Guidance

ESFA Skills Bootcamps technical funding guide for learners that began on or after 1 August 2022

Updated 6 March 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction and purpose of the document

This document sets out the details of the Skills Bootcamp funding system for learners starting Skills Bootcamps under contracts with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) that began on or after 1 August 2022. This document does not apply to Skills Bootcamps that started before 1 August 2022; these will continue to be funded for the full duration of the Skills Bootcamp under the methodology in place before this date. For information on earlier Skills Bootcamps funding, please see your contract documentation.

It explains how we will calculate funding for organisations receiving ESFA funding. Partner employers may also find this information useful to help understand how employer co-funding will operate.

To understand how the funding system works, you should read this document together with:

• Skills Bootcamps funding rules
• Individualised Learner Record specification, validation rules and appendices
• ILR Funding Reports guidance

We may make changes to these documents.

2. Understanding our terminology

The terms ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’ and ‘ESFA’ refer to the Education and Skills Funding Agency. We use the terms ‘you’ or ‘provider’ to refer to any organisation holding a contract for delivery of Skills Bootcamps with us through which we directly route funds.

3. The data we use to calculate funding

You give us information about learners and their learning using the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). We use this information to work out the funding you have earned for delivering this learning.

4. Funding Rate

The total funding that you can earn per learner for each Skills Bootcamp was set during procurement, this was based on the bid you made to deliver a given Skills Bootcamp. You can find this ‘rate per learner’ in your contract documentation. This rate was negotiated for each bootcamp that you are contracted to deliver, so the funding you receive may differ with the type of bootcamp being delivered. You can earn this rate, however you may not be paid this amount if for example a learner leaves early, this is explained in more detail throughout the document.

For information about what you can spend the money you have earned on, please see the funding rules.

The funding rate for a bootcamp which applies at the start of the programme will continue to apply for the duration of the programme.

5. The earnings method

6. Rate for a Skills Bootcamp

The rate for a Skills Bootcamp is set during the procurement for the Skills Bootcamp and is held within your contract documentation.

This rate may vary for different bootcamps. You must identify the correct bootcamp a learner is undertaking, by recording the ‘Contract Reference Number’ in the ILR that matches the contract reference number held within your contract for that Skills Bootcamp.

The ‘Contract Reference Number’ will be in the format below, split into 3 elements by 2 short hyphens:

ABC-1001-12

You may have multiple contract reference numbers if you deliver multiple Skills Bootcamps, and you must ensure you record the correct one for a given Skills Bootcamp to ensure you receive the correct funding and have that funding paid against the correct contract.

The rate for a Skills Bootcamp that we will use to calculate your funding will be the full rate for the bootcamp before considering any co-funding requirements by an employer. See the co-funding section later in this document for more guidance about this.

The different types of funding you can earn are start payments, completion payments and outcome payments.

7. Qualifying period for funding

To be counted as a ‘funding start’, a learner must meet the following criteria:

• the learner must be enrolled on a Skills Bootcamp, represented by a programme aim in the ILR, for at least the qualifying period
• the learner must be in learning, represented by a learning aim with the following category in Find a Learning Aim (FALA), for at least the qualifying period:
• Skills Bootcamps - Subject Learning

For all Skills Bootcamps learning funded through the ILR, the qualifying period is 5 days.

If the learner takes a break in learning and then returns to learning, one of each of the learner’s programme and learning aims in the ILR should last 5 days or more to meet the qualifying period.

For example, the learner has not qualified for funding if they withdraw or take a break in learning from a Skills Bootcamp after 4 days in learning, then return for only another 4 days of learning.

If the learner leaves before the qualifying period for that Skills Bootcamp, you will not earn any funding. If you have already earned funding in a previous month before you recorded the ILR ‘Learning actual end date’, we will reclaim the funding through the funding calculation.

8. Start payment

We pay 45% of the rate for a funded start on a Skills Bootcamp.

You will earn this payment when you record a learner in your ILR with either of the following:

• continuing in learning after 5 or more days, by recording a ‘Completion Status’ using code 1
• completing their learning after 5 or more days, by recording a ‘Completion Status’ using code 2
• withdrawn from the Skills Bootcamp after 5 or more days, by recording a ‘Completion Status’ using code 3 for a permanent withdrawal or code 6 for a break in learning

You will not earn the start payment if the learner withdraws before the end of the qualifying period. If this happens, and the start payment has already been made for a learner in a previous month, we will automatically recover the start payment from you.

You will earn this funding for the month of the ‘Learning start date’, even if this month is different to the month when the qualifying period ends. For example, if the learning starts on 29 October, the qualifying period would be met in November, but the funding will be earned for October as this is the month the start date falls in.

9. Completion and outcomes

You will earn 35% of the rate for successful completion of a Skills Bootcamp. We will only release this when the learner has completed a Skills Bootcamp as defined in the paragraph below.

You will earn 20% of the rate for a successful outcome of a Skills Bootcamp. We will only release this when the learner completes their learning on the Skills Bootcamp as defined in this paragraph and an outcome has been achieved as described by the funding rules.

10. Completion payment

You earn the completion element when you record a programme aim with a ‘Learning actual end date’ in the ILR and you record the ‘Completion status’ using code 2 (‘The learner has completed the learning activities leading to the learning aim’).

To earn a completion payment for a learner, the learner must meet all three criteria below:

• The learner must have completed a learning aim which is recorded in your ILR and has the following category in FALA:
• Skills Bootcamps - Subject Learning

The learner must have either:

• completed a learning aim which is recorded in your ILR and has one of the following categories in FALA:
• Skills Bootcamps - Receipt of plan from learner to acquire new self-employment opportunities or contracts
• Skills Bootcamps - Offer of an interview
• Skills Bootcamps - Offer of a new role or added responsibilities with existing employer

or

• an achievement date and outcome recorded against a programme aim in your ILR. These represent an outcome eligible for the outcome payment milestone (as described in the funding rules)

The learner must have completed a learning aim or recorded an achievement within 6 months of completing their learning as described in the section above.

