Transparency data

SLC Board meeting minutes March 2026

Updated 22 July 2026

1. Attendees  

1.1 Present 

• Sir Peter Lauener (PL) - Chair  

• Chris Larmer (CL) - Chief Executive Officer  

• Natasha Toothill (NT) - Non-Executive Director  

• Gary Page (GP) - 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 

• Gary Womersley (GW) - Company Secretary  

1.2 Also in attendance 

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Conor McCarten (CMC) - NI Government (by videoconference) 

• Jason Dunham (JD) – CIO  

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

• Gillian Brydie (GB) - Executive Director, People  

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

• 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)  

• 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) 

• Hannah Will (HW) - Head of Optimisation, Enablement and Knowledge 

• Julia Chim-Burns (JCB) - Programme Manager (for Item 8.1) 

2. Apologies 

Audrey McColl (AMC) - CFO 

Patrick Curry (PC) – DfE  

Jonathan Ashe (JA) – Department for the Economy NI  

Jackie Currie (JC) – Executive Director, Business Operations 

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

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 

PL welcomed everyone to the meeting and especially MMC and HW who were attending today as deputies for AMC and JCU respectively.  Apologies from AMC, PC, JCU, DR, and JA were noted.  

PL noted that Board members had attended a leaning in session on User Centred Design before the Board meeting. 

PL highlighted that the Business Plan and Corporate Plans were still in draft until the budget was confirmed and would then be reviewed and approved by a subset of the Board to be determined by GP. 

PL noted that MO would be the Chair of RemCo with effect from 1 April 

There were no declarations of interest. 

5. Chair Update 

5.1 Update from the Chair on relevant matters 

PL highlighted the meetings and events he had attended since the February Board meeting, including: regular pre-Board meetings with the other Non-Executive Directors and PC; a meeting with the Welsh Minister Vikki Howells on 11 March; the Biannual Shareholder Meeting on 5 March.   

PL requested that the 5 March Biannual Shareholder Meeting papers be shared with the Board. 

ACTION: 5 March Biannual Shareholder Meeting papers to be shared with the Board. 

6. Strategic items 

6.1 CEO Report 

AB and AT joined the meeting.  

CL introduced the CEO Report, highlighting the key areas of focus being his risk opinion, customer, shareholder, colleague, and performance.   

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Customer 

2026-27 Academic Cycle  

HW noted that the 2026-27 cycle for SFE and SFW undergraduate applications had launched on 23 March.  SLC had received 167,000 applications in the first week alone, which was 94,000 more than the previous year, and so a strong start to the cycle.   

Shareholder  

Shareholder Engagement  

CL highlighted that, with the current levels of change and uncertainty, it had been even more important to support all four of the SLC shareholders.  PL, CL, and CW had a productive meeting with Welsh Minister Howells on 11 March, and CL had met with the new Acting Director of Higher Education Northern Ireland, Graham Miller on 6 March.  CL was looking forward to joining GP’s introductory meeting as SLC Chair with the CEO of SAAS, Catherine Topley, on 27 April.   

2026-27 APRA Measures and Targets 

CL noted that SLC had continued to engage with the shareholders in working towards agreeing the 2026-27 APRA measures and targets position, with both shareholders and the Chair being committed to setting more stretching targets for the coming year.   

Annual and Corporate Business Plans 

CL highlighted that SLC had hoped to finalise the Annual and Corporate Business Plans in March, but this had not been possible whilst the budget, APRA targets, policy commissions, and next steps on VIR and the Plan 2 freeze had not yet been confirmed.  In the meantime, the drafting and format of the plans was being refined, before the final approval by a sub-group of the Board once those shareholder confirmations had been received.   

LLE and HE Reforms 

CL explained that LLE development continued to progress well, with the phased release approach now embedded and planning underway to align delivery with the launch of Digital Student Finance Service. 

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CL highlighted that the last scheduled deployment of the Plan 5 repayment system had gone live successfully on 8 March.   

Treasury Select Committee 

CL explained that the Treasury Select Committee had launched a new enquiry into graduate repayment terms and the taxation of graduates, following the recent public debate on Plan 2 and the decision to freeze the repayment threshold.  The Committee had issued a call for evidence which SLC would support. The Board expressed a strong preference that SLC submitted its own evidence to the Committee in close collaboration with DfE. AR added that DfE would work with SLC on the consideration of the submission of evidence.   

Colleague    

Target Operating Model (TOM) 

GB noted that teams were well prepared for the changes that were due to take place on 1 April, with the launch of the Digital and Data Directorate, with Technology Group becoming Technology and Security, and Customer Operations expanding its remit to become an end-to-end Customer Directorate, and Change and Data Directorate refocussing around Transformation.  

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Colleague Roadshows 

GB highlighted that ten colleague roadshows had now taken place, covering all SLC sites, and would be followed up with videos published on Connect.  Positive feedback on the roadshows had been received, with about 70% of those surveyed saying they had been helpful.   

Employee Engagement Results 

GB explained that the current employee engagement survey was due to close today.  Initial results showed a 76% response rate and an engagement index of 58%, which represents an increase from the previous year.  Positively big increases had been noted across the leadership scores.   

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Performance 

CL noted the continued excellent performance across the APRA and CPD metrics and he thanked the ELT and SMT for all they continued to do to deliver for SLC customers, shareholders and colleagues.   

Sir Peter Lauener 

This being PL’s final Board meeting as SLC Chair, CL thanked him for the significant contribution he had made to SLC during his tenure.   

In summary PL noted that the Board took assurance that the key issues, although challenging, were being well managed.  PL noted that: there had been a strong start to the academic cycle; the colleague roadshows had been a worthwhile investment of ELT time; there was a clear view of why the TOM work was necessary and important; and there were cross-cutting themes of risk to report back to the Board. 

