ALF GUIDANCE NOTES
The notes are divided into several sections (shown below). If you still require clarification before submitting your application please contact the Student Financial Support Team, The
Student Support Hub, Foster Building 058, 01772 892583, SFSTeam@uclan.ac.uk
• How to complete the application form
• General Notes
• What to do when your application is complete
• Information on how your application will be assessed
• Timetable for making a decision
• How to appeal
HOW TO COMPLETE AN APPLICATION
* Complete the application by tabbing through each section and completing the application. If a section of the application is not relevant simply type N/A. Please print and sign the declaration and email to us. The Declaration can be downloaded here: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/money/alf_forms_guides.php
* Provide us with scanned copies of your evidence and email to us at
ATLFund@uclan.ac.uk
, there is a checklist at the start of the application for you to indicate what you intend to send to us. If a piece of evidence on the list is not relevant to you simply put N/A.
* Once you have completed your form and scanned all your evidence please send to
ATLFund@uclan.ac.uk
* Regularly check your emails in case we request further information and inform us of any change in your circumstances or personal information e.g. change of email address as soon as possible.
* In some circumstances you may be invited to attend an appointment either face to face or over the phone.
If you have any questions about what documentation you need to provide please contact the
Student Financial Support Team:
SFS Team, Student Support Hub, Foster Building 058, UCLan, Preston PR1 2HE
Telephone: 01772 892583
Email: ATLFund@uclan.ac.uk
Fax: 01772 892939

GENERAL NOTES
What is the Access to Learning Fund?
The Access to Learning Fund provides discretionary financial assistance for students to access and remain in higher education – particularly those students who need financial help to meet extra costs that cannot be met from other sources of support. The fund can help alleviate unexpected financial hardship. Students who may be considering leaving higher education because of financial problems are particularly encouraged to apply. Any help you receive from the fund is usually non-repayable. The deadline for the submission of applications is 31st March 2015. It is advisable to submit applications as early as possible as the Access to Learning Fund is cash limited.
Help With Tuition Fees
In most cases, the fund cannot help with the payment of tuition fees. Instead, if you are a full time or part time undergraduate student, you can apply for help through Student Finance
England or equivalent funding body. Please visit https://www.gov.uk/student-finance or call
0300 1000 607 for further information.
Who Can Apply?
Eligibility: The Access to Learning Fund is for HOME students registered on a course. A
HOME student is defined as a person who meets certain residency conditions (the same conditions apply to eligibility for student support, for example, the student loan). Usually this means you have an unrestricted right to enter and remain in the UK, and you have been ordinarily resident in the UK for three years prior to the start of your course. None of this time must have been wholly or mainly for the purpose of receiving full time education.
Overseas and EU students who are eligible for tuition fee support CANNOT apply to the
Access to Learning Fund. For further information on support available if you are an EU or
Overseas Student please contact The Student Union Advice Centre 01772 894880 for advice and guidance or contact the International Office 01772 895024.
1) Undergraduate students, either full time or part time, including part time distance learners, following a higher education course, including sandwich courses and any period of placement.
2) Full-time and part-time students on a postgraduate course (including distance learners) following a course that is a minimum of 1 year, and providing that part-time postgraduate students are studying at least 50% per academic year for courses starting before 1 September 2012 and 25% per each academic year for courses starting on or after 1 September 2012 of a full-time equivalent course.
3) NHS students eligible to apply for a means-tested bursary or a non means-tested bursary (e.g. continuing Diploma students)
Intercalating Students
If you are a ‘home’ student and you have not permanently withdrawn from your studies and you intend to return after your time out you are eligible to apply for help from the fund. For

