Correspondence

ESFA e-bulletin for academies: 1 February 2018

Published 1 February 2018

This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2019

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. The EFA e-bulletin has been replaced by ESFA Update.

Applies to England

1. Reminder: academies admissions arrangements

Academies must have determined their admissions arrangements for entry in September 2019 by 28 February 2018. They must publish their admissions arrangements on their website and send a copy to their local authority by 15 March 2018.

Academies must also publish their timetables for organising and hearing admission appeals on their websites by 28 February 2018.

Please follow the statutory requirements in both the School Admissions Code and the School Admission Appeals Code when determining admissions arrangements and organising admission appeals.

The school workforce census is a statutory data collection. You have a legal obligation to submit a return. You can see what you must provide by law.

2. Reminder: deadline for T level consultations approaching

We would like to remind institutions that the deadline for responding to the consultation on the implementation of T level programmes and consultation on occupational maps closes on 8 February 2018. We would like to thank all the delegates that attended the consultation events, which took place in January. Your responses to these consultations are important to make sure T levels are a success.

3. Action: national non-domestic rates claims

If you haven’t yet claimed for national non-domestic rates (NNDR) for the 2017 to 2018 financial year, you should complete the online claims form by 31 March 2018.

Depending on monthly payment deadlines, ESFA will make payment within 2 months of receiving a claim.

We’ll refresh the form in April 2018 to allow claims for financial year 2018 to 2019 to be submitted. It will still be available for claims for 2015 to 2016, 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018.

If you need to make additional claims for 2014 to 2015 and financial years prior to this, you should contact us using our enquiry form. Please attach relevant invoices relating to the additional claims.

4. Action: Get information about schools link not working

We’re aware of an issue accessing the get information about schools website via secure access. Please use the following steps to update your school records.

1. Navigate to: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/.
2. Sign in with your secure access details.
3. Edit/confirm your establishment details.
4. Navigate back to the secure access website and the link will be updated and services unlocked.

5. Action: user research – Information Exchange

The Information Exchange is an ESFA business to business portal for the exchange of information between the agency and our partners. We want to talk to anyone who actively engages with the Information Exchange portal to understand your user experience and interactions with the system.

5.1 Meeting times:

Wednesday, 7 February 2018	Monday, 12 February 2018
10am - 11am	10am - 11am
11.30am – 12.30pm	11.30am – 12.30pm
1pm - 2pm	1pm - 2pm
2.30pm – 3.30pm	2.30pm – 3.30pm
4pm – 5pm	4pm – 5pm

To join us for a one-hour web meeting, please email PDS.MAILBOX@education.gov.uk stating your preferred slot and we will confirm your place. If you can’t make these times but would like to take part – please email us and we’ll arrange a suitable time with you.

This research will help us identify what works well for you and where we may need to make improvements. We hope you are able to join us and share your insights.