Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 22 August 2018

Published 22 August 2018

This correspondence was withdrawn on 20 February 2020

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Find the latest information from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in the latest ESFA Update.

Applies to England

1. Action: submission of external assurance on subcontracting controls certificates by providers and employer-providers who deliver adult provision, including apprenticeships and traineeships

As communicated on the Wednesday, 27 June, you must send your completed certificates for 2017 to 2018 to CF1718.SUBCONTRACTING@education.gov.uk by Friday, 14 September.

You can find information about this requirement in the updated guidance document alongside the certificate proforma on GOV.UK.

If you have any queries, please contact the service desk.

2. Information: Ofsted new provider monitoring visits

We have published the approach that ESFA will take when an organisation receives an insufficient progress assessment from Ofsted following a monitoring visit to a new apprenticeship training provider. This approach will apply where Ofsted finds that ‘insufficient progress’ has been made under one or more of the themes assessed during the monitoring visit.

Following publication of the Ofsted monitoring visit report, the ESFA will write to advise that the affected organisation:

• must not start any new apprentices
• can continue to deliver training to existing apprentices but must inform all of the existing employers they are working with, and providers they operate as a sub-contractor to, about the Ofsted monitoring visit report
• is prevented from working with new apprentices via an existing subcontracting arrangement or entering into a new subcontracting arrangement with another main provider or employer-provider on the register

ESFA will not remove the affected organisation from the register.

3. Information: funding reports guidance 2018 to 2019

We will shortly publish version 1 of the guidance on the 2018 to 2019 ILR funding reports generated when providers submit an individualised learner record file. This guidance for young people and adult programmes covers:

• 16 to 19 (excluding apprenticeships)
• adult education budget
• all apprenticeships
• European Social Fund
• Advanced Learner Loans bursary

The key changes from last year’s reports are:

• a new report for the career learning pilot
• some minor changes to some of the existing reports
• removal of the ‘Funding Model 35 Funding by Learner Report’

4. Information: final reconciliation transaction 2017 to 2018

This applies to those providers that submit funding claims because they receive funds through:

• a grant for your adult education budget
• a grant for your advanced learning loans bursary
• a learner support contract
• a community learning contract

Following submission of your final funding claim in October, we will process the final reconciliation transactions for 2017 to 2018 in December 2018.

We have previously communicated this new timing in July 2018 in the updated funding claims guidance on GOV.UK.

For further information or related queries, please email the service desk.

5. Information: Birst (My BI) decommissioned - 1 October 2018

We are introducing more effective technology for the delivery of dashboards and data in quarter one of 2019. This is part of our commitment to ensuring our reporting tools enhance user experience and continue to provide value for money.

To ensure no loss in service when we decommission Birst, interim solutions will be available using existing dashboard data, these include:

• qualification achievement rates – a replication of the current Dashboard in Excel with a comparable look and feel
• funding rules monitoring (FRM) – an Excel extract of all the FRM tables
• localism – a series of Excel tables with the data from the dashboard

We will continue to update your products in alignment to the existing release schedule.