The learner must still meet the qualifying period on at least one programme aim and one learning aim within the following category in FALA:

• Skills Bootcamps - Subject Learning

When these criteria are met, the Skills Bootcamp programme aim can be recorded as complete.

You will earn this funding for the month of the ‘learning actual end date’.

11. Outcome payment

To earn an outcome payment for a learner, the learner must meet two criteria:

• the learner must have achieved an outcome eligible for the outcome payment milestone (as described in the funding rules). You record this by adding an ‘Achievement date’ to the latest appropriate programme aim in the ILR and you record the ‘Outcome’ using code 1 (‘Achieved’). You must also record the ‘Learning actual end date’ and a ‘Completion Status’ using code 2 (‘The learner has completed the learning activities leading to the learning aim’)
• the learner must have achieved this eligible outcome within 6 months of completing their learning

You will earn this funding on the later of these dates:

• the month of the ‘Achievement date’
• the month of the ‘Learning actual end date’

12. Co-funding

An employer may be required to fund part of the rate of a Skills Bootcamp where an employer is upskilling one of their own employees (this is not required where the learner is self-employed). For more information on when an employer is required to pay co-funding for a Skills Bootcamp learner, please see the funding rules.

Co-funding will affect the proportion of the rate you earn in the following ways:

Employer is training an existing employee?	Learner is self-employed	Size of employer (number of employees)	Requires Co-funding	Proportion of rate paid by ESFA	Proportion of rate paid by the employer
No	No	Not relevant	No	100%	0%
Yes	No	Small or Medium Enterprise (SME) (fewer than 250)	Yes	90%	10%
Yes	No	Large (250 or more)	Yes	70%	30%
Self Employed	Yes	Not relevant	No	100%	0%

You must indicate where a learner is eligible for full funding using the ‘Full or Co-funding indicator’ in the ILR.

• using code 1 indicates the learner is fully-funded by us and the learner does not have an employer who is required to co-fund the bootcamp
• using code 2 indicates the learner is co-funded by us, where we pay a portion of the rate, with the learner’s employer paying the remainder

If the learner’s employer is a small or medium employer with fewer than 250 employees, you must record an ‘Other employment type’ (OET) using code 2 in the ILR.

The calculation will use the combination of ‘Full or Co-funding indicator’ and the presence or absence of an ‘Other employment type’ code 2 to determine the amount that we will pay for a learner, and how much the employer must pay.

Co-funding is based upon the learner’s situation upon starting a Skills Bootcamp. The rate is therefore set at the point when the learner starts a bootcamp. If the employment situation of the learner subsequently changes during the bootcamp, the rate of co-funding will not change.

For example, if a learner were to start a bootcamp to be upskilled as an employee at a small or medium employer, you would receive a co-funding rate of 90% ESFA funding, with 10% due from the employer. If the learner were to leave the employer during the programme, we would still pay 90% of the rate assuming the learner completed the course and met the other criteria to generate completion and outcome earnings.

13. Funding reports

We will continue to provide funding reports to show you what funding we have calculated for you. These will include a funding summary report and an occupancy report similar to the reports for other funding streams that we currently provide and described in the funding reports guidance.

You will receive a set of reports when you submit your ILR data that will indicate how much you have earned, and which month you have earned funding in. The occupancy report will break this down at a learner level, and the funding summary report will total your funding by bootcamp over the duration of the contract.

The occupancy report will also show how much of the rate we will pay, and how much is due from the employer.

For more information on funding reports, please see the guidance on ILR funding reports.

14. Processing and changes at the end of the funding year

This section describes what you and employers need to do by the end of the R14 ILR return date. It also describes how we manage changes and calculate payments when two ILR years are open at the same time.

15. Recording late data in the ILR

If a learner is continuing learning at the final R14 collection at the end of the year, but you record in the subsequent ILR year that they should have left in the previous ILR year, you may have earned funding that you need to pay back.

For example, at R14 in the 2022 to 2023 ILR you record a learner as starting on 10 July 2023 and continuing. Then in the 2023 to 2024 ILR, you record them as leaving on 13 July 2023. In this scenario, they will have earned a start payment in July 2023 from the 2022 to 2023 ILR that will need paying back.

To pay this funding back, please contact your contract manager to avoid further action being taken.

For more information on recording late data in the ILR, please refer to the section on ‘The impact of incomplete information’ in the provider support manual.

16. Last date for changes

The last ILR collection for each funding year is currently ‘R14’. The date you must return each ILR collection to us is in appendix A to the ILR technical documents, guidance and requirements. For example, for the 2022 to 2023 funding year, the R14 ILR return date is 19 October 2023.

You must record any changes that happen up to 31 July in the funding year in the ILR by the R14 return for that year.

We will not process any ILR funding that is dated July or earlier, which is generated after the R14 ILR return date. For example, if you record an achievement date for a successful outcome of 21 July 2023 in the 2023 to 2024 funding year after the close of R14 in the 2022 to 2023 funding year, you will not be paid the corresponding outcome payment.

17. Payment processing after the funding year end

There is an overlapping period when you return ILR information about two funding years to us; this is from 1 August to the return date of the final ‘R14’ ILR collection.

We will add payments from the R13 and R14 transactions to the payments from R02 and R03 ILR returns respectively and they will be paid at the same time as the R02 and R03 payments.