HEP bulletin - February 2026

Last updated: 27 Feb 2026

Worklists

Please review and clear your registration, attendance, and Change of Circumstance (CoC) worklists for academic year (AY) 2025/26. This includes any outstanding items from previous years.

You should only submit attendance confirmations once the cooling‑off period has passed. This is in line with your student terms and conditions. After doing so, you must follow up any non‑attendance codes with the appropriate CoC.

Timely and accurate updates allow us to reassess a student’s award. We do so based on the information you provide, making sure that account records remain correct. This also helps us minimise overpayments to students and recover any tuition fee overpayments.

For postgraduate students who take a temporary break from their studies, please notify us via a suspension CoC. If the student remains suspended, do not submit a ‘not registered’ (N) code. The account should sit on the registration worklist until you submit a resumption or withdrawal notification.

There's guidance on attendance submission and registration confirmations on the HEP Services website.

Registration confirmations

Once you've confirmed a student's registration please follow up with the appropriate attendance confirmation.

You should check your worklists for attendance confirmations that have come back onto the worklist after a student's reassessment. Once you've done this, make sure to confirm the change with an ’A’ code.

If the details are not correct, please contact our Partners Support Desk.

You can find information on attendance confirmation definitions on the HEP Services website.

Updating courses on Courses Management Service (CMS) for AY 2026/27

You should now have updated all your full time undergraduate courses and postgraduate master's courses for Scotland domiciled students on our CMS. Please prioritise any that remain outstanding.

You can find guidance on how to submit your courses on the HEP Services website.

CMS open for AY 2026/27 postgraduate course submissions

CMS is now open for AY 2026/27 master’s and doctoral course submissions. All AY 2025/26 courses are now rolled over and are available for you to review and save. Please complete submissions by 10 April 2026.

As continuing students do not reapply for finance, it’s important that you roll over all relevant courses. We recommend running an unsaved course export to help identify any courses that may not have transferred across.

Please also check that course details are accurate and aligned with policy. For master’s courses (England only), part‑time duration must not exceed twice the full‑time equivalent. Doctoral courses should include a clear subject identifier.

Full-time undergraduate application services for AY 2026/27

Full-time undergraduate application services are opening on 23 March 2026. This applies to Student Finance England, Student Finance Wales and Student Finance Northern Ireland.

Scottish students for all courses can apply to SAAS during the first week in April.

We'll communicate the application service dates for part-time undergraduate and postgraduate students once we have confirmed them.

Independent status – automated award processing

We've found an issue affecting some automated awards that rely on independent status. Some students are not being picked up correctly. This happens because the information displayed in the Bursary Administration Service (BAS) does not always match the back‑end assessment. The back-end assessment is what determines award eligibility.

In these cases, the award does not generate because the assessment is not complete. The student needs to confirm independent status before the assessment is complete. Even if BAS shows the student as independent, the back‑end assessment is functioning correctly.

If you find a student who appears independent in BAS but has not received an automatic award, please contact us before issuing a manual award. We can then confirm their correct independent status.

Core BAS subscribers with any concerns about independent status should also contact us for verification.

We are working on a fix. However, due to uplift activity and dependencies on other systems, we cannot currently provide a resolution date.

If you have any questions, please contact us at bursary_admin@slc.co.uk.

Reminder – matching amounts needed on withdrawal CoCs

When submitting a Withdrawal CoC, the Tuition Fee Requested and Total Tuition Fee Charged fields must match. If these amounts differ, the system uses the lower value within the student’s tuition fee loan request form. This can reduce the fee shown to the student and lead to incorrect loan requests.

Please make sure both figures match before submitting a withdrawal CoC.

You can find information on withdrawal CoCs on the HEP Services website.

Save the date – Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) CMS training events

We're pleased to announce a programme of in‑person LLE CMS training events. We've designed them to support HEP colleagues responsible for course uploads to CMS. The sessions will run from 10am to 4pm.

Each event will feature three workshop sessions covering:

  • LLE course eligibility
  • Interpreting the LLE CMS service definition
  • Uploading courses to the CMS database

As we expect strong demand, please register no more than two delegates from your provider.

Event dates and locations:

  • 24 March – Hilton Metropole, London
  • 26 March – The Village Hotel Solihull, Birmingham
  • 31 March – The Marriott, Cardiff
  • 14 April – DoubleTree by Hilton, Bath
  • 16 April – The Lowry Hotel, Manchester
  • 30 April – Malmaison, York
  • Date TBC – Student Loans Company, Glasgow

Further details, including registration information, will follow shortly.

Please save the date and share with relevant colleagues within your organisation.