To the Student Loan Company board minutes, then – increasingly the best way to find out about the government’s lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) plans.

We’ve two meetings on offer – November 2023 and February 2024, meaning that the one we really wanted (the January 2024 meeting all about the LLE) is yet to turn up.

Last time we covered minutes from July and September 2023, learning about a “risk to launch in 2025” because of “sub-optimal core systems”. It looks like the technical debt was worse than anticipated.

We hear from February’s meeting that:

The revised approach to LLE required a new, fourth platform and that this should be a transitional and not enduring state. TOC welcomed the planned IPA review but did reflect that the risks to delivering LLE were substantial and that it was imperative risks were addressed

This is a big step up from previous plans to build the underpinnings of the LLE on top of previous systems – and to take such a risk (we’d have to see design, development, testing, and roll-out in an alarmingly short 18 month period) the issues faced with that plan must have been insurmountable. One does not, in the friendliest possible way, decide to build a new platform to handle the distribution of billions of pounds of public funds in less than two years unless there is a good reason.

The “IPA review” isn’t just an account of all the beers they’ll need to buy the development team at this point – it refers to the government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which more usually gets stuck into the management and delivery of large projects like new roads and power stations. We don’t by default get to see these reviews – but the DfE’s accounting officer for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (the redoubtable Susan Acland-Hood) noted in April that

“The main feasibility risk of LLE is meeting the 2025 delivery timescale. There is little leeway in the critical path to 2025, and there are factors outside of the programme team’s control that may delay the reform.

Though the accounting officer review (noted in the November SLC board minutes and the avowed topic of the missing January minutes) ends on a positive note – “A recent review recognised that the programme has so far successfully managed to deliver on time, despite its complexities” – there are clearly still fundamental questions about the LLE infrastructure that need to be addressed.

November also confirms that, despite promises to the contrary, the “alternative student finance” (sharia-compliant loans) offer will not come alongside the LLE, but will follow the delivery of the main project.

And imagine the delight of SLC board members at a chat with Office for Students chief executive Susan Lapworth. She was keen to emphasise how much like OfGem (the UK’s energy regulator) OfS is, and the conversation touched on the issues explored recently by the public accounts committee concerning fraud and franchise provision.