ESFA Update further education: 15 September 2021
Published 15 September 2021
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2021
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1. Reminder: incentive payment for hiring a new apprentice
Employers can apply for a payment of £3,000 for new apprentices of any age who have an employment start date of 1 April 2021 to 30 September 2021.
They must also have an apprenticeship start date of 1 April 2021 to 30 November 2021.
Employers cannot apply for an existing employee who joined their organisation before 1 April 2021, even if they started an apprenticeship after this date.
Training providers cannot apply on behalf of employers.
Visit our guidance page for more details or watch our video which explains the application process step by step.
2. Reminder: 16 to 19 tuition fund 2021 to 2022 form
Eligible institutions are reminded to complete the 16 to 19 tuition fund form.
The deadline for your submission is 11:59pm on 30 September 2021.
You can read the 16 to 19 tuition fund: 2021 to 2022 guidance to help you complete the form.
3. Reminder: keeping children safe in education statutory guidance
The Keeping children safe in education statutory guidance, and Sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges advice have been updated and came into effect on 01 September 2021.
A full list of changes can be found in Annex G of KCSIE guidance.
4. Information: weekly apprenticeship and traineeship vacancy reports
The weekly apprenticeship and traineeship vacancy reports are now available. The reports are an excel version of the Find an apprenticeship website. The reports show all live vacancies for apprenticeships and traineeships by local authority area. These reports are used by career advisers, teachers, and stakeholders such as DWP work coaches and school advisers.
If you would like to sign up to receive the reports then please contact Communications.ESFA@education.gov.uk.
Please state which regional report you would like to receive: North, Midlands, South or London and South East, or you can opt to receive reports for all regions.
If you were on the mailing list before no action is needed.
5. Information: enabling employers to pledge and transfer apprenticeship levy funds
Our new online service makes it easier for levy paying employers to transfer unspent levy funds to support apprenticeships in other businesses.
From 13 September 2021, levy paying employers can create a pledge of up to 25% of their annual levy funds, using their apprenticeship service account. They can select how much funding they want to transfer and set optional criteria for the types of businesses and apprenticeships they would like to support.
All businesses, including training providers and intermediary bodies, will be able to see these funding opportunities on a gov.uk webpage. If they meet the criteria, employers will be able to apply for funding to pay for 100% of their apprenticeship training and assessment costs (up to the funding band maximum). The webpage should go live from the end of September 2021.
Read the press notice or visit our guidance page for more details.
6. Information: connectivity grants for further education
Last month the Department for Education (DFE) announced that connectivity grants will be available in the event of COVID-19 disruption to education. The grants will be to help young people in further education who do not otherwise have access to adequate internet connectivity at home.
Guidance on eligibility can be found on GOV.UK.
7. Information: consultation launched on revisions to the current version of the ‘teacher misconduct: the prohibition of teachers’ advice.
We have launched a consultation seeking views on how professional conduct panels review teacher misconduct in England. The proposed revisions provide clarification on the factors relating to decisions leading to the prohibition of teachers from the teaching profession.
Please use the Department for Education e-consultation platform Citizen Space to access the consultation. Please use the online survey to provide your feedback.
If you have any questions about this consultation please email TRAadvice@education.gov.uk.
The consultation closes at 23:45 on Tuesday 19 October 2021.
8. Information: ‘raising the standards’, the apprentice guide to quality apprenticeships
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education apprentice panel have launched their own guidance. Raising the standards has been created by apprentices for employers and training providers on how to deliver a quality apprenticeship. The need and demand for this guide was identified by the 2020 apprentice panel survey.
To create this guidance, the panel has drawn on their own experience with the support of key stakeholders in government, employers, charities, awarding bodies and training providers to capture where they and their networks have experienced best practice.
You can find raising the standards guidance on the Institute’s website.
9. Information: 16 to 18 traineeship market entry opportunity
Later this month through ESFA Update, we will be launching a market entry opportunity to support our high-quality growth of the traineeship programme and expand the provision of 16 to 18-year-old traineeships.
