ESFA Update further education: 23 January 2019
Published 23 January 2019
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2019
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1. Action: 2018 to 2019 funding claims guidance publication
Mid-year funding claims for 2018 to 2019 are due by Tuesday 12 February 2019 from providers who receive funds through a:
- adult education budget – grant-funded (non-procured)
- advanced learner loans bursary – grant-funded
- learner support contract – paid-on-profile (procured)
- community learning contract – paid-on-profile
The mid-year claim form will be available in the Hub from Thursday 7 February 2019 at 9am for 4 days and will close at 5pm on Tuesday 12 February 2019. The form will be pre-populated with your earnings following the R06 data collection return. You must add your forecasts for the remainder of the 2018 to 2019 funding year.
We have published a user guide to help you complete the form. For further information, please read the funding claims guidance. You can e-mail queries to the service desk at sde.servicedesk@education.gov.uk.
2. Action: Funding for the delivery of T Levels consultation – webinar
Colleges, schools and other post-16 providers are being encouraged to have their say on how new T Levels will be funded through a 3-month consultation, which was launched on 27 November 2018. The consultation will close on Tuesday 19 February 2019.
We have organised a webinar on Tuesday 5 February 2019 at 2pm to explain the government’s proposal. You can book your place for the webinar by registering online. You can also raise any questions you have in advance.
3. Action: Strategic College Improvement Fund – workshops
We’re preparing to launch the third, and final, round of applications for the Strategic College Improvement Fund (SCIF) in early February. SCIF supports colleges with Ofsted graded 3 or 4 for overall effectiveness or for sub-judgements listed in the guidance, to partner with a higher-performing college and undertake a focused quality improvement programme. This will be the last opportunity for eligible colleges to apply.
To hear from existing SCIF recipients, you can attend a workshop.
- Wednesday 6 February 2019 – 10.00am to 1.30pm at Birmingham Metropolitan College
- Friday 8 February 2019 – 11:30am to 3.00pm at Havering Sixth Form College
Places are restricted to one delegate per college.
Please email strategiccollege.improvementfund@education.gov.uk by 5pm on Thursday 31 January 2019 to confirm your attendance, stating which workshop you wish to attend.
4. Action: Fire Safety Advice for Building Owners – Partial ACM Cladding
Following the tragic Grenfell Tower fire, we identified the limited instances where Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding of concern was present on buildings in scope across education. This helped us to work with building owners to take remedial action.
Since then, you may have seen that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has issued further Building Safety Programme advice for the owners of buildings over 18 metres with partial ACM cladding.
This advice sets out the action building owners should take. It explains that the clearest way to ensure the safety of occupants, and the most appropriate remediation solution, is to remove all ACM, including small or partial areas of ACM, and replace it with a safe material.
If you have any concerns about your building we would encourage you to seek independent expert advice. Should you have any other questions please send them to DFE.FIRESAFETY@education.gov.uk.
5. Information: R05 funding monitoring reports published
We have published the R05 funding monitoring reports on the Hub. The funding monitoring reports user guide 2018 to 2019 explains how to access the reports and any actions you must take to ensure data is correct.
We have also published a known issues log, which tracks issues that are affecting the suite of reports, and the dates we expect to resolve these. You should refer to the user guide and the known issues log when reviewing your reports.
For further information, please contact the service desk via e-mail at sde.servicedesk@education.gov.uk marking your query for the attention of the funding rules monitoring team.
6. Information: 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation calculation toolkit for further education institutions
We have uploaded 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation calculation toolkits (ACTs) for academic year 2019 to 2020 for most further education institutions to ESFA Information Exchange. You will find your ACT file in the Document Exchange ‘Revenue Funding’ folder, under ‘AY 2019-20’. We will upload ACT files for schools and academies in early February.
Our guidance will help you understand the information in your ACT file. Your ACT shows how we have used your data to calculate your funding factors, band proportions, students not meeting the condition of funding, care standards and students eligible for CDF Industry placement funding for your 2019 to 2020 allocation. Further information will be shown on your allocation statement.
Please do not submit a business case about your data until you have reviewed your 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation statement. The deadline for business cases is Tuesday 30 April 2019. Please contact us using our online enquiry form if you have any questions.
7. Information: Review of end of year 16 to 19 study programmes data for 2016 to 2017
In December, we published our findings following our review of end of year 16 to 19 study programmes data for 2016 to 2017. We proposed a change to the young people’s funding guidance for academic year 2019 to 2020 about students with prior attainment in English and maths at grade 4 or above.
We received feedback on the change from a small but significant number of providers. We have decided not to apply the change in 2019 to 2020 and will discuss the responses with the sector over the next few months. We will then decide whether to proceed with this change for academic year 2020 to 2021. We aim to confirm our decision on this by the end of May 2019.
If you have any questions about this, please contact us using our online enquiry form.