Change of Circumstances
Where your circumstances have changed since 31st December last:
The means test for your grant application is normally based on your (or your family's) income in the last full financial year. Therefore, if you apply for a student grant for the academic year 2009-10, your eligibility will be assessed on income from the 2008 financial year.
However, if you or your family have had a change of circumstances in the meantime that is likely to be permanent, then your eligibility for the grant may be assessed to reflect those changed circumstances.
For example, where a dependent student's parent experiences a permanent change in income level (through reduction in working hours, unemployment, etc) then they can apply to their local authority/VEC to have their eligibility for a grant assessed on the basis of the new income level.
It is important therefore, when you are applying for a student grant, to inform the local authority/VEC if there has been a permanent change of circumstances since 31st December last.
These assessments are dealt with as follows for the 2009-10 academic year:
- Adverse change in circumstances since 31st December 2008 will be based on revised income rather than income for the year ended 31st December 2008. Awards or adjustments where an adverse change in reckonable income occurs will be made with effect from the college term in which the change of circumstances occurs.
- Positive change in circumstances since 31st December 2008 will not affect eligibility to grant aid in the 2009-10 academic year. However, eligibility to grant aid in subsequent academic years will be based on income to the 31st December of the year prior to renewal of grant aid.
- Overtime payments: Where it can be demonstrated definitively that overtime payments are not of a recurrent nature, the local authority/VEC may disregard such payments when assessing the reckonable income of grant applicants. A letter from the employer, stating that overtime will not recur in the current tax year, should be given to the assessing authority. In addition it will be necessary to provide evidence, for example a P60, of gross salary for the preceding tax year (i.e. a P60 for 2007 and 2008). All such cases will be reassessed in the following academic year.
