ESFA Update further education: 26 February 2020
Published 26 February 2020
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2020
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-update-26-february-2020/esfa-update-further-education-26-february-2020
1. Reminder: the deadline to submit the IFMC is Friday 28 February
We would like to remind colleges that they must submit their IFMC documents to ESFA by Friday 28 February 2020.
If you need support, in the first instance please email us at financial.model@education.gov.uk.
You can find information about the submission arrangements on GOV.UK. We have also published further guidance to help colleges complete the model.
2. Information: 16 to 19 revenue funding allocation statements for 2020 to 2021
We aim to start issuing 16 to 19 funding allocation statements to further education colleges by the end of the week. We expect most statements to be available by the end of February and the remainder by the end of March.
You will find your statement on ESFA Information Exchange in the Document Exchange ‘Revenue Funding’ folder, under ‘AY 2020-21 (2020/21)’.
Your allocation includes a breakdown of our calculation. We have also published a short video and guidance to help you understand your allocation statement. Please use your allocation calculation toolkit and guidance to understand the data we have used.
The deadline for business cases is Thursday 30 April 2020 and we will apply minimum thresholds to decide whether we will consider your case. Please review the thresholds before submitting your business case.
Please contact us using our online enquiry form if you have any questions.
3. Information: adult funding allocations for the 2020 to 2021 funding year
In March, we expect to issue 2020 to 2021 funding allocations for adult education budget, 16 to 18 traineeships (for providers without 16 to 19 funding) and advanced learner loans.
We have published a timeline so that you know when to expect information from us. We will issue your allocations through Manage your education and skills funding and publish guidance to explain how we have calculated your allocation.
Please make sure you have set up one of the following roles on Manage your education and skills funding so that you can view your allocation statement:
- contract authoriser
- contract manager
- contract user
- data returns and claims authoriser
You can request a new role through the Identity and Access Management Service or by asking your organisation’s super user.
Contract authorisers and/or managers will receive an email confirming when your allocation statement is available to view.
If you have any queries, please contact your local territorial team contact.
4. Information: 2018 to 2019 list of declared subcontractors
The final issue of the 2018 to 2019 list of declared subcontractors has been published on GOV.UK. It is based on information from declarations submitted by providers as part of the final collection for 2018 to 2019. Also published, is the first list of declared subcontractors for the delivery of new apprenticeship starts from 1 May 2017 for the period 2019 to 2020.
The list of declared subcontractors shows subcontractors with contracts worth at least £100,000 in total, with one or more ESFA-funded providers of adult education and training services, including apprenticeships and traineeships. The list also includes the individual values of these subcontracts.
For further information, please refer to the list of declared subcontractors on GOV.UK.
5. Information: final qualification achievement rates (QAR) for 2018 to 2019
We will publish your final QAR 2018 to 2019 data on Thursday 26 March. All the data will be available through the View Your Education Data portal.
The QAR webpage provide details about this data release and accessing the dashboard. To access the data, please ensure you have the correct IDAMS user access. Please see the IDAMS user guides for creating access or checking your user permissions.
We will publish the National Achievement Rate Tables for 2018 to 2019 on Thursday 26 March at 9:30am.
If you have any questions, please contact us using our online enquiry form.
6. Information: EU exit update for apprenticeships
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. Check the latest Transition Period information.
There will be no change to eligibility for apprenticeship funding in academic years 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 for citizens from the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. They will need to ensure they have the right to live and work in the UK after 2020.
Employers should ensure that their employees, including apprentices, who are from the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland and living in the UK are aware that they and their family members will need to apply for settled or pre-settled status through the EU Settlement Scheme in order to secure their rights. Many of your employees will have already applied to the EU Settlement Scheme, or be in the process of doing so. But if they have not, they still have until 30 June 2021 to do so.
Irish citizens’ right to live in the UK has not changed. This means they do not need to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme, but they can if they want to. Any family members who are not Irish or British citizens will need to do so.
Detailed eligibility requirements are set out in the apprenticeship funding rules.
You’ll need to continue to check a job applicants’ right to work. This will not change.
UK nationals returning from living or studying in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland will continue to be eligible to apply for an apprenticeship in England for a 7-year period. The 7-year period will begin on 1 January 2021.
7. Information: update to ESFA intervention policy for apprenticeship training providers with low numbers of learners where Ofsted is unable to undertake a full inspection
In January Ofsted republished their further education and skills inspection handbook. They clarified that where an apprenticeship training provider has too few learners for a full inspection to take place, a full inspection will normally be replaced with a monitoring visit.
As a result, ESFA is updating its policy to explain how the outcome of the monitoring visits will be used to determine any intervention taken. Where the provider receives two consecutive ‘insufficient’ progress judgements, they will be removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP). This applies regardless of the theme/s deemed to be making ‘insufficient’ progress. Where this occurs the provider will need to wait 3 years before being able to reapply to the RoATP.
These changes will take effect from 14 April 2020 and align with existing policy to protect learners and employers from poor quality training provision.
