Hardship Fund

The purpose of the Hardship Fund is to support students in financial difficulty enabling them to progress on their course and to reach a successful outcome. The award from the fund is a non-repayable grant and is a contribution to your costs and should not be used as a principal source of funding. The Fund has a financial limit and students can only apply once per academic year. 

The scheme is open on the 20th September 2023 and will close on the 20th April 2024 for final year students, and the 18th May 2024 for continuing students. Final year students applying from April 8th will be assessed for the final term only. 

The Student Money Team is a member of the National Association of Student Money Advisers (NASMA), and we use their procedures for assessing each hardship application.  We use a strict formula that compares income and expenditure.  The income is calculated from all relevant sources and appropriate disregards are applied. Examples include maintenance loans, welfare benefits, savings etc. The expenditure is calculated for all essential items after applying appropriate ceilings. These include food, bills, clothes, travel, course costs etc.  We deduct assessed expenditure from total income and any shortfall is identified, and a contribution is made towards this. 

Assessments are calculated for the full academic year depending on the level of the course (Undergraduate or Postgraduate) and duration of the course, longer for nursing students.

Students who are repeating part of the year will only be assessed for 1 semester as it is expected that you can work in the semester you are not repeating, unless you have limited capability for work. 

Priority Groups

• Within the calculation, there are certain allowances which result in priority being given to certain groups, including:
• Students with children (especially lone parents)
• Carers (not for a child)
• Disabled students (especially where DSA is unable to meet particular costs)
• Care experienced students and students from Foyers or those who are homeless (see other support)
• Students receiving the final year (reduced) Government Student Loan rate
• Students (25 and under) that are estranged from their family (defined by the relationship between the family and student breaking down and becoming irreconcilable)     

Non-Essential Spending

Students need to be aware that an unreasonable amount of non-essential spending on bank statements will be taken into consideration and may have a negative impact on your award. You may be asked to have a mandatory budgetary appointment with one of our Money Advisers before a payment can be made. Students who are spending large amounts of money on socialising we consider are not in financial hardship and should not be applying to the hardship fund. We deem non-essential spending to be plenty of night outs, numerous taxi journeys, takeaways and gambling.

Students, where gambling is having an impact on their finances, will be asked to attend three mandatory sessions with GAMCARE. They are a leading provider of information, advice and support for anyone affected by gambling harms.

Debt

Students who have priority debts will be considered in the assessment and a contribution made to these costs will be included. Examples of priority debts include rent arrears where eviction is likely, unpaid energy bills where the power may be turned off etc.   It does not include bank overdrafts, credit card bills, or debts to families and friends. Students in those situations should seek free debt advice from agencies who can help you find ways of repaying debt affordably.  

Non-standard awards

Students that do not receive an award from a ‘standard’ hardship assessment may be considered for a ‘non-standard’ assessment instead or in addition. Non-standard awards are agreed upon at the discretion of the Head of Student Money.

Where circumstances are exceptional, a student may be awardedboth a standard and non-standard award.

Students expecting their first child

Students who are pregnant with their first child are eligible to receive a non-standard payment of £500 which is paid to them in the form of a grant. The grant is in line with the Sure Start Maternity Grant which full-time students cannot apply for until their baby is born.

The grant is paid to the student 11 weeks prior to their due date and the student can also apply to the Hardship Fund in the normal way.

All applications must be accompanied by the relevant evidence. We ask you to attach the relevant evidence at the end of the Hardship Application form and these must be in a PDF format. We cannot accept screenshots as this delays the process considerably.  It is important that you try and upload all the evidence required on the form as sending it later again delays the outcome of your award. If you must send late evidence, please email studentmoney@leedsbeckett.ac.uk .

We ask for evidence because we need to verify the claims you are making in your supporting statement and to discover if you are in fact in financial hardship. This information is confidential and can only be read by the Student Money Team in Student Services. We keep records in line with the University’s retention policy which can be viewed in our privacy policy.

Examples of the types of evidence include the following;

• Student Finance Entitlement letter. This is the letter you can access from your Student Finance Account and shows how much your tuition fees and the amount of maintenance loan you will receive.
• Bank statements. We require the latest 3 months of bank statements, and you must include any other bank accounts e.g., savings accounts.
• Tenancy/Mortgage Agreement. We need to see clearly your name on the agreement, length of contract and the monthly/yearly rent amount.
• This list is not exhaustive and depending on your situation we also ask for the following;
• Evidence of Universal Credit payments and other welfare benefits
• Evidence of estrangement or care experienced status
• Income and bank statements from a spouse
• Personal Independence Payments (PIP) if you have a disability
• Priority debts. For example, if you are in arrears with your rent and you are facing eviction.
• Pay slips from postgraduate students.

Please allow 20 working days (approx. 4 weeks) before you hear whether you have been awarded a payment. We try and aim to do this in less time, but the service gets extremely busy with a high volume of applications. Each application must be assessed, and all evidence checked before an award can be made. It is important that you try and submit all evidence in your application as sending it later only delays the outcome of your award.

 If there has been a material change in financial circumstances since the initial application, please complete a Change of Circumstances form.

If you have a query about the status of your application or would like more information about the Hardship Fund, you don’t need to make an appointment and we can usually answer your questions over the phone or by email.

Email - studentmoney@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Phone - 0113 812 6701

Our Money Advisers can help with any questions you have about your funding, welfare benefits and help from the university.

You can contact our Money Advice Line to speak to one of our Money Advisers on 0113 812 5593 between 10 and 12 Monday to Thursday, or you can complete a Money Advice contact request form and we will try to contact you within 2 working days.