Student Finance England (SFE)

Contact information and advice for students and advisers.

Any students who need to contact student finance England should consider the following.

Student helplines (SFE) 
Undergraduate queries
Telephone: 0300 100 0607
Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday, 9am to 4pm

Further Education queries
Telephone: 0300 100 0619
Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday, 9am to 4pm

If a student would like an SU adviser to contact SFE on their behalf, specific and detailed consent must be shared so an SU adviser can contact the practitioners helpline.

The following is advice from SFE in regard to sharing consent with your SU adviser. 

Consent to share
Students may sometimes want someone else to call us on their behalf, but we cannot speak to anyone about their account without their permission. This includes their parents, partners, legal representatives, or anyone else.
Students can give us permission to set up ‘consent to share’ with a third party, allowing us to discuss their account information with somebody else. They can do this either:
 

• as a one-off during a phone call with the third party

• on an ongoing basis by setting up an agreement

Types of consent.

One-off consent to share.
The student can give their permission for a third party to speak on their behalf during a phone call as long as they are both present during the call. This permission ends when the call ends.

If the student gives their verbal agreement, the third party can:

• speak on behalf of the student
• request information about their account
• ask us to send forms, letters or emails to the student

The third party cannot:

• update any account information
• access or change their payment information

The student will be able to access or change their information during the call.

Ongoing consent to share
The student can give a third party ongoing permission to access their account either by calling us or sending us a form.
Once the student has given permission, the third party can:

• call us on behalf of the student

• request information about their account

• ask us to send forms, letters or emails to the student

The third party cannot:

• update any account information
• access or change their payment information

A student can set up ongoing consent to share with up to 2 third parties.

How to give permission
By phone
 

If the student wants to give permission as a one-off, they just have to give their verbal agreement when they’re on the phone to us with a third party.
If the student wants to give permission on an ongoing basis, they can either phone us or use a form. It’s usually quicker to phone.
Before they give permission, they should be made aware of what this arrangement means and that they can cancel the arrangement at any time by calling us.
The student will need to call and tell us they want to set up 'consent to share’. They’ll need to give us the following information:
 

• their Customer Reference Number
• their full name and address
• the full name of the third party
• the home or business address of the third party, including postcode
• the date of birth of the third party
• the third party’s relationship to the them
• a shared password, which needs to be different from their account login password
• the date they want the consent to share arrangement to last until
• the name of the university, college or organisation the third party is from, if this applies

By using a form

If the student wants to send a form, you can download the form and fill in the required details and send it to them. They can then add any other required information and upload it to their student finance account or post it to us.
Ask the student to tell you once they have uploaded or posted their form. You'll then be able to call us and tell us that you are calling on behalf of a student who has submitted a consent to share form.
Once the form has been received, you’ll be able to speak to us about the student’s account.

 

If the student cannot give permission

We'll need legal evidence of the third party's permission to manage the student's finances on their behalf, for example Power of Attorney or a Deputyship. The person with the legal permission should contact us.
More information is available at this Government website

After you’ve got permission
You will need the following information when you call: 
 

• the student’s Customer Reference Number
• the student’s full name and address
• your full name
• your home or business address, including postcode
• your date of birth
• your relationship to the student
• the shared password
• the date the consent to share lasts until
• the name of your university, college or organisation, if this applies.

If you would like an SU adviser to contact SFE (or any other funding body such as SFW (Wales) SFNI (Northern Ireland) , you should book an appointment with us via https://ehsuadvice.simplybook.it/v2/#book