Further detail will be available on GOV.UK from Friday 28 February.
8. Information: all apprenticeship starts to be through the apprenticeship service from 1 November 2020
In January, we announced that we were giving smaller employers, who do not pay the apprenticeship levy, full access to the apprenticeship service.
It is our intention that all new apprenticeship starts, for employers of all sizes, will be managed through the apprenticeship service from 1 November 2020. Until 31 October 2020 smaller employers will continue to be able to access apprenticeships through the apprenticeship service or via existing procured contracts held by training providers (as well as via transferred funds from employers who pay the apprenticeship levy).
Training providers with an existing procured contract will receive an extension to their existing contracts to cover the new financial year. The extensions will fund carry over costs for existing apprentices as well as new apprenticeship starts. However, to align with our intention for all starts to be through the apprenticeship service from 1 November 2020, the funding for new starts using the extended contracts will only be available up to and including 31 October 2020.
Contract extensions will be issued to training providers at the end of February via the Manage your education and skills funding service.
Training providers must ensure they have signed the contract extension before the current contract expires on 31 March 2020.
9. Information: new provider legal agreements – deadline Monday 6 April 2020
In conjunction with our January announcement that we were giving smaller employers, who do not pay the apprenticeship levy, full access to the apprenticeship service, we wrote to all existing providers about how the changes will affect contracting arrangements. This includes some of the details around changes to the provider and employer legal agreements.
From week commencing 9 March 2020, we will issue training providers with termination notices for their current ESFA Apprenticeship Agreement for Training Providers. During that week we will also issue new provider apprenticeship agreements. Providers will receive these new agreements via the Manage your education and skills funding service.
We are encouraging all training providers to accept the new agreement by 6 April 2020. This is to ensure we are able to minimise the potential for any disruption to payments which are due to providers for training they have delivered for existing apprenticeships.
10. Information: update on provider roadshows
ESFA will host the second series of provider roadshows in February and March for main providers on the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP).
Emails to register have been sent out to all main providers on RoATP. If you have not received an email to register, please contact us at apprenticeship.providers@education.gov.uk.
Our Spring 2020 provider roadshows build on feedback from our last events. The insight and information we collected has informed our planning, to help make sure we bring you, our providers, on our change journey with us.
The roadshows are being held around the country throughout February/March as follows:
- Tuesday 25 February, North East - East Durham College (this session is full)
- Tuesday 3 March, North West - Haydock Park Racecourse (few places left)
- Thursday 5 March, London - Holiday Inn, Wembley (few places left)
- Tuesday 24 March, Midlands - The Citrus Hotel, Coventry (this session is full)
- Thursday 26 March, South - Farnborough College of Technology
- Tuesday 31 March, South West - Taunton Conference Centre at Taunton RFC
Please note that registration will be on a first-come-first-served basis. We hope very much to see you in a few weeks!
11. Information: improvements to ‘Manage your apprentices’ in the apprenticeship service
Based on your feedback we have improved the layout of the ‘Manage your apprentices’ page in the apprenticeship service.
The fields have been updated and now include the employer and apprenticeship training course details. We have also improved the search, sort, and filter functionality and added a data download function. Alerts are also visible on the homepage.
12. Information: the FE Choices learner satisfaction survey will launch this March
The FE Choices learner satisfaction survey will launch in March, after some delay due to the general election period. Eligible providers will receive invitation letters by next week.
There have been changes made to the survey this year, including to the publication rules, so please review the guidance as soon as possible after receiving your invitation.
The survey will run from March to June, for a shorter period, so please encourage your learners to have their say.
All participating providers receive a report containing their results. Results are also published on GOV.UK, National Careers Service and Find apprenticeship training to help learners decide where to train.
If you have any queries, please use our online query form.
13. Information: consultation on proposed changes to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance
We have launched a consultation on proposed changes to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance and would encourage colleges, schools and staff, particularly designated safeguarding leads (DSLs) and senior leaders to respond. We are updating our guidance for DSLs to ensure that they have a greater focus on improving the academic achievement of children who have experienced adversity and trauma, as part of their existing safeguarding duties.
We want to hear your views on what additional resources, training or support would help DSLs to carry out their role successfully so that we can make sure the right support is in place when these changes are introduced.
We would be grateful if you could submit your response by 21 April 2020.
14. Your feedback: we would welcome your feedback on a new online form to report extremism concerns
As part of our work to help the education sector raise any matters or concerns that arise on extremism, we would like to speak to the sector to receive their feedback on a new online form.
DfE offer a service for anyone to report a concern relating to extremism within an educational environment using email or phone. We are currently working on an online form as an additional anonymous method to use the service. To ensure that the form is intuitive and easy to use, we’re looking for some volunteers to help us with our research. The research session will consist of you going through a test version of the form.
If you wish to take part in the research, where we will spend 30 to 45 minutes speaking to you on a 1 to 1 basis, either remotely using Skype or during a site visit, please email DataScience.USERRESEARCH@education.gov.uk by Friday 6 March 2020.