DSA Customer Survey 2009

Thank you to everyone who completed our annual Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) customer survey form
We have now collated all the responses we received. The results are shown here along with an outline of the main issues raised and what we are doing to address them.

Applications and Guidance

At the start of next year, we will review our annual DSA literature. Several of you suggested ways of trying to improve the guidance notes that accompany our application. The annual review will focus on improving the accompanying guidance notes as much as possible. We remain committed to developing an online service for DSA applications.

We will also review the information we provide on our website for students eligible to apply for DSA.

We are increasing the number of events we attend to raise awareness of student support, including DSA. In particular, we are highlighting the DSA application process within the schools and Further Education sector, to ensure that future students try and apply as early as possible, and are fully aware of the application process.

Needs Assessment

We have seen an increase in the number of you that are satisfied with the needs assessment process. However, some of you have indicated that the whole process was too long, with equipment not being received until well into the course. To help try and address this, there is a scheme in operation to establish an agreed quality assurance framework, under which assessments can be carried out. We now have 34 colleges and universities who are authorised to carry out assessments. Steps are in place to bring more institutions on board, which should further improve the efficiency of the whole DSA process.
You can apply for DSA and arrange an assessment of need with your institution in advance of the start of your course.

Other issues

We will aim to raise wider issues you raised with the Disabled Student Stakeholder Group (DSSG). The DSSG was established to consider and address issues relating to the support available to learners with additional needs in further and higher education. Further details on the group can be found here.

We hope that you find this information useful and thank you once again for your feedback. It is only by understanding what our customers think about our services and the whole DSA process that we can take steps to improve them.