ESFA Update further education: 13 November 2024
Published 13 November 2024
Applies to England
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Action: Record your T Level data accurately
Making errors in your T Level data recording could have a significant financial impact. It could lead to a larger than expected recovery of funding at the T Level funding reconciliation point in early 2025.
We strongly encourage you to submit your R04 before the return deadline of Thursday 5 December 2024, so you can review your submitted data and make amendments where needed.
You can review your 16 to 19 funding reports in the funding information system (FIS) submit learner data; this will identify your T Level students and the funding bands assigned to them.
If some T Level students are not displaying as you expected, you can use the checklist provided at the bottom of the record your T Level data correctly guidance to ensure you have recorded all programme elements correctly.
Action: Declare your subcontracting arrangements for the 2024 to 2025 academic year
Post-16 providers are required to submit a fully completed subcontractor declaration on Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF). The window for declaring arrangements for 1 August 2024 to 31 July 2025, is now open.
The previously identified issue with the declaration system has been resolved and the deadline for submissions has been extended to Saturday 30 November 2024.
If you do not subcontract, you must still provide a nil return to confirm this (schools and academies do not need to submit a declaration).
Further information on declaring arrangements is available on GOV.UK. Please use the Customer Help Portal if you have any questions.
Information: Announcement of local government pension guarantee for further education bodies in the statutory sector
Baroness Smith has announced the establishment of a guarantee for local government pension scheme (LGPS) liabilities for all further education (FE) bodies in the statutory sector. This builds on the guarantee that the Department for Education (DfE) provides to academies for LGPS.
The FE LGPS guarantee will enable administering authorities to review their funding strategies for FE bodies, as the risk of unpaid deficits following an FE body closure has been removed.
In providing the FE guarantee, we expect all LGPS administering authorities to recognise the crown guarantee in their setting of the employer contribution rates and the length of the deficit recovery periods for FE providers.
We have published guidance on the FE LGPS guarantee.
Information: FE provider dashboard
The FE provider dashboard is a new tool bringing key published performance data on learner outcomes into one place. This is for colleges and local authority FE providers in receipt of £1 million or more annually (from DfE or devolved funding), to identify effective practice and support continuous improvement.
The dashboard has been designed for colleges and local authority FE providers to use alongside other performance data to inform annual strategic conversations with DfE, and support planning and reviews with their leadership teams, governing bodies and other stakeholders. FE commissioner teams, combined authorities, and Ofsted will also be able to access the dashboard.
The dashboard is due to go live in December as a pilot (private beta non-public) on DfE’s View Your Education Data (VYED) platform. All dashboard data comes from publicly available official statistics sources.
Information: International fraud awareness week 2024
International fraud awareness week is 17 to 23 November and encourages business leaders and employees to proactively take steps to minimise the impact of fraud by promoting anti-fraud awareness and education. More information can be found on the official international fraud awareness website.
Information on how to report fraud to ESFA can be found on report fraud or financial irregularity to ESFA.
Webinar: FE provider dashboard tutorial webinar and Q&A session
Register for your preferred date using the following links: