responses to written communications. [221597] Mr. Hutton: The students grant unit (SGU) is now part of the NHS Pensions Agency. It is for the agency to manage and account for the performance of the SGU. The chief executive of the agency informs me that he is aware of the criticisms made of the SGU in the recent past and has highlighted these as key performance indicators for the future. I have asked my officials to raise the SGU's performance at their regular review meetings with the agency.

Secondary information