Further and higher education - residency criteria for access to financial support: consultation analysis

1. Executive Summary

Following a judicial review hearing at the Court of Session, the Court issued a decision on 9 September 2022 declaring the long residence rules contained within the Students' Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2007 to be unlawful.

Although the regulations had since been repealed, mirrored long residence rules were contained within the current regulations, the Student Support (Scotland) Regulations 2022. At the time of the Court's decision, Scottish Ministers gave an undertaking to review the residency eligibility criteria in advance of the 2023/24 Academic Year (AY) which commences on 1 August 2023.

A public consultation was launched on 24 January 2023 and ran until 31 March 2023 in which 131 responses were received. Those responses along with stakeholder engagement carried out have helped to shape the new residency policies being laid before Parliament.

While the consultation has helped identify a number of important points which have been reflected in our response, it has also helped identify some areas where further consideration will now be required. These are set out in more detail in this document.

For the 2023/24 AY, the Scottish Government have amended their residency eligibility criteria in two areas, namely:

• Relevant connection to Scotland
• Young unaccompanied Asylum Seekers and children of Asylum Seekers

Further information on these changes are set out in this document.

The Scottish Government would like to thank everyone who took the time to provide a written response to the consultation exercise and who took the time to meet with officials especially those individuals who had been adversely impacted by the previous long residence rules.