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Add Disabled Students' Allowance#1594

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MaxGhenis merged 1 commit intomainfrom
add-disabled-students-allowance
Apr 15, 2026
Merged

Add Disabled Students' Allowance#1594
MaxGhenis merged 1 commit intomainfrom
add-disabled-students-allowance

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Summary

  • add a first-pass Student Finance England Disabled Students' Allowance model
  • use the published annual cap with explicit eligible-cost input rather than inventing a hidden award curve
  • add a narrow default qualifying-condition proxy with explicit override, and wire DSA into program metadata and benefit aggregates

Policy shape

This is intentionally a partial model.

GOV.UK publishes the annual DSA cap and the main eligibility rules, but actual awards depend on an individual needs assessment rather than a public formula. So this PR models:

  • England coverage via the existing Student Finance England proxy
  • default course eligibility via higher-education evidence, with explicit override
  • default qualifying-condition evidence via disability-benefit receipt or explicit blindness input, with explicit override for broader DSA-qualifying conditions
  • explicit equivalent-support exclusion
  • explicit annual eligible study-support costs, capped at the published annual maximum

It does not try to invent a synthetic average award curve.

Validation

Local checks passed:

  • uvx ruff check policyengine_uk/variables/gov/dfe/disabled_students_allowance policyengine_uk/variables/gov/gov_spending.py policyengine_uk/variables/household/income/household_benefits.py policyengine_uk/variables/household/income/hbai_benefits.py
  • uv run policyengine-core test policyengine_uk/tests/policy/baseline/gov/dfe/disabled_students_allowance/disabled_students_allowance.yaml

Focused policy tests cover:

  • reimbursement below the cap
  • cap at the published annual maximum
  • equivalent-support exclusion
  • the intentionally narrow default condition proxy
  • explicit course and condition overrides

Current baseline

On the local enhanced_frs_2023_24 check at 2025:

  • disabled_students_allowance spend: £0
  • positive recipients: 0
  • course-eligible share: 2.29%
  • default qualifying-condition proxy share: 7.34%
  • overlap share: 0.088%

That zero baseline is expected here because the amount side is explicit-cost driven and the survey does not observe DSA needs-assessment costs. So this PR adds the correct policy surface, but it is not calibration-ready on its own yet.

@MaxGhenis MaxGhenis merged commit 3be27a8 into main Apr 15, 2026
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@MaxGhenis MaxGhenis deleted the add-disabled-students-allowance branch April 15, 2026 03:53
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