example, if you are unable to attend your course for health or caring reasons or some other unavoidable circumstances you can apply for help.
Priorities For Assistance
The fund is there to help any eligible student who has a particular financial need, but we cannot meet every application we receive and we cannot always meet all the costs that you might apply for. The Government asks us to give priority to the following groups of students when deciding how to allocate the funding
The priority groups are:
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Students with children (especially lone parents)
Students with existing financial commitments, including priority debts
Disabled students
Students who have entered higher education from care
Students who are homeless
Students receiving the final year loan rate, who are in financial difficulty
Postgraduate students who have been unable to secure alternative funding i.e.
Professional and Career Development Loan or paid employment.
Short-Term Loans from the Access to Learning Fund
If you have not yet received the first payment of your student funding at the start of the term you can apply for a loan from the Access to Learning Fund. You will be expected to repay this loan when your first loan instalment arrives. You may also be able to borrow money from the fund if you experience unforeseen, short-term financial difficulties.
Disabled Students
The fund can be used to contribute towards the costs of assessments for specific learning difficulties. You will need to contact Disability Services, 01772 892593 to arrange this. If you wish to apply for any other disability related support NOT covered by Disabled Student
Allowance you should discuss this with Disability Services who will refer you to the Access to
Learning Fund if appropriate.
PART 1 / 2 / 3: Personal details / Household Details / Course details
Complete ALL sections and provide evidence where indicated with an
Address – please put the address that is to be used for correspondence (include the postcode)
Telephone number – Please include the area code.
Email - If you have any queries this is the quickest way to contact you so make sure you check your emails regularly.
PART 4: Your Income
Complete ALL sections
– any section not applicable to you, please mark as N/A.
Maintenance Loan – Please put the maximum loan you receive. This is indicated on your
Student Finance breakdown that you should have received from your funding authority. If eligible, you must have taken out a Maintenance Loan before receiving help from the Access to Learning Fund. In the case of students applying for loans you must have applied for and received the first instalment of your full assessed entitlement.
Tax Credits and Benefits – Please provide details of any Benefits / Tax Credits you or your partner receive including a full breakdown of how they have been calculated. This usually means all pages of notifications are required. Please ensure that the dates and information shown on the Notifications correspond with your circumstances during the academic year.
For example, if you are a new student and previously been in receipt of Housing Benefit

before you started University, you may have a notification showing this, but the income used as part of the Housing Benefit assessment may change as a result of the change to your income when you become a full-time student and therefore a new notification from the date you started your course would be required.
Other income – Please include any other income you or your partner has, including savings, and specify what that income is.
Partner’s income – If you have a partner who is living with you, including a civil partner, please indicate any income they have – If you have a P60 from the most recent tax year, please also supply 3 recent months wage slips to support this.
General advice about Benefits / Tax Credits can be sought from the Students’ Union Advice
Centre (01772 894880), www.uclansu.co.uk/advice . If you are unsure of what benefits / tax credits you could be entitled to we recommend you seek advice as soon as possible to ensure you are claiming all the income you are entitled to.
Complete ALL sections and provide evidence to support your application. Please note we will require proof you are paying your rent, this will be on your bank statements.
PART 5: Accommodation
Complete ALL sections and provide evidence relevant to support your application. Please note we will require proof you are paying your rent, this will be on your bank statements we will also require a valid Tenancy, Rent Statement or Mortgage Statement.
.
PART 6: Travel Costs
Complete ALL sections and provide evidence relevant to support your application. In some cases where Benefits / Tax Credits are being reassessed, or you have not applied for benefits you could be entitled to, we may include assumed amounts / estimates of what we believe you should be entitled to when processing your application. We may then reassess your application if final notifications show different amounts from the estimates we have used.
PART 7: Other Dependants
Complete if relevant. Give details of all dependants who may not live with you that you have responsibilities for and provide as much evidence / explanations as possible. If applicable it may be necessary to provide further detail in your personal statement.
PART 8: Childcare Costs
Complete if relevant. Please ensure that you have included your childcare provider’s telephone number(s) and proof of the number of sessions per week your child(ren) attends.
Please ask your childcare provider to complete the Childcare Cost Sheet this can be downloaded from http://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/money/alf_forms_guides.php
.
PART 9: Supporting Statement
You must submit a supporting statement, briefly explaining the reason(s) for applying and what you would like assistance with. If you feel that debt is an issue we would recommend that you seek professional advice fr om a debt advisory service, such as the Students’ Union
Advice Centre or your local Citizens Advice Bureau. If you have negotiated a debt repayment plan with the help of a recognised debt advice service you can include details of this with your application.
*Please note we do consider exceptional circumstances through the fund. If you were previously a Foyer resident, homeless or have been in Local Authority care, please declare in this section of the application form. If you have experienced unexpected or exceptional

