ESFA Update further education: 19 September 2018
Published 19 September 2018
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-update-19-september-2018/esfa-update-further-education-19-september-2018
1. Action: funding claims 2017 to 2018 – year-end claim
Your 2017 to 2018 year-end claim form is available on the Hub and will close at 4pm Friday 21 September.
You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through:
- a grant for your adult education budget (AEB)
- a grant for your 16 to 19 funding
- a grant with an advanced learner loans bursary contract
- a learner support contract
- a community learning contract
Once you have submitted your claim on the Hub, you will be able to view it on the Skills Funding Servicewithin 15 minutes. We have published a user guide to help you complete the form.
You can find guidance on funding claims and 16 to 19 funding on GOV.UK.
For further information or related queries, please email the service desk.
2. Information: 2018 to 2019 adult education budget (AEB) allocations – grant-funded providers
In October 2018, we will review your 2018 to 2019 AEB grant allocation against your year-end claim for 2017 to 2018. If your forecast outturn is 20% and £200k less than your allocation you may be in scope for a reduction. It is therefore important that you submit an accurate and timely year-end claim.
If you are in scope for a reduction, we will reduce your allocation before the November payment run. We will spread reductions across the 2018 to 2019 funding year.
This does not affect AEB contract for services providers.
If you have any queries please contact your provider manager or intervention manager.
3. Action: 2018 to 2019 advanced learner loans performance management point 1
The growth and new facility request forms for advanced learner loans are now available on GOV.UK.
You must send completed request forms to AllFacility.REQUESTS@education.gov.uk before 5pm on Friday 28 September 2018.
Providers must submit a growth request to be considered for an increase.
For further information, please refer to the advanced learner loans funding and performance management rules 2018 to 2019.
4. Action: final exceptional learning support claims 2017 to 2018
Providers and employers must submit final costs for the 2017 to 2018 funding year for each learner whose learning support costs exceeded £19,000 using the 2017 to 2018 cost form.
You must submit this form by Thursday 25 October 2018.
If you require further assistance, please email the Contract and Funding Team at Exceptional.LEARNINGSUPPORTCLAIMS@education.gov.uk in the first instance.
5. Information: 16 to 19 funding - update to advanced maths premium guidance
We have updated the advanced maths premium guidance on GOV.UK. It
- confirms how the premium will be calculated in the national funding formula
- includes a link to previous academic years’ accountability measures, which confirms the qualifications eligible for the premium in each year
6. Information: adult funding calculation 2018 to 2019 - technical document
We have published the main adult funding calculation rulebase for the 2018 to 2019 funding year on GOV.UK.
The document covers how funding is calculated for the adult education budget and apprenticeship frameworks that started before 1 May 2017.
This is a technical document and includes the rulebase (a collection of one or more connected rules) that performs the funding calculation. There is no separate programming code to implement the logic.
Please share this with your data manager and management information system supplier.
If you have any feedback on this document, please email the service desk asking us to assign it to the ‘ESFA FST – Calculations’ group.
7. Information: update to FE free meals guide
We introduced transitional protections to protect students from uncertainty during the changes to free meals eligibility. This was for students in receipt of FE free meals immediately prior to 1 April 2018 and those who become eligible during Universal Credit rollout. These students will retain eligibility until the end of this rollout period. Following this, if they are still in education they will continue to be eligible until the end of their phase of education.
Colleges should not remove FE free meals eligibility from students until either the end of their education or at least 2023. Students that were eligible for free school meals (FSM) at school will also retain eligibility upon entering college. More information is available in the FE free meals in further education guide for 2018 to 2019, or you can contact the FE free school meals team at Freeschoolmeals.MAILBOX@education.gov.uk.
8. Information: qualification achievement rates (QAR) - dashboard decommissioning and new reports
From 1 October 2018, Birst (My BI) and the dashboards currently available through the BI Tools tab on the Hub will no longer be available.
As an alternative, we will provide you with QAR reports in Excel format on the Hub alongside the existing QAR data extracts. These reports will be available by the end of September for both the final 2016 to 2017 QAR and the in-year 2017 to 2018 QAR data. We will publish new guidance for these reports on the QAR webpage.
To access these reports you will need to ensure that your Hub user role allows you to access the data returns page.
If you want to keep any of the QAR reports that are currently stored on Birst (My BI), please export and save these before 1 October.
We will also make the 2016 to 2017 final QAR reports available to Ofsted.
9. Information: prescribed higher education provision 2018 to 2019
We have published new guidance on adding prescribed higher education qualifications to the Learning Aims Reference Service (LARS) to support you in managing your qualifications. It details the information we need for you to complete the request form to ask us to add your qualifications.
You can download this document along with a new version of the higher education learning aim request form from the Learning Aims Search front page or the LARS GOV.UK page.
If you have any feedback, please contact the service desk and ask for it to be assigned to the ‘Rates and Learning Aims’ group.