ESFA Update further education: 1 May 2019
Published 1 May 2019
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2019
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1. Action: colleges to submit financial plan, cash flow forecast and supporting commentary by Wednesday 31 July 2019
Colleges must submit their financial plan, cash flow forecast and supporting commentary to ESFA by Wednesday 31 July 2019.
To help with your submissions, we have published the 2019 college financial planning handbook, alongside financial plan and cash flow forecast templates.
We will publish details of the submission arrangements separately.
The handbook sets out ESFA’s financial planning requirements for sixth-form and further education colleges, and includes important changes to the moderation process.
The financial templates are intended to help colleges provide a realistic view of financial performance, and to reflect the cost of implementing their corporation’s strategy.
2. Information: 16 to 19 funding rates and formula guidance
We have published the 16 to 19 funding rates and formula guidance for academic year 2019 to 2020 on GOV.UK.
We have made some small changes this year and to help you, we have listed these in the front of the guide. We aim to publish further funding guidance for young people during April and May.
If you have any queries please contact us using our online enquiry form.
3. Information: we are reviewing the value of 16 to 18 traineeship contracts and adult education budget (AEB) contract for services based on performance
We will measure the performance of your 16 to 18 traineeship, and AEB contract for services contract value against a standard national profile at data claim point R09.
We will reduce the value of your contract if your performance against the standard national profile is outside the tolerance of 3%.
The reduction in the value of your contract will reflect some or all of the under-delivery to date.
There are exceptional circumstances where the reduction will not apply. These are:
- your actual delivery pattern in 2017 to 2018 is significantly different from the standard national profile
- you demonstrate you were impacted by data issues outside of your control
- the amount you are below profile is less than £25,000
4. Information: 2018 to 2019 adult education budget growth and 19-24 traineeships over delivery
In our adult education budget (AEB) funding and performance-management rules we committed to fund 3% of delivery above your AEB allocation at the end of the 2018 to 2019 funding year and this commitment remains in place.
In addition to this commitment, we will fund an increase of up to 50% in 19-24 traineeships delivery at the end of the funding year.
We will only fund traineeships delivery above 103% of your AEB allocation if you increase your proportion of 19-24 traineeships delivery between your R08 data return/mid-year claim and the end of the year. We will not fund an increase in non-traineeships delivery. As always, you will need to meet our track record criteria to be eligible to receive funding above your allocation. More information about our track record criteria is set out in paragraph 257 of the rules.
To ensure the additional funding is used for increased traineeships delivery and increases are affordable, we have set a minimum and maximum value of traineeships delivery we will fund. The minimum and maximum values of traineeships delivery only apply if you deliver more than 103% of your adult education budget allocation. If you deliver within 103% of your allocation, we will fully fund all of your delivery.
We will shortly publish a calculator on GOV.UK to show how we have calculated the minimum and maximum values.
There will not be any opportunities for AEB growth for the rest of this funding year other than the commitment to fund 3% of over delivery and increased traineeships delivery as outlined above.
Please contact your territorial team lead if you have any queries.
5. Your feedback: review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below
On 19 March 2019, the government launched the first stage consultation for the review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below. The consultation closes on Monday 10 June 2019.
We are keen to engage with a wide range of stakeholders to explore your views and we would like to invite you to one of the five events that we are holding to discuss the review.
The events will be held in the following cities on the dates below. Each event will run from 10:30 until 15:00.
- Wednesday 15 May, Bristol (venue to be confirmed shortly)
- Thursday 16 May, London, Millennium Gloucester Hotel and Conference Venue
- Tuesday 21 May, Newcastle (venue to be confirmed shortly)
- Wednesday 22 May, Manchester, Mercure Piccadilly Hotel
- Monday 6 June, Birmingham, Millennium Point
Places are limited to 100 delegates per event, and one representative per organisation.
We will provide more information shortly. In the meantime, please email Post16Level3andBelowReview.CONSULTATION@education.gov.uk to register your attendance. When emailing, please specify which event you wish to attend.
6. Your feedback: qualification achievement rates (QAR) 2017 to 2018 – provider survey reminder
We are currently gathering feedback to help us continue to improve our QAR processes and how we support you. Please let us know about your experience of the QAR 2017 to 2018 process by completing our provider feedback survey.
The survey will close on Friday 3 May 2019.