A third of fresher students at University are still waiting fort their student loans and grants to help pay their rent and food after the student loans system collapsed in administrative meltdown.

Students are reporting that the Student Loans Company has lost forms and seems unable to answer queries – and even answer the phone! This has meant that the Universities have had to step in and financially assist in the worst cases.

Apparently, a document scanning system at the loans Company failed losing documentation and forcing staff to go back to manual processing. But in practice the debacle looks more complicated than that with as many as 175,000 students waiting for their money.

This is not the first year that the Student Loans Company has got into a mess. They know the likely workload well in advance, so why, oh why, can’t they organise themselves better?