Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 13 June 2018

Published 13 June 2018

This correspondence was withdrawn on 20 February 2020

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Find the latest information from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in the latest ESFA Update.

Applies to England

1. Action: community learning funding in Somerset – procurement

On 31 May we launched an invitation to tender (ITT 30352) for £2.6 million of community learning funding in Somerset, for the 2018 to 2019 funding year.

If you are planning to submit a tender application, please note the ITT closes at midday on Thursday, 21 June.

2. Information: planning and preparing for adult education budget devolution

In March this year, we issued providers with their adult education budget allocations (AEB) for the 2018 to 2019 year. This contained important information about how AEB allocations for 2019 to 2020 will change because of devolution.

This week, we will be writing to AEB providers again, giving more detail on how we will calculate 2019 to 2020 ESFA non-devolved AEB allocations and how changes to AEB may affect them from 2019 onwards.

To further support providers, we will publish a narrated presentation this summer, covering the technical aspects of ESFA non-devolved allocations.

We will write to all providers in December 2018 with more details on ESFA non-devolved AEB allocations. We will issue ESFA non-devolved AEB allocations, before the end of March 2019.

3. Information: Centres for Excellence programme for basic maths

The Department for Education have recently launched the Centres for Excellence programme for basic maths. The application process for post-16 institutions is now open.

You should submit your application to Centres.forExcellence@education.gov.uk no later than 5pm on Tuesday, 10 July.

4. Information: Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017

The Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017 came into effect on 1 April 2017. This requires further education colleges within scope to report trade union activity for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018, both on their websites and a central reporting website the Cabinet Office is developing, by 31 July 2018. Colleges must also include this information in their audited financial statements for 2017 to 2018.

You can find detailed information in the Cabinet Office’s guidance. The Association of Colleges will also be updating their accounts direction handbook 2017 to 2018 to reflect these new reporting requirements.

5. Information: qualification achievement rates (QARs) 2017 to 2018 – in-year data release

For 2017 to 2018, there will be an additional release of QAR data at the end of June 2018.

This new, in-year QAR release will provide indicative apprenticeship and education & training QARs based on the 2017 to 2018 Individualised Learner Record (ILR) R10 data. Providers can use this data internally to identify and resolve potential data issues prior to the ILR R14 hard close on 18 October 2018.

We will publish this data on the Hub and through an additional Business Intelligence dashboard. The 2016 to 2017 QAR data will continue to be available in the current QAR dashboard.

We will release provisional QAR data for 2017 to 2018 to individual providers in January 2019, and then publish final QAR data in March 2019.

For further details about the in-year QAR, go to the QAR webpage.

6. Information: Green for Grenfell, Friday 15 June

Thursday 14, June will mark one year since the Grenfell tragedy. On Friday, 15 June Grenfell United are inviting schools to take part in Green for Grenfell Day, by wearing green and helping with a local community project.

To join in, you can:

• wear something green to school
• help with a school project or local cause
• use the hashtag #GreenForGrenfellDay

You can find more information on Grenfell United’s website.