ESFA Update further education: 17 November 2021
Published 17 November 2021
Applies to England
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1. Action: claim form for mass testing exceptional premises costs now open
Schools and academies with secondary age pupils along with colleges and other eligible establishments can now submit claims for exceptional premises costs incurred during the mass testing of pupils and students on their return at the start of the academic year 2021 to 2022.
The form and submission guidance is available on GOV.UK and the window to claim closes on Sunday, 5 December 2021.
2. Information: International fraud awareness week – 14 to 20 November 2021
Please watch this video by Matt Atkinson, director of Provider Market Oversight who has shown his support to the importance of tackling fraud. He explains how we all have a responsibility to protect the valuable money and resources that we use across ESFA, and encourages you all to join the global effort to minimise the impact of fraud by promoting anti-fraud awareness and education within your teams as part of International Fraud Awareness week.
Please check out the resources available online.
3. Information: changes to payment history in Manage your education and skills funding
The old interface for viewing payment history in Manage your education and skills funding will no longer be available from Thursday 9 December.
To continue to see your payment history via the new interface, please ensure you have requested the role of PaymentsViewer in IDAMS by Thursday 9 December.
If you miss this deadline, you will still be able to request the PaymentsViewer role but you will not be able to see your payment history until the request has been actioned.
4. Information: seeking feedback from board members at colleges
We listened to feedback from board members at colleges as we commenced development of our new online financial dashboard. The first digital version of the dashboard should be available shortly to help support governors’ decision-making. We would like to continue to hear governors’ views on usability and functionality of the tool as we develop further versions. An agency-led presentation is planned for early December.
If you are a governor and would like to attend, please email Anthony.Haines@education.gov.uk (include ‘governor dashboard’ in the email subject bar).
5. Information: changes to T Level Policy and the post 16 qualifications review timetable
On Monday 15 November, the Secretary of State announced some changes to T Level Policy and the post-16 qualifications review timetable.
Following feedback from providers, we have made changes to:
- the English and maths requirements for T Levels.
- the timeline for the reform of level 3 qualifications
5.1 Changes to the English and Maths requirement for T Levels
Until now T Level students have been required to achieve either a grade 4 in English and maths GCSE or level 2 in functional skills in order to pass their T Level. Following feedback from providers we have agreed with the Institute to remove the exit requirement with immediate effect for all T Level students, bringing T Levels into line with other level 3 post-16 programmes, such as A levels. We will provide guidance shortly on how this will be implemented.
5.2 Changes to timeline for reform of level 3 qualifications
The Secretary of State has announced plans allowing an extra year before our Level 3 reform timetable is implemented. This extra year will allow us to continue to work hard to support the growth of T Levels and gives more notice to providers, awarding organisations, employers, students and parents so that they can prepare for the changes. We will be writing with more detail to all providers.
6. Information: changes to the guidance for conducting due diligence checks on subcontractors
We have updated the guidance for conducting due diligence checks on subcontractors to include a section on market exit. This provides clarification on the process lead providers need to follow should a subcontractor not meet, or continue to meet, the minimum due diligence and financial health checks required.
Please familiarise yourselves with this change and look out for a further Update article which will confirm when this work begins.
7. Information: update to the 16 to 19 funding guidance
We have had some questions raised following the pandemic that some providers may replace national qualifications with employment, enrichment and pastoral activity and some students’ study programmes would then be inconsistent with the requirements set out in the Wolf review.
As a result, study programmes where non-qualification hours form the majority of total planned hours will, from this academic year, attract a higher level of funding audit scrutiny. This may include the need to provide evidence of recognised educational costs which is set out in annex B of our funding regulations. This does not include study programmes for High Needs and/or learners with education health and care plans because we recognise that for some of these students, higher levels of non-qualification activity may be appropriate.
We have updated our funding guidance documents and any changes are clearly shown in the ‘what’s new section’. We will add a new report to our existing reports to help providers identify the students that are likely to fall under higher funding audit scrutiny.
8. Information: provider guide to delivering high-quality apprenticeships
We have added an additional resource to our provider guide to delivering high-quality apprenticeships. The apprenticeship checklist for training providers has been developed by the ESFA working with a range of providers and sector bodies.
Mapped to our provider guide and available resources, it will help providers determine whether they are ready to deliver (or already delivering) quality apprenticeships and identify areas for improvement. Through the checklist, providers will know their strengths and weaknesses.
The checklist is not mandatory. It has been designed solely for providers’ internal use, to support the planning and delivery of high-quality apprenticeships, by helping providers to get things right at the outset and continuously improve what they do.
We encourage providers to download the checklist and will be seeking feedback on how useful it is with a view to any future improvements.
9. Information: new employer and apprentice guides to initial assessment to recognise prior learning
In response to sector feedback we have published two new guides for employers and apprentices about initial assessment and how to recognise prior learning.
A robust initial assessment, carried out by the main training provider, forms the foundation for a high-quality apprenticeship programme.
The new guides will support employers and apprentices to understand their role in the initial assessment process, what the benefits of correctly recognising prior learning are and how they can work with their training provider through the Initial Assessment process.
The Initial Assessment to Recognise Prior Learning guidance provides more detailed information on the policy intent and the apprenticeship funding rules.
10. Information: monitoring post-16 funding for 2020 to 2021
We have updated the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard on View your education data and calculated funding recoveries for the 2020 to 2021 academic year. For the reports we advertise as ‘correct data, year-end recovery’ on the landing page of the dashboard, we will now take the following actions:
- for grant-funded provision, we will record an adjustment on your reconciliation statement to be offset against published tolerances
- for contract-funded provision, we will offset the amount against future delivery
- for the FRM27 ‘withdrawn continuers’ report, we will contact providers separately as any overclaim relates to previous funding year(s)
We have contacted providers through Document Exchange to notify them of the total error amount and which funding streams are affected. If you have received a letter and have any queries, regarding the recoveries, please contact us.