Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 19 March 2025

Published 19 March 2025

Applies to England

Information: Transfer of Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) functions to the Department for Education (DfE)

ESFA will close on Monday 31 March 2025.

A letter from David Withey, Chief Executive and Accounting Officer of ESFA, to accounting officers has more information.

ESFA Update will be called DfE Update and will still be sent on a Wednesday. For help with DfE enquiries, complaints and general questions visit the customer help portal.

Information: National Insurance contributions grants

On Tuesday 18 March 2025, DfE announced the additional funding for schools and colleges to support them with the increases to employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) costs in financial year 2025 to 2026.

We have published information on the funding for NICs for:

• mainstream schools and schools with early years provision
• high needs settings, being delivered through the core schools budget grant for special schools and alternative provision
• post-16 provision

Information: Update on adult skills funding for 2025 to 2026

We have communicated an update on adult skills funding allocations and changes to our funding methodology for academic year 2025 to 2026.

As confirmed in our allocations timeline we are aiming to complete the issue of funding allocations for advanced learner loans, adult skills fund and adult skills fund contracts for services by the end of April 2025.

Information: 16 to 19 funding allocation statements for 2025 to 2026

Last week we started issuing 16 to 19 funding allocation statements. We aim to issue the majority of allocations by the end of April 2025. You will receive a notification once your allocation statement is available on Document exchange in the ‘documents received from ESFA’ section. We have included a breakdown of our calculation in your statement and published guidance to help you understand your statement. 

We have changed the deadline for business cases for academic year 2025 to 2026 and we will now only accept cases submitted within 4 weeks of your allocation statement being issued. We will not be able to consider late cases. Whilst the thresholds remain the same for academic year 2025 to 2026, we now calculate them using your total programme funding amount.

Further information can be found in 16 to 19 funding allocations. This information also includes the changes for business cases from academic year 2026 to 2027.

If you have any queries, use the customer help centre.

Information: Applications for cohort 5 of the Teacher Mentoring Programme are open

Applications are now open for Cohort 5 of the further education (FE) Teacher Mentoring Programme (TMP).

This initiative, delivered by Cognition Learning Group, aims to build mentoring capacity within FE providers, by equipping established teachers with skills to provide mentoring support to early career teachers (ECTs).

Eligible FE providers can apply for an optional grant of up to £4,000 per participating mentor, for up to 5 mentors. This grant is designed to cover the remission of mentors, enabling them to complete 27.5 hours of guided learning and undertake at least 18 hours of mentoring practice with ECT mentees.

Cohort 5 will run from Monday 5 May to Friday 18 July 2025. To express your interest and apply, visit the Teacher Mentoring Programme website.

If you have any questions regarding the programme, you can contact the TMP team via tmpenquiries@cognitioneducation.com. 

Information: Training provider apprenticeship service account

DfE has changed the colour of the header on your training provider apprenticeship service account. When signing in, you will see the header is now green, to make it easier to read and navigate the service.

Reminder: Framework certificates must be claimed by 31 March 2025

DfE will stop funding for apprenticeship framework completion and certification on Monday 31 March 2025. Apprentices on frameworks will not be able to receive a certificate after this date, including if they have been on a break in learning. 

Providers must withdraw all learners (including those on a break in learning) by R11 return at the very latest - certificates must be claimed by 31 March 2025.

More information on prior communications can be found on completing and certifying apprenticeship frameworks and our ESFA Update in September 2024.

If you have any queries, contact us via the customer help portal.