Transparency data

SLC Board meeting minutes April 2026

Updated 22 July 2026

1. Attendees  

1.1 Present 

* Gary Page (GP) - Chair  

• Chris Larmer (CL) - Chief Executive Officer  

• Natasha Toothill (NT) - Non-Executive Director  

• Margaret Ollerenshaw (MO) - Non-Executive Director  

• Stephen Marston (SM) - Non-Executive Director  

• Janette Campbell (JCA) - Non-Executive Director  

• David Wallace (DW) - Deputy Chief Executive Officer 

• Audrey McColl (AMC) - CFO 

• Gary Womersley (GW) - Company Secretary  

1.2 Also in attendance 

• Anne Rimmer (AR) - DfE (by videoconference) 

• Courtney Brightwell (CB) – DfE (by videoconference) 

• Lorna Caldwell (LC) – Scottish Government (by videoconference) 

• Chris Williams (CW) - Welsh Government (by videoconference) 

* Conor McCarten (CMC) – Department for the Economy NI (by videoconference) 

• Jonathan O’Callaghan (JO) – Department for the Economy NI (by videoconference) 

• Jason Dunham (JD) – CIO  

• Jackie Currie (JC) – Executive Director, Customer Operations 

• Nauman Dar (ND) – Executive Director, Change, Data and Repayments 

• Kath Moore (KM) – Chief Digital and Data Officer 

• Derek Ross (DR) - Executive Director, HE and FE Reform  

• Gillian Brydie (GB) - Executive Director, People  

• Alan Balanowski (AB) – Risk Director (for item 6.1) (by videoconference)  

• Stuart Brydson (SB) - Board Secretary (Secretariat) 

• Adam Treslove (AT) - Head of Corporate Affairs (for Item 6.1 only) (by videoconference)  

• Nicholas McDermott (NMC) – Chief of Staff (for item 5.1 only) 

• Christopher O’Neill (CON) – Senior Corporate Governance and Planning Manager 

• Frances Moore (FM) – Senior Business Manager (by videoconference) 

• Margaret McMullen (MMC) – Director of Finance (for item 5.2 only) (by videoconference) 

• Scott McEwan (SMC) - Financial Performance and Analysis Manager (for Item 6.2) (by videoconference) 

• Stephen Baker (SBA) – Director of Policy, Product and Customer Resolutions (for item 7.1 only) 

• Simon Boyle (SBO) – Interim Head of Portfolio Management, Enterprise PMO (for item 7.1 only) 

2. Apologies 

• Victoria Bowman (VB) – Scottish Government (by videoconference) 

• Patrick Curry (PC) – DfE (by videoconference) 

* Jonathan Ashe (JA) – Department for the Economy NI (by videoconference) 

3. FOI Notice 

Where asterisks (*) appear, these sections have been excluded from the minutes before placing on the website as the subject under discussion falls within one or more of the exemptions contained in Part II of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and can be reasonably withheld.          

4. Chairman’s Opening Remarks / Directors’ Matters / Declarations of Interest 

GP welcomed everyone to the meeting.  Apologies from VB, PC, and JA were noted. 

There were no declarations of interest. 

5. Chair Update 

5.1 Update from the Chair on relevant matters 

GP highlighted meetings he had attended as part of his Chair induction plan, including meetings with the SLC ELT, a day at the DfE offices, and two meetings with the acting Director General for Skills Group.  Scheduled meetings are due to take place with colleagues from the Northern Irish, Welsh, and Scottish government, the Chair of DfE ARC, and the Minister of State for Skills.   

GP noted that he had received a letter from the Chair of the Commons Education Select Committee relating to the weekend courses issue.  DfE had received a similar letter and were working with SLC to prepare a coordinated response.   

6. Strategic items 

6.1 CEO Report 

AB and AT joined the meeting.  

CL introduced the CEO Report, highlighting the key areas of focus under live management.   

Weekend Courses 

In relation to the students impacted by the weekend courses issue, DR explained that initially DfE had instructed SLC to commence the normal overpayment recovery process.  A cross-functional project team had been put in place to carry out those instructions. Subsequently, following review, DfE instructed SLC to pause recovery action and move the weekend courses overpayments into the regular Income Contingent Repayment process, and to provide maintenance payments for those students transferring to eligible courses, and defer the offset of the overpayment.  DR and team were meeting regularly with DfE, providers and other stakeholders.   