It will be open to training organisations not currently contracted or allocated delivery of 16 to 19 Study Programme activity or 16 to 18 traineeship provision. We are particularly interested in applications from training organisations ready to deliver traineeships and have the capacity to deliver a high-quality programme to young people.
To take part in the market entry exercise, a training provider must meet the following criteria:
- have a current Ofsted grade 1 (outstanding) or grade 2 (good) with an ESFA contract, funding agreement or grant for the 2021/22 academic year. Alternatively, we will consider existing traineeship providers that have a 19 to 24 traineeship 2021 to 2022 contract without an Ofsted grade 1 or 2.
- not be in formal intervention for minimum standards or inspection
- not been issued with a notice to improve, additional conditions of funding or additional contractual obligations prohibiting you from growth
- not be subject to an investigation for breach of contract and/or failed audit in the past 3 years
- not have a financial health grade of inadequate
Traineeships are a skills and work-based training programme for young people, designed to develop the skills and experience needed to secure apprenticeships or employment.
Further information on traineeships can be found online.
10. Information: how to become a flexi-job apprenticeship agency and bid for the flexi-job apprenticeship fund webinar
On 3 August 2021, we launched our new flexi-job apprenticeship offer. Flexi-job apprenticeships will help employers overcome structural barriers to making greater use of apprenticeships. They will support businesses in all sectors to make a sustainable investment in the skills they need to grow, and build a diverse talent pipeline for the future. In sectors where flexible or project-based working are the norm, new flexi-job apprenticeship agencies will bridge the gap to help employers realise the benefits of apprenticeships for their business.
We are inviting sector bodies, employers and other interested organisations to register as flexi-job apprenticeship agencies, giving them access to the £7m fund to support new agencies with their start-up costs.
This webinar will explain what organisations need to do to apply for the register and bid for the grant, and cover some of the key information found within our published guidance documents.
You can register for the webinar via GoToWebinar.
11. Information: the Top Apprenticeship Employers rankings is returning in 2022
The Top Apprenticeship Employers rankings is returning in 2022!
The rankings recognise the country’s leading apprenticeship employers for their overall commitment to employing apprentices, their creation of new apprenticeships, the diversity of their apprentices and the progression of apprentices onto further apprenticeships and employment. Additionally, they assist potential apprentices, parents and careers advisers to identify the best apprenticeship opportunities in England.
The Department for Education will publish two Top Apprenticeship Employer rankings, one recognising the Top 100 Large Employers (with over 250 employees), and new for 2022 the Top 50 Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
If you are interested in finding out more and being notified of when the application window opens in early 2022, you can sign up to the mailing list or if you have any queries/questions you can email: top.100@education.gov.uk.
We would be grateful if you would support the rankings by sharing the information and mailing list above with contacts who may be interested in applying.
12. Your feedback: recording attendance - research participants needed
We are currently conducting research to better understand challenges faced by FE providers when recording attendance.
The session would involve:
• an informal 1-2-1 video call lasting an hour • they are conducted by impartial researchers who are not policy decision makers themselves • video calls do not involve any evaluation of you or who you work for • video calls are confidential - your name will not be associated with any of the data collected through this research
You can find more details and register your interest in taking part by completing this ‘take part in research form’.
13. Your feedback: workshops to discuss financial and governance processes for independent training providers (ITPs)
During October we will be running a series of workshops focussing on financial and governance processes in the ITP sector. We are interested in what ITPs already have in place and in talking about how financial and governance processes can be developed across the sector.
If you are interested in attending a workshop please email us by no later than Monday 20 September. The e-mail should contain the full name of your organisation, your UKPRN, and a contact e-mail address to send any invite to.
The workshops will take place online via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 90 minutes. We are looking for a cross-section of ITPs to attend which range in size, contract value, and organisation type. Places will be limited so please be advised that expressing an interest is not a guarantee of being invited to a workshop.
In addition to holding direct workshops with ITPs we will also be holding similar sessions with the Association of Employer & Learning Providers (AELP) so if you are an AELP member it is possible you might also be asked for input via that route.
For clarity these workshops are for independent training providers only and are not applicable for academies, colleges or local authorities.
The workshops will take place between 13 to 21 October. Invites will be issued during week commencing Monday 20 September.