Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 22 September 2021

Updated 23 September 2021

This correspondence was withdrawn on

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Read the latest editions of ESFA Update for the latest news and information.

Applies to England

© Crown copyright 2021

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-update-22-september-2021/esfa-update-local-authorities-22-september-2021

1. Feedback: please tell us about your experience with digital forms

We are seeking volunteers to participate in our user research panel to inform the ongoing development of digital forms. We’d like to hear from schools, academies, local authorities and colleges who can tell us about their experience of using our digital forms, particularly for submitting data to us for grant funding.

If you’d like to take part please complete our on-line form and we will be in touch.

1.1 Your feedback: view my financial insights

The view my financial insights (VMFI) team is currently reviewing how we can improve VMFI to better support schools, academies and trusts.

The user research team would like to interview school/academy and trust leaders about their experience and engagement with VMFI. From this research we hope to gain insight to ensure VMFI delivers value.

Research sessions lasting 45 minutes will take place throughout the autumn term, starting on 28 September 2021. The sessions will use Microsoft Teams and all responses will be anonymised.

Please register your interest and a researcher will be in touch with more information.

Please share this opportunity with colleagues in your local authority or academy trust.

2. Reminder: 16 to 19 tuition fund 2021 to 2022 form

Eligible institutions are reminded to complete the 16 to 19 tuition fund form.

The deadline for your submission is 11.59pm on 12 October 2021.

You can read the guidance document to help you complete the form.

3. Reminder: FE workforce staff and vacancy data collection

We have extended the deadline for returning FE workforce data to Friday 22 October 2021 at 4pm. This provides an additional 4 weeks for the data return.

Providers are encouraged to send a return to familiarise themselves with the data items required and the methods of completing the data return. If you haven’t already, please submit your data.

Returned data provides an initial view of the sector to support policy development and allows for feedback across the sector.

The data return will be mandatory for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

You should complete a return if you receive funding through one or more of the funding models listed below:

  • 16-19 (excluding apprenticeships)
  • adult skills
  • apprenticeships (from 1 May 2017) including levy funding
  • Community Learning
  • European Social Funding (ESF)
  • other adult
  • other 16-19

The collection is hosted within the submit learner data (SLD) service. Users will need an IDAMS account and appropriate ‘roles’ assigned to their profile to access the collection.

For users who do not have an IDAMS account, refer to instructions on how to register for IDAMS.

You can contact us with queries about FE Workforce collections:

4. Information: lead school applications for the Behaviour Hubs programme now open

Following a successful initial cohort, we are now looking to welcome a further 28 Lead schools and 8 Lead multi-academy trusts (MATs) to join the Behaviour Hubs programme.

Behaviour Hubs is a 3-year programme, funded by The Department for Education (DfE) that pairs schools and (MATs) with exemplary behaviour practices, called Lead schools or MATs, with Partner schools or MATs who want and need to improve pupil behaviour.

We are looking for ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Good’ schools that demonstrate excellent behaviour culture to join the programme - and your support in identifying these schools is particularly appreciated. We are also looking for MATs with exemplary behaviour practice across schools in their MAT, who are invited to apply alongside an eligible school.

You can download the stakeholder pack for Lead school and MAT recruitment which contains an email template for inviting schools and MATs to apply, as well as the full eligibility criteria for Lead schools/MATs and other information about Behaviour Hubs you may find useful.

To ensure the Behaviour Hubs team can follow up with any schools or MATs you recommend, please let the team know who you contact by emailing behaviourhubs@educationdevelopmenttrust.com.

5. Information: coronavirus (COVID-19) recovery premium funding

We’ve published the recovery premium funding allocations and conditions of grant for academies and local authorities.

You can read more about the recovery premium funding.

6. Information: revised pupil premium allocations for 2021 to 2022

We’ve updated the 2021 to 2022 pupil premium allocations to take into account academy conversions and other changes to the school estate since the June 2021 publication.

7. Information: Recruit an Apprentice legacy technology

The Recruit an Apprentice (RAA) team is looking at updating legacy technology including RSS feed, AV Live Widget and SOAP API.

If your organisation uses any of these, please complete the survey by 30 September. Some questions may need to be answered by your technical team.

Back to top