Correspondence

ESFA e-bulletin for schools, colleges, local authorities and other 16 to 19 providers: 15 March 2018

Published 15 March 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This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2019

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. The EFA e-bulletin has been replaced by ESFA Update.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. Action: gender pay gap reporting deadline

The statutory deadline for publishing gender pay gap data is fast approaching. All further education colleges and training providers with 250 or more employees need to publish their figures by no later than Friday, 30 March.

You must publish your calculations on the government’s online reporting service, as well as on your own website. Please register as soon as possible, even if you are not ready to publish your data yet.

2. Action: hospital education baseline collection

We’re asking all local authorities to provide us with information on their planned hospital education spend for the financial year 2018 to 2019.

This information will help us develop a new calculation for the hospital education factor in the high needs funding formula.

We’ve provided a template for local authorities to complete. This is available via the ESFA data collections portal.

We’ve published guidance on how to complete the template.

Please return the completed template by 27 April 2018.

If you have any queries you can contact us via email.

3. Information: Asbestos Management Assurance Process (AMAP)

We are asking responsible bodies to complete the AMAP to provide assurance that their schools are managing asbestos safely. Responsible bodies, for these purposes, are the main employer of staff at state-funded schools and academies. They have a duty under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 to manage asbestos in their school buildings.

All responsible bodies are to complete the AMAP and submit an assurance declaration for all their schools by midday, on Thursday 31 May 2018.

They will need to ensure that they include every school for which they are responsible in the AMAP declaration. They can either complete all returns themselves or ask their schools to complete the information requested and then submit it to the responsible body for review. The Responsible Body needs to provide the assurance declaration for all their schools, which they can do from 2 April 2018.

Voluntary-aided schools: we will be sending an AMAP code to voluntary-aided schools in April 2018. This will allow voluntary-aided schools to provide information and for their governing boards to complete the AMAP responsible body assurance declaration.

4. Information: 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation statements for independent learning providers for 2018 to 2019

We are in the process of uploading 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation statements to the ESFA Information Exchange for independent learning providers (ILPs). We will also provide a supporting email detailing the method we’ve used to calculate the lagged student number.

We’re uploading allocation statements to the Document Exchange ‘revenue funding’ folder, under ‘AY 2018-19 (2018/19)’. Document Exchange is accessible by logging into the Information Exchange, and choosing the Document Exchange tab at the top of the page. For support and guidance about Information Exchange, please visit our support page.

Useful information is available to help you understand your allocation.

We will consider 16 to 19 business cases where there is a significant error in the data you have returned. The deadline for business cases is 27 April 2018. We will apply standard minimum thresholds to decide whether we will consider your case. Please review the thresholds published in the supporting information before submitting your business case.

If you have any queries please contact us using our online enquiry form.

5. Information: 16 to 19 student support guides for 2018 to 2019 academic year

We have published 2018 to 2019 guides for the following 16 to 19 student financial support schemes:

• 16 to 19 Bursary Fund
• Care to Learn
• Residential Bursary Fund
• Residential Support Scheme

Institutions should review the new versions as there are some changes for the new academic year. For example, the Bursary Fund guide explains changes to some of the definitions for bursaries for vulnerable groups. The free meals in further education guide will be published shortly.

6. Information: helping you understand your 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation statements for 2018 to 2019

Earlier this month we published a narrated presentation on the 16 to 19 funding allocations process for 2018 to 2019.

To support this we have published 2 short videos to help you understand your 16 to 19 funding statement.

• general overview of the 16 to 19 statement for 2018 to 2019 academic year
• changes to the 16 to 19 statement for 2018 to 2019 academic year

We hope you find these videos helpful. Customer service is important to us, so we would really appreciate feedback on how useful you found them. Any feedback can be sent to us using our online enquiry form and will only take a minute.

Further information on 16 to 19 funding allocations is available on GOV.UK.

7. Information: traineeships - advertising vacancies 16 to 19

A reminder to advertise all vacancies on the find a traineeship service.

A great resource for individuals, employers and providers; ‘find a traineeship’ is a brilliant way to ensure your vacancies are widely publicised, increasing the pool of applicants and enabling providers and trainees to find the right opportunities for them.

As we launch a new social media campaign to promote traineeships, do take advantage of increased interest in the programme. Use ‘find a traineeship’ to maximise successful engagement with your vacancies.