Correspondence

ESFA e-bulletin for academies: 29 June 2017

Published 29 June 2017

This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2019

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. The EFA e-bulletin has been replaced by ESFA Update.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: Teachers’ Pensions Annual Service Return 2016 to 2017 deadline

The deadline for your Teachers’ Pensions Annual Service Return for 2016 to 2017 is Thursday 6 July 2017.

If you haven’t submitted your return, Teachers’ Pensions requires employee’s service and salary data for the period ending 5 April 2017. This allows time for your members to receive their pension savings statement, which they need to determine their total pension contribution for the year and whether they’ve exceeded their annual allowance.

You only need to contact Teachers’ Pensions if you think that you’ll be unable to meet the 6 July deadline. If you have any questions about the Annual Service Return process, please email Teachers’ Pensions (quoting 2016 to 2017 ASR in the subject) and they’ll be happy to help you.

2. Information: Academies budget forecast return 2017 to 2018

We’ve launched the online form for the budget forecast return (BFR) for 2017 to 2018 to improve this year’s return.

Trusts that submitted a budget forecast return outturn in May 2017, and have not seen a change to the academies within their trust since that submission, can choose to use a version of the online form that already has their 2016 to 2017 data prepopulated within the BFR.

We hope that this makes completing the rest of the return easier for trusts.

You can now register now for the budget forecast return webinar at 3pm on Monday 3 July 2017. This live webinar will cover the main features of the BFR and answer questions from trusts.

The deadline for the BFR is Friday 28 July 2017.

3. Information: Presentation to support the 2017 to 2018 funding guidance for young people - student eligibility guidance

We have published a presentation this week to support the student eligibility elements of the funding guidance for young people we published in April, for the academic year 2017 to 2018. This presentation highlights key areas of interest to institutions with 16 to 19 provision and can be useful when delivering presentations.

You may also find our overview of ESFA 16 to 19 funding useful, especially for staff and governors who are new to the further education sector. We will be publishing a further presentation, during July, to support the funding rates and formula guidance. We will provide a further update once this has been published.

4. Information: Customer engagement user research

As a newly formed agency, the ESFA is looking at how it engages with its customers; we want to understand your experience of engaging with us, identify what works well for you and where we may need to make improvements.

To achieve this we would like to talk with you directly through:

• brief one to one phone calls with a researcher (we will advertise dates for these next week and ask for volunteers)
• up to 8 face-to-face focus groups (locations across the country)

We are currently looking for volunteers to host (in their workplace) and attend the focus groups shown below.

Customer focus group	Date
Local authorities and academies	10 – 21 July
FE colleges and sixth form	10 – 21 July
Training providers (independent and charitable)	17 – end July
Employers	17 – end July

If you would like to host one of the workshops, please contact us at ESFA@education.gov.uk. We will seek further participants once dates are fixed.

Deadline for responses is 5pm Tuesday 4 July.