ESFA Update local authorities: 2 June 2021
Published 2 June 2021
Applies to England
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1. Latest information on coronavirus (COVID-19)
The Department for Education has published guidance about COVID-19 in educational settings for staff, parents and carers, pupils and students on GOV.UK.
Please check GOV.UK regularly for updates.
2. Action: coronavirus (COVID-19) no recourse to public funds: free school meals additional pupil premium claim form
The coronavirus (COVID-19) no recourse to public funds: free school meals additional pupil premium claim form is now live.
The deadline to submit your claim is 5pm on Wednesday 30 June 2021.
We’ve published guidance to help you complete the claim form.
You can read more in our guidance for schools and local authorities on school meals arrangements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
3. Reminder: year-end forecast funding claim for 2020 to 2021
The year-end forecast funding claim window will open at 9am on Tuesday 8 June 2021.
We understand that this is a difficult time for everyone, and time and resources are under strain. However, we will require you to submit an accurate year-end claim as this will enable us to inform you of your indicative reconciliation figure prior to final claim submission in October 2021.
Please submit your year-end funding claim by 4pm on Friday 11 June 2021. The claim form will be available on Submit Learner Data.
You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through:
- grant funded – ESFA adult education budget (AEB) (adult skills, community learning, 19 to 24 traineeships and COVID-19 skills offer)
- learner support for ESFA AEB procured (adult skills and 19 to 24 traineeships) – paid-on-profile
- 19 to 24 traineeships 2020 procurement - learner support – paid-on-profile
- grant funded - Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB)
- 16 to 19 education.
Once you have submitted your claim you will also be able to view it on the Manage your education and skills funding.
You can get further help with ESFA services.
4. Reminder: reporting unspent 16 to 19 Bursary Funding
16 to 19 Bursary Funding can be carried over to the next academic year, but not for more than one year. We want to remind you that you must contact ESFA to repay any unspent funds each year - some providers have recently reported unspent funds that have accumulated over several years, in breach of the bursary fund rules.
More information, including how to contact ESFA to repay unspent funds, can be found in the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide.
We also ask that when you make contact about repaying funds, you specify in your email the amount of funding being returned and which year the funding is from. This is particularly important if funds for more than one year are involved.
5. Information: unspent 16 to 19 tuition funding 2020 to 2021
Due to further disruption to learning as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19), any proportion of unspent 16 to 19 tuition funding for the 2020 to 2021 academic year can now be used to support students in the 2021 to 2022 academic year. It must still be spent and recorded in the manner detailed in the 16 to 19 tuition fund guidance.
Providers must confirm if they plan to carry over any proportion of unspent tuition funding from 2020 to 2021 and we will collect this information by July. Providers will be notified of the process shortly.
6. Information: summer schools - updated funding allocations and guidance
As part of the wider recovery package to support children with their mental health and wellbeing and to catch up on missed face-to-face learning, £200m of funding is available for secondary schools to deliver face-to-face summer schools this year.
To enable more secondary schools to participate in the programme, and to maximise the funding available for special schools and alternative provision settings, we have made changes to schools’ funding allocations.
You can still sign up for the programme to indicate you intend to run a summer school.
In June, the initial sign-up form will be replaced by a confirmation form, when we will ask you to confirm, by the end of June, the timing of your summer school and the number of pupil places offered. Schools that did not complete the initial sign-up form can still join the programme by completing the June confirmation form. Schools with a new funding allocation, such as those with an older pupil intake, should wait until the June confirmation form opens in order to sign up. We will work directly with schools opening in September 2021, who may be unable to access the June sign up form, to confirm their summer school programmes.
Subject to overall take-up, schools may be able to claim funding to cover additional places and can request this in the June confirmation form. Those schools will be notified quickly of any additional funding, but should plan to deliver their summer school within their published maximum allocation in the meantime.
The guidance on summer schools has been updated to reflect these changes.
If you have any questions, please contact us at learning.recovery@education.gov.uk.
7. Information: view my financial insights (VMFI) - new login accounts for maintained schools.
The View my financial insights (VMFI) tool is now available for maintained schools, providing rapid insights into your school’s financial position and performance. It provides an automated assessment of areas for potential resource management, linked with relevant guidance, and access to resources tailored to each school. Local authorities can see this for all their schools in one place and in-depth analysis for individual schools.
If you work in a maintained school, we recommend using your DfE Sign-in (DSI) account to access the full data for your school. If you don’t have one, you can register for a DfE Sign-in account.
Once your DSI account is attached to your organisation, the service you need is called View Your Education Data (VYED). Your organisation’s approver will grant you access and assign you a VMFI role.
If you work in a local authority, we recommend continuing to use your IDAMS account.
Register now for a VMFI training webinar on Tuesday, 8 June from 2pm to 3pm.
8. Information: school resource management user group
We are inviting colleagues in local authorities and maintained schools to join a focussed user group to help shape the future strategy for school resource management (SRM) over the next 3 years.
Please complete this form to register your interest by 10 June to be considered.