circumstances that have affected you financially please provide explanations and any evidence relating to this.
PART 10: Financial Statement
Complete ALL sections and provide evidence relevant to support your application.
For any debit / credit transactions of £100 or over on your bank statements, please indicate next to each transaction what it was for. We will use this information to verify your income and expenditure, if there are transactions that require further explanation we will contact you for clarification and further evidence if appropriate. Requests for further information may delay your application, so please ensure that accurate and clear explanations are given.
This may relate to regular deposits (e.g. money from parents) or transfers to other accounts
(e.g. savings) that you have not declared. If you do not provide details of all your bank accounts, your application may be suspended.
.
PART 11: Nominated Bank Account
Complete this section and sign the declaration to say the details given are correct. You will also need to agree where ALF awards are payable to. If you do not provide these details any award given will be made as a cheque posted to your correspondence address.
PART 12: Disability / Special Needs
Complete if relevant. Please note that if you, your partner or child is in receipt of Disability
Living Allowance (DLA) this will not be included as income in the assessment, however additional expenditure maybe included in the calculation to reflect your household circumstances. Please provide proof of DLA if you or a member of your household is in receipt of this.
PARTS 13 / 14 : Confidentiality / Data Protection / Legal Statement
For your information only.
PART 15 : Declaration
Please print and sign the declaration which can be downloaded here: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/money/alf_forms_guides.php
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR APPLICATION IS COMPLETE
Once you have completed the form and have the required documents we recommend you contact us to make an appointment with one of the advisors to go through the application form with you. If you are unable to attend an appointment you can hand-in or post your application, together with photocopies of your evidence or scan and email the documents to
ATLFund@uclan.ac.uk
. Please note that if you submit the application without an appointment and not all of the required evidence is present, this can delay your application.
The ‘date submitted’ will be the date all the required evidence is received and complete,
NOT the date you handed in the application.
HOW WILL YOUR APPLICATION BE ASSESSED
Your application will be trea ted either as a ‘standard’ or a ‘non-standard’ claim. We will assess ‘standard’ applications under an additional need method that looks at the difference between accepted REASONABLE expenditure and EXPECTED income. If you have unforeseen circumstances your application can then be considered under a ‘non-standard’ assessment. The assessment process for ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ awards is designed to identify students who have particular financial needs and those who are in unforeseen financial difficulty. This should result in most of the available funding being directed towards students with a low income and those who have exceptionally high course costs.
Standard Awards

Standard Awards can help meet general costs associated with being a full-time undergraduate student such as living costs e.g. rent, mortgage payments, food, utility bills etc. In addition to this, assistance with course related costs such as childcare, travel, books and field trips available for all students, including part-time and postgraduate students.
For full-time undergraduate students being assessed for a standard award there is an assumed income, set as a realistic level - £1814 per year for full year students and £605 per year for final year students. This assumes income from a number of sources including part time work / additional support from your parents or partner/bank overdraft/savings etc. In certain situations this figure is removed or reduced.
For full time postgraduate students a weekly notional postgraduate income amount is applied to standard assessments. This is set at £172 for those studying outside London. For students with families and children, or those who are unable to work due to a disability this amount will be £139.There will also be a set level for expenditure, known as Composite
Living Costs, based upon state benefit amounts for general living costs such as food and usual household costs such as utility bills, mobile phones, entertainment etc. The relevant amount will be set depending on your circumstances, for example if you have children. This table outlines examples of rates used as ‘Composite Living Costs’.
Student Profile Weekly Composite Living Cost (CLC), based on DWP applicable amount
(assuming no disability in family)
£75 Single student
Student with partner £118
Student with partner &
2 children under 16*
Single parent student with 2 children under
16*
£274
£231
Non-Standard Awards
Non-Standard Awards can help to meet exceptional costs such as repairs to essential household equipment, assistance with priority debts and emergency situations (including travel costs for family illness or bereavement). Hardship due to burglary or fire can also be considered under the non-standard award assessment.
Where a student is seriously considering withdrawing from Higher Education, because financial difficulties are preventing them from continuing their course, we may assess for an award under the non-standard assessment. All Non-standard assessments are considered by a Panel on a case-by-case basis.
Change Of Circumstances
If during the academic year there is a change to your circumstances please complete the
Change of Circumstances form which is available to download from www.uclan.ac.uk/students/money/alf_forms_guides.php
. It is your responsibility to inform us of any changes.
TIMETABLE FOR MAKING A DECISION
Providing your application form has been accurately completed and the appropriate documentary evidence supplied, an assessment and decision should be made within 4-8

weeks, depending on the volume of applications received. You should also normally expect to receive a payment in this time. However, in some cases, we may need to defer your initial payment beyond 4-8 weeks to deal with a particular circumstance. If you are requesting an emergency loan or other short-term help, applications should be processed and paid within 1 working week and depending on your situation may be processed and paid within 24 hours in an emergency. If you have any difficulty completing the application form, please ask a member of staff for assistance.
HOW TO APPEAL
If you are not satisfied with the decision you may request an explanation of how the decision was made. If you then wish to appeal against the decision you can request an Appeal Form from the Student Financial Support Team, Student Support Hub, Foster Building 058,
UCLan, Preston PR1 2HE or by calling 01772 892583. Forms can also be downloaded from www.uclan.ac.uk/students/money/alf_forms_guides.php
.The appeal will be considered by the Director of Student and Academic Support Services or nominated member of the Senior
Management Team within the Student and Academic Support Services.