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CL thanked AT and his team for their engagement on the related media attention, and JCU and her teams for assisting with the affected students, who remain SLC’s primary focus.  

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DW joined the meeting.    

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Reputational Risk Management  

AT highlighted that reputational issues were closely monitored and managed by his team, noting the pressures of the current media environment.  Much of the media approached SLC as if it were a bank but the systems and operations were much more complex than that.  The complexity of the student finance system and products across multiple shareholders combined with legacy interconnected technology add to the challenge, with a huge effort often required to explain this in response to media enquiries. Pressures on providers within a student finance system that relies on self-certification coupled with sector financial struggles and for-profit behaviours that may not align with principles of safeguarding public funds creates further opportunities for errors. Each of these factors contributes to create confusion and challenge within the media and communications environment. The communications team were looking to identify the opportunity for more proactive positive stories in the longer term but in the short to medium term the expectation is that the challenging media environment will continue, and so they would work with the wider business to mitigate.   

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Responding to comments from the Board, AT confirmed that he and his team had been working closely with AB and his team to record the impacts of reputational risk and look at outputs from the SLC reputational risk forum, ensuring that mitigating actions were followed up. The team actively monitor media and stakeholder sentiment, horizon scanning proactively for potential issues. The Board noted that Non-Executive Directors were ready to lean-in to provide support on managing reputational risk.    

ACTION: Reputational Risk Management item to come to the Board for further discussion. 

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2026/27 Academic Cycle Performance  

JCU noted that there had been a strong start to the undergraduate cycle despite the later launch, and despite the compressed timeline only 5% fewer applications had been received than at the same point last year as a result of work to attract early applications.  There had been good progress in processing applications so far, with 75% approved and ready to pay. Manage-my-balance performance had also continued to be strong.  

JCU explained that various headwinds had impacted customer wait times with operations colleagues being called into cross directorate working groups on Weekend Courses, CCG integrity, and systems stability.  Customer concerns around the Plan 2 rates had also been reflected in the CSAT scores.   

JCU highlighted that DSA performance had continued to be a priority area, with a strong start to the cycle.   

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In response to a question from the Board, JCU explained that unforecasted headwinds were the nature of the business but were dealt with in a tactical way via SLC’s resource optimisation model, including multi-skilling and workflow prioritisation, and a resource augmentation model.  In addition to tactical steps, as part of continuous improvement activity, a robotic process automation had been launched that was processing 70% of returned mail.   

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Employee Engagement 

GB highlighted that the recently completed annual Our Voice survey had achieved 77% participation, with a 58% engagement score.  Areas of focus going forward would be within growth and development, and there was positive momentum maintained in inclusion.  Senior leadership and line management scores had seen an encouraging increase since the previous year.  Responding to comments from the Board, GB highlighted that the survey demonstrated a hugely committed workforce, but that frustration was the main negative emotion.   

In response to questions from the Board, GB acknowledged that, although the company sickness level was higher than the previous year, it was driven by specific areas.  The People team had been working closely with line managers in these areas on interventions, and additionally a revised colleague wellbeing offering had been launched. Noting the prevailing themes on mood and culture from the survey, GB reflected that SLC has a highly committed but frustrated workforce, and the People team are looking at how they might address that sentiment.  

Performance    

CL reported that nine out of the 12 APRA measures were reporting green against their targets, with two reporting red and one at amber.   

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In summary GP noted that the Board took assurance that the key issues, although challenging, were being well managed.   

AB and AT left the meeting. 

6.2 CFO Report 

MMC and SMC joined the meeting. 

Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) 2025-26 

AMC explained that SLC audit activity had focused on year-end submissions to NAO in line with the agreed timetable.  The volume and concurrency of audits was significant, and multiple audits often require inputs from the same subject matter experts, which had created pressure in some teams.  Due to an NAO requirement for DfE to change an accounting treatment, as well as methodology reviews by the NAO, there had been a considerable additional demand for new financial reporting to support the production of accounts for the SLC shareholders.  Given the known issues with SLC legacy systems, production of the new financial reporting had been challenging and resource intensive and requires management so as not to impact operational activities.  

Treatment of overpayments in relation to the Weekend Courses issue was also driving further discussions between DfE and SLC. 

In response to a comment from the Board, AMC noted that once SLC provide the required data to NAO any question of timeline slippage was between NAO and DfE.  AMC explained that the preparation for ‘walk-throughs’ had taken up 1900 hours of colleague time, and CL highlighted that an NAO change to year-end testing had only been notified in the final month of the audit year.      

