Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she made an assessment of the potential merits of in-house alternatives prior to the decision to transfer some Student Loans Company functions and staff to Capgemini on 8 October 2026.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) is operationally independent, so it is their responsibility to assess the merits of different options when making decisions on the delivery of functions.

The department understands the SLC did assess the potential merits of continuing in-house delivery of its infrastructure and operations function prior to the decision to contract out the service and found that this did not provide the best value for money.