The author

Angela Toal is a welfare rights worker with CPAG in Scotland, working on its Benefits for Students Project.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, many thanks to Judith Paterson, welfare rights co-ordinator at CPAG in Scotland, who wrote the first few editions of this Handbook and continues to provide invaluable checking and advice.

Grateful thanks are due to staff at the Student Awards Agency for Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council for their time and expertise in checking and advising on this Handbook. Thanks too to all of those on the Students Project advisory group for their support and encouragement throughout the year.

Many thanks go to John Dickie and everyone else at CPAG in Scotland for their invaluable support and practical help.

Many thanks also to Nicola Johnston for editing and managing the production of the book, Helen Treacy for proofreading the text and Katherine Dawson for producing the index.

CPAG is grateful for the Scottish Government’s financial support towards this Handbook.

Online Handbook and further training, information and advice

CPAG, with Scottish Government funding, continues to make this Handbook available free online at http://scottishhandbooks.cpag.org.uk, and provides training, advice and information to advisers in Scotland on benefits for people studying or thinking of studying. Please contact Angela Toal on 0141 552 8361, or go to www.cpag.org.uk/scotland/studentbenefitsproject for details of the support we can offer. For specific students and benefits advice queries, contact our adviser’s advice line on 0141 552 0552 between 10am and 12 noon Monday to Friday, or e-mail advice@cpagscotland.org.uk.

We would be very grateful if readers would send any comments, corrections or suggestions for inclusion in the next edition to CPAG in Scotland, Unit 9, Ladywell, 94 Duke Street, Glasgow G4 0UW; email staff@cpagscotland.org.uk.

Foreword

This, the 8th edition of the Benefits for Students in Scotland Handbook, comes at a time when the new government in Westminster is proposing huge funding cuts, including cuts to the benefits system. The recent emergency Budget outlined some of these plans, including a cap on housing benefit, a freeze in child benefit for the next three years, and requiring lone parents to look for work when their youngest child starts school. These measures will impact on low income households with children not only financially, but also in terms of their ability to consider education as a way out of poverty. If these plans go ahead, the previous option of lone parents remaining on benefit while studying in the further education sector will be available only to those with a child aged four or under. For many lone parents, balancing the care of a young child with full-time education is just not possible.

At the same time increasing numbers of people are looking to access education generally, as immediate job opportunities become more limited and redundancies lead people to look at reskilling. In this context, increased support for students made available by the Scottish Government is welcome. In the higher education sector additional spending will mean a higher total amount of student funding for low-income students, some of which is in the form of grants which do not need to be paid back. Further education funding has increased too in the last year, although the upsurge of demand for college places and the discretionary nature of the funding means that not everyone can get the funding they need when they need it. Despite these increases, levels of financial support are still too often inadequate and too many students continue to face financial hardship. For those with disabilities, studying can be an important route back into the workplace. Many disabled students are on incapacity benefit or income support, and it is proposed they will be transferred to the new benefit for ill and disabled people, employment and support allowance (ESA), over the next few years. CPAG was able to secure an important concession for students moving across to ESA, which will mean continuity of benefits for many of those already in education when the transfer happens. However, for people already in receipt of ESA who take up full time study, the rules are now less generous than under previous benefits for those facing ill health or disability.

We hope this latest edition of the Benefits for Students in Scotland Handbook will continue to help frontline advisers stay up to date with these important developments and assist students, and people who are thinking of studying, to secure the financial support they need to further their education. Ensuring young people and parents are able to access and sustain educational opportunities remains crucial to increasing incomes and enabling people to protect themselves and their children from poverty.

John Dickie

Head of CPAG in Scotland

How to use this Handbook

This Handbook is intended for those who advise students, or potential students, in Scotland about their entitlement to benefits and tax credits. It covers both further and higher education.

The Handbook gives an outline of the benefit and tax credit rules and focuses on issues relevant to students. For more detailed information on the rules, see CPAG’s Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook.

The Handbook covers rules affecting students studying in Scotland who are eligible for support through Scottish funding bodies such as the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. It does not cover the rules for students getting support from England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or elsewhere outside Scotland.

Abbreviations

Means-tested benefit rates 2011/12

Non-means-tested benefit rates 2011/12

Tax credit rates 2011/12

Benefits and tax credits chart

This is a short guide to the benefits and tax credits you may be able to claim depending on your circumstances. In each case there are other tests that you must pass to be entitled. See the page shown in the last column for details. Chapter 15 explains which benefits are affected by any grant or loan you get. Terms such as ‘full time’, ‘part time’ and ‘student’ are explained in the section beginning on ►.