MrMaycock.com The blog of a nineteen year old university student

EMA.

Fun evening of research, I feel. After a good Google Mapping, I got bored again and decided to research EMA, which was indeed one of the things that we discussed today.

And I have learnt the following:

• The company processing applications this year is different than in previous years.
• The plan this year was to allow certain areas in the UK to submit their application forms online, which was never successfully implemented.
• The system they are using to process applications is either broken, buggy, or plain not working, and so have many thousands of unprocessed applications. This also has further implications, such as:
  • People ringing up to find out the status of their applications and not being able to find out due to unallocated reference numbers or their data just plain not being entered into the databases.
  • This then leads to phone lines becoming clogged and having wait times of up to (I've heard) 45 minutes, which in the end is wasted, due to little or no information actually being available.
• During the switch between the companies, they have lost some Lower VIth's information, or indeed someone in a three year college course, or someone who took a year dedicated to resit their GCSEs. This information could be their bank details, which is what has occurred to me. This means with entirely correct forms as dictated by the forms guide provided with each form, with P60s, bank statements, information that's needed for more than just the claiming of EMA, have had to have been sent off to be processed yet again, wasting time.
• The process of processing the forms has increased threefold since last year, where the initial nine days it took in 2007 is now taking 30 days. Due to the fact that my bank details were lost, the time taken could be increased almost sevenfold to 61 days, as we were not informed we had to send bank statements and details when we received the form.
• The ¬£500 over two years has been reduced to ¬£400 over two years. To me, this doesn't seem fair, as when we signed up to EMA in Y12, we signed up to receive ¬£100 in Spring and ¬£100 in Summer in Lower VIth, and then in Upper VIth, we'd receive ¬£100 as coming back bonus in September, followed by the ¬£100 in Spring and ¬£100 in Summer. Now it is Spring and Summer in both years, for ¬£400 total.
• If the Notice of Entitlement is not received by the learning provider (Jackie and GWPAHS) by 28th September, EMA cannot be backdated further, without appealing.

Okay, now my opinions.

• The fact that a system with a time period where almost all applicants would apply is three months long, between June and August, and they can not do so efficiently resulting in such a huge backlog of applications is appalling. Surely this system is a failure over the supposed improved over the system I encountered last year? The three month time period also leaves nine months of the year for testing said system, surely?
• The fact that they lost my details is annoying, and slightly scary. The letter we received when we got the forms back detailed what was wrong, which was that bank information was not provided. The guidance note specifically said they could be left blank if it was claimed last year with no changes. We called up the support line, who told us that my details were lost. That was quite scary, but still annoying. Why was the data lost? Surely it was backed up, or kept safe at least. Still, it's another inconvenience that has delayed our Notice of Entitlement by at least another five weeks so far.
• The bonus situation I find absolutely ridiculous. If we were told when applying that the bonus would end in the school year 2007/2008, there would be no issues. However, it wasn't, and was stated that ¬£500 would be paid over two years, not ¬£400.
• The Notice of Entitlement issue is fair game here, but not under these circumstances, in which very few people have them.

So, my plan for EMA? Complain about the bonuses and complain about the response times.

Going to be a fun first few days back.

I wonder which tie I should wear?