FY2025-26 

AMC explained that the accounting year had closed and that the accounting adjusting period was complete.  Although the final outturn remained subject to final ARA sign off, there were no significant issues arising at this stage.  The key message though was that 25-26 demonstrated strong performance and controls. 

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FY2026-27 

AMC highlighted that there was no confirmed APRA yet, and no date for the 2026-27 budget.  SLC have an indicative budget, and ELT Operating Expenditure envelopes had been issued in early April but would require revision once the Target Operating Model changes had progressed, and depending on any changes between the indicative and final budget.  

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In summary GP noted that the Board took assurance that SLC finances were understood and well managed.   

MMC and SMC left the meeting. 

7. Directors’ Reports 

7.1 Perform, Reform, Transform 

AB, SBA, and SBO joined the meeting. 

CL introduced Perform, Reform, Transform (PRT), noting that this item would help the Board get the visibility of the activities within the SLC workplan, and assure the Board that these activities were aligned to the Board agreed strategy.  The review confirmed that SLC are at full capacity.  The report looked at dependencies and resource demands via a robust resourcing review of items currently commissioned and funded under PRT, noting the acute resource contention particularly across certain key areas of subject matter expertise (SME). The report also highlights the moving list of commissioned work from Shareholders, which still required further scoping and prioritisation. CL highlighted that SLC was about to enter a period of considerable transformation, and it would be important as a collective to agree not only what would be done but what would not be done.   

CL noted that next steps would include: validation of the workplan and dynamic prioritisation which, given SLC is at capacity, will require substitution of items should shareholders wish to prioritise other asks, and will be led by Shareholders via the Joint Quadrilateral Committee (JQC); continuous risk appetite management; external risk assessment and assurance of the workplan; enhanced Board and shareholder reporting and oversight of the workplan; development of SLC’s SME capacity; SLC ongoing support with Ministerial engagement.   

CL asked the Board for agreement in principle that there is a collective focus on those items we will not be delivering, and for agreement on the next steps. 

AR welcomed the paper, noting that it represented a clear articulation for shareholders of the items within each of the PRT buckets, and noted that policy requests from the shareholder were quite volatile and had the potential to be even more so following the upcoming elections.   

In response to questions from the Board, CL noted that: for the purposes of the analysis, the paper assumed that the 2026-27 budget would not be reduced; SLC would have to drive on with delivery at pace, rather than wait for prioritisation decisions; it would be important to have a substitute projects list in case of the descoping of other programmes or if other programmes proved less resource intensive than anticipated; the Perform workstack included business-critical technology and security maintenance items but there was a further list of technology items that did not make the list that would require risk acceptance; in terms of responsibilities around prioritisation, the Framework Document stated that DfE lead with input from all shareholders and the JQC. 

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ND explained that the foundational work from a governance perspective had already been completed via JQC, and that next steps are for SLC and Shareholders to become more flexible in making decisions.  The Transformation Delivery Office was critical in assessing the safety and feasibility of the plan and managing dependencies including between customer remediation and Transform activities, and in supporting the ongoing review of risk appetite and the ability to absorb further change.  SBO added that any decisions to stop/substitute items do not take effect immediately and so consideration of the time it takes to stop would be required as part of any reprioritisation.     

In summary, GP thanked everyone for their inputs on the PRT workplan.  SLC was at capacity to deliver mission-critical items across PRT, meaning that any additional asks would require further reprioritisation.  It would be important to ensure that the Board remained sighted on future updates.   

AB, SBA, and SBO left the meeting. 

8. Governance 

8.1 Minutes from previous meeting  

The minute of the 31 March 2026 Board meeting was approved as an accurate record.    

8.2 Matters arising from previous meetings 

The matters arising document was approved as accurate.  Comments on specific actions: 

MB 435 - SB had emailed the Non-Executive Directors inviting them to next customer panel meeting. 

MB 444 - the plan types teach in was being schedule in May.  

MB 446 - the revised TOC ToR would go to TT for final review. 

8.3 Board Terms of Reference (ToR) and Code of Conduct 

The Board considered the Board ToR and endorsed the Code of Conduct. 

9. Any other business 

There was no other business. 

9.1 Date of Next Meeting 

The next meeting was confirmed as being at 10:00 on Tuesday 30 June 2026, the Darlington Boardroom or by Teams, and GP noted that a walkaround after the Board meeting would be useful. 

There being no other business the meeting ended at 13:15