Full time/part time student and DMG 42/10

My client (single, no disability, no children) has just dropped out of the access course that she had started because she has been advised that she is no longer entitled to JSA/HB/CTB because ‘student’s on access course are treated as full time students’.

After reading CPAG P.600 I was all set to write to the Jobcentre to protest that as acess courses are LSC funded and her personal learner agreement stated only 14 and a half hours per week, she was therefore a part time student and should be entitlement to JSA/HB/CTB. However, I then noticed DMG memo 42/10 which states that from 1st September 2010 the Learning and Skills council is removed from Social Security legislation with it’s functions being transferred to local authorities.

I am struggling to understand the implications that this change will have on my client’s situaiton. My understand from CPAG is that if not funded by the LSC, whether FT or PT is determined by the college’s defintion of the course with the amount of hours being irrelevent? If this is the case then a contact with the college to gain clarificaiton of the course classification should be sufficient to clarify my clients position and sufficinet evidence for the jobcentre is it is PT?