Guidance

Coronavirus (COVID-19) 16 to 19 tuition fund: how to complete the form

Updated 8 November 2022

This guidance was withdrawn on 27 September 2023

This has been withdrawn as it is out of date.

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The coronavirus (COVID-19) 16 to 19 tuition fund was first provided for the 2020 to 2021 academic year and has been extended up to the 2023 to 2024 academic year.

This guidance helps you to report an underspend of your 16 to 19 tuition fund allocation. We will provide you with a summary of your allocations for the 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 academic years. You will only see information for the years that you have received an allocation.

For more information, see the COVID-19 16 to 19 tuition fund guidance for 2022 to 2023.

1.1 About the funding underspends

As a condition for opting into the 16 to 19 tuition fund, institutions were required to keep an accurate record of the amount of the fund they had spent from their allocation. Any underspend of this allocation must be reported to ESFA using the form.

We confirmed that any underspend for the 2020 to 2021 academic year could be rolled over to the 2021 to 2022 academic year. From 2021 to 2022, all unspent tuition fund across the 2-year period must be reported and will be recovered.

You are required to report what has been spent in each year. We will then calculate the level of unspent funds for each year.

You must still return the form where you have used all of your allocation on eligible activity, as detailed in the tuition fund guidance.

We will explain the process for returning any underspend after we have received your form.

2. When to complete your submission

The deadline to complete the form is 6:00pm on 24 October 2022.

If we do not receive your return by the deadline, we will assume that you did not spend anything and your full allocation may be recovered.

3. Accessing the form

Access the 16 to 19 tuition fund recovery form to report an underspend of your 16 to 19 tuition fund allocation.

3.1 Before you start

Make sure you have:

• read this guidance
• a DfE Sign-in account - the link to DfE Sign-in opens in new tab: https://services.signin.education.gov.uk
• your UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN). If you do not know this, you can find it by searching the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKRLP)
• your tuition fund spend for the 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 academic years
• the amount of tuition fund carried over at the end of 2020 to 2021 (if any)

3.2 Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account:

1. Access the 16 to 19 tuition fund recovery form.
2. Sign in using your DfE Sign-in account information (username and password).
3. Choose the organisation for which you are completing the form.
4. If you are part of an FE college or a multi-academy trust and have more than one eligible campus or institute, please choose the individual campus/institute you want to complete the form for.
5. The next page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you logged in. This will show the name, address, and URN or UKPRN of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who logged in via DfE Sign-in.
6. If these details are correct, select ‘continue’ to move to the next page.
7. If you believe they’re incorrect or you are experiencing issues accessing the form, contact us via the ESFA help centre and we will investigate.
8. Complete the form as instructed in the following sections.

Your account must be connected to the organisation you are registering interest for.

You do not need to add any services in DfE Sign-in. It is used for authentication only and the form will not appear in your list of services.

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account

You will need to create one:

1. Access DfE Sign-in.
2. Select the ‘create a DfE Sign-in account.’
3. Enter your name and a valid business email address, which also contains your name.
4. We will send you an email to verify your email address. Copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page.
5. Create a memorable password of a minimum of 8 characters, which must include 2 upper case characters, 2 lower and 2 numbers.
6. Sign in using your new credentials, select ‘organisations’ and then ‘request an organisation’; enter the URN or name of your establishment. The request will be sent to the DfE Sign-in approver for the organisation, to approve your request.

You might have noticed the term ‘approver’ when creating your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as an administrator or a manager.

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined ‘sign into your DfE Sign-in account’ to complete the form.

For security reasons you will need the approval of one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

3.3 If you need further assistance

If you are having problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service. You will be able to request further assistance if required. When raising a support request, select ‘other.’

If you believe you are an eligible institution but have problems accessing the form, please contact us via the ESFA help centre.

4.  Completing the form

You will find a ‘save and continue’ button on each page of the form. If you have to sign out of the form before submitting it, you can resume your submission when you sign back in.

We will tell you what happens next once you have submitted the form.

Selecting ‘continue’ on each page will take you through the form.

4.1 Conditions for accessing this funding

You must be an institution that had 16 to 19 tuition funding allocated to you for the 2020 to 2021 or 2021 to 2022 academic years.

4.2 Select your local authority

You must select the correct local authority for your institution from the dropdown list. Selecting an incorrect local authority will result in not displaying your previous allocation(s).

4.3 Start page

After selecting the link on the ‘Start your submission’ page you will be presented with information that provides more details about this data collection.

4.4  Your details

This page will display the details we hold about your institution, including the name and email of the person who logged into DfE Sign-in.

4.5 Your allocations for the 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 academic years

You should only choose the academic years you wish to submit your spend for. If you had no allocation for an academic year, you should leave it unselected.

You must choose at least one option out to continue.

You will then be presented with the pages to enter your spend for the academic year(s) selected and will be asked if you have any funding carried over from 2020 to 2021 into the 2021 to 2022 academic year. This will sum up your overall spend.

4.6 Declarations page

Once you have completed your submission, you will be presented with a number of declarations to complete, which require you to enter your name and position within your institution.

You will not be able to submit your form without agreeing to these declarations.

4.7 Summary page

Once you have completed your submission, you will be presented with your submission summary. Please check your answers before submitting your form.

Take a screengrab of this page should you wish to keep a breakdown of what information you have put into the form.

You will then see the confirmation page.

4.8 Confirmation

The final page confirms your form has been submitted successfully and will give you a unique reference number. If you have provided us with your email address in the form, you will also receive a confirmation email.

Make a note of your claim reference number, as this information is not part of the confirmation email.

We will review your submission and may contact you if additional information is required.

4.9 Resubmitting your claim form

There is no amend facility in the form. If you have submitted your form incorrectly, you can access the form and resubmit until 6:00pm on 24 October 2022, when this submission window closes. To do this, you will need to sign in and update the relevant information.

If you make a second submission, we will take the details of the most recently submitted form and disregard previous versions.

Claims can be submitted or resubmitted until the deadline by selecting the link to the claim form. It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline.

If you submit an amended claim, you will receive a new unique submission reference.

5. Enquiries

If you have read this guidance and have any questions about the 16 to 19 tuition fund 2022 to 2023, please contact us via the ESFA help centre.

When completing the enquiry form, select ‘other’ as your query type.