AB and AT left the meeting. 

6.2 CFO Report 

SMC joined the meeting. 

MMC introduced the CFO Report. 

FY2025-26 

MMC noted that there had been no significant movements in the February forecast.  Although there had been some movement across Admin and Programme, MMC highlighted most significant movement being further underspend in Capital.  MMC thanked the DfE team for the agreement to a further return of the total projected underspend of Capital and noted that the reported February results would deliver financial performance within tolerance across all spend types.   

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Responding to questions from the Board on the large Capital return, MMC explained that there had been overplanning and overestimation at the start of the year and that very early in the FY SLC had flagged a significant amount of the allocation that would not be required leading to SLC carrying an opening surplus, and that some intangible assets could not be capitalised. Positively, DfE had still been able to use the recycled funding within the department. 

Budget Planning  

MMC noted that SLC had used the letter of comfort provided for FY 2026-27 to prepare a company level budget for review with the CEO. In absence of a formal APRA for FY 26-27, the budget remained indicative.  

It was noted that the 2026-27 letter of comfort gave authority for Q1 only.   

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

SMC left the meeting. 

6.3 APRA Update 

CB introduced the APRA Update FY2026-27 noting several emerging challenges and so the drafting of the APRA had been delayed whilst discussions on solutions progressed.  Referencing annual budgets, CB noted that the 2025-26 APRA re-issue was planned for April, and the 2026-27 planning was ongoing, with the budget confirmation letter to follow.  

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CB explained that shareholders had agreed to retain the same core set of APRA measures for 2026-27 that had been in place since 2019-20 following the 2018 Tailored Review.  A review of measures should be undertaken for 2027-28, considering the Enable transformation.  There was a keenness to ensure that targets were sufficiently challenging, reflected actual performance, and provided year on year improvement for customers and shareholders.   

Turning to shareholder priorities, AR noted that Alternative Student Finance remained a priority and would be introduced as soon as possible following the launch of LLE.  CW noted that a number of Welsh Government priorities represented issues that they had identified in tandem with SLC colleagues and required resolution, and explained that Welsh Government would continue to work closely with SLC colleagues to resolve these issues.  VB highlighted that SAAS were going through their own core systems replacement programme and would work towards improved operational efficiency with SLC, and that priorities may need to be further reviewed in the context of an ongoing programme of post-school education and skills reform and the elections in May.  CMC noted that there would be a review of SFNI support with a consideration to broadening access.   

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In summary PL noted that whilst the current position was understood, the APRA letter would require careful drafting to ensure that timeline commitments remained possible.   

7. Reports from Committees 

7.1 ARC Chair Report 

JCA Introduced the ARC Chair Report noting that prior to the 26 March meeting the ARC members had their annual private meeting with GIAA.  The Committee had also heard about the Tallyman replacement progress, and received annual reports from GW on Legal, Data Protection, and Policy Management.   

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The Board took assurance from the ARC Chair Report. 

7.2 RemCo Chair Report 

GP introduced the RemCo Chair Report.  The committee had received papers on reward strategy, colleague bonus, TOM, Gender Pay Gap and EDI Annual Reports, and the People Insight Update. 

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The Board took assurance from the RemCo Chair Report. 

8. Directors’ Reports 

8.1 Catalyst Retrospective 

JCB joined the meeting. 

MMC introduced the Catalyst Retrospective noting that Catalyst was established in 2023-24 as an enterprise-wide saving programme to fund SLC’s pay case ambition.  Catalyst had not only met the required targets but had exceeded the cashable savings by £2m to a total of £13.5m, with a projected return on investment of £6.8m.  JCB explained that the programme had adopted an iterative lessons-learned approach, making improvements throughout, with closely aligned workstream leads.  Next steps would include embedding the key points and lessons learned from Catalyst around organisational delivery, and benefits management and realisation.   

Responding to comments from the Board JCB explained that dedicated operational business intelligence to quantify the programme benefits had been provided by a small SLC group who had been supported by external resource.  There had been close collaboration across Finance Business Partners, the Benefits Team, and the Programme Team.   

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In response to questions from the Board MMC noted that: only Stage Gate 5 benefits were included in this report and that there would still be some additional benefits from RPA; there had been early engagement on savings-related recycling, however releasing budget had been challenging as the cashable savings were recycled to address unrelated operational pressures; there had been no funding from DfE for Catalyst but the generation of return had been required to fund pay; resource from Catalyst would now move to Enable.   

PL welcomed the report and thanked the wider team.  

JCB left the meeting. 

9. Governance 

9.1 Minutes from previous meeting  

The minute of the 26 February 2026 Board meeting was approved as an accurate record 

9.2 Matters arising from previous meetings 

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

MB 427 - AR noted that the DfE team would review and respond. 

MB 435 - PL noted that this could build contacts between the Board and forum members. 

MB 444 - PL encouraged Non-Executive Directors to attend the teach-in on plan types. 

MB 446 - the expectation was noted that the TOC ToR would be reviewed by June. 

9.3 Board Workplan 

The themes of Perform, Reform, and Transform, and the reporting of LLE, DSA, and ASF were all noted as important on the 2026-27 Board Workplan. 

The Board noted the 2026-27 Board Workplan. 

10. Any other business 

PL thanked everyone for their support during his tenure as SLC Chair. 

10.1 Date of Next Meeting 

The next meeting was confirmed as being at 10:00 on Thursday 30 April 2026, by Teams with Executive hosting from the Glasgow Boardroom. 

There being no other business the meeting ended at 13:30