Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 19 June 2019

Published 19 June 2019

This correspondence was withdrawn on 21 December 2020

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Find the latest information from ESFA in the latest ESFA Update.

Applies to England

1. Action: submit your college financial plans by Wednesday 31 July 2019 via IDAMS

Further education and sixth-form colleges must submit their financial plans and other supporting documentation to ESFA by Wednesday 31 July 2019.

We have changed submission arrangements for 2019 and colleges should now submit their documents online via IDAMS (Identity and Access Management System).

Further details are set out on the college financial planning handbook webpage.

2. Information: register of apprenticeship training providers (the register) – Ofsted grade exemptions

We allow exemptions within the register application process for providers with ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted grades under the following specific circumstances:

Application question that leads to exemption	PR-1	PR-4
Ofsted grade	Apprenticeship	Overall Effectiveness
Full inspection exemption criteria	Provider is awarded a good or outstanding apprenticeship grade and inspection has been published within last three years.	Provider is awarded a good or outstanding overall effectiveness grade and inspection has been published within last three years.
Short inspection exemption criteria	Provider has been awarded a good or outstanding apprenticeship grade at their last full inspection. A short inspection report has been published within the last three years and confirms no change.	Provider has been awarded a good or outstanding overall effectiveness grade at their last full inspection. A short inspection report has been published within the last three years and confirms this status has been maintained.
Other comments on inspection grade	A provider must have an apprenticeship grade for apprenticeships, these were introduced from 2016. This must be under the remit of FE and Skills	This must be under the remit of FE and Skills
Exempt from ‘Your apprentices welfare’ section on application	Yes	Yes
Exempt from ‘Your leaders and managers’ section on application	Yes	No, must answer questions LM-7 to LM-22

Please note that the conditions described above will be strictly adhered to. Any application claiming an exemption to which the provider is not entitled will be rejected, and the application will not be assessed. The rejected application will not count towards providers’ allowance of 2 applications in 12 months.

If you have any queries please contact RoATP.MAILBOX@education.gov.uk.

3. Information: list of further providers selected to deliver T Levels

We have now published the list of further providers who have been selected to deliver T Levels from academic year 2021 to 2022 on GOV.UK.

The Department for Education (DfE) have also published the funding consultation response which outlines how T Levels will be funded and the additional support being provided for 2020 T Level providers.

4. Information: recording accurate data on the individualised learner record (ILR)

We have identified through qualification achievement rates (QARs), cases where providers have not accurately recorded the ILR for:

• breaks in learning in apprenticeships
• late reporting of withdrawn learners. This is where learners are either being withdrawn in-year or across funding years, where the withdrawal date is also within the qualifying period
• withdrawal reasons

We systematically interrogate ILR data to identify data discrepancies, including these. We will report to you, and where necessary, challenge you on your data accuracy as you submit ILR data.

We will take action where appropriate; which could involve funding recovery, applying conditions to your contracts or termination in the most serious cases.

It is vital that the ILR data is accurate. Inaccurate data affects regulators and customers who use this data to make judgements on the quality of provision, in addition to funding and QARs.

5. Information: qualification achievement rate (QAR) – in-year data release for 2018 to 2019

We will release QAR data at the end of June 2019.

This in-year QAR release will provide indicative apprenticeship and education and training QARs, based on the 2018 to 2019 ILR R10 data. Providers can use this data internally to identify and resolve potential data issues prior to the ILR R14 hard close on Thursday 17 October 2019.

We urge you to review your data now to check that it is accurate as we cannot correct your data after the R14 submission. We have supplied information about the common data issues and funding monitoring reports that can help you review your data.

We will publish this data on the Hub and dashboard through the View Your Education Data portal. The 2017 to 2018 QAR data will continue to be available until final QAR 2019 to 2020 data is published.

Following feedback, we will release an additional in-year QAR at the end of August, using the R12 ILR submission.

We will release provisional QAR data for 2018 to 2019 to individual providers in January 2020, and then publish final QAR data in March 2020.

You can find further details on our QAR webpage.

6. Information: qualification achievement rate (QAR) technical specification documents and in-year guidance for 2018 to 2019

We have published the following documents for QAR 2018 to 2019:

• the QAR technical specification documents
• in-year guidance document

You should read these documents alongside the business rules, which explain the methodology for calculating QARs for 2018 to 2019.

7. Information: minimum standards 2018 to 2019

We have published the minimum standards for 2018 to 2019. This document confirms:

• we have published the apprenticeship minimum standards for 2018 to 2019 as the final application of this policy
• this document confirms that the apprenticeship threshold remains at 62% for the 2018 to 2019 data
• the document also reminds providers that that there are no minimum standards thresholds for 19+ education and training or 16 to 18 minimum standards for the 2018 to 2019 data or beyond

8. Information: change in payment dates from August 2019

We are changing the date on which we make payments from August 2019.

We are combining the adult payment dates into one and will pay the following funding streams on the 14th working day of the month:

• adult education budget (AEB)
• apprenticeships
• Advanced Learner Loans Bursary
• European Social Fund (ESF)
• National Careers Service
• 16 to 18 traineeships
• career learning pilots

Any payments relating to these funding streams will reach bank accounts on 20 August 2019, and then on the 14th working day thereafter.

If you have any questions, please contact us via email at payment.queries@education.gov.uk.