ESFA Update further education: 26 January 2022
Published 26 January 2022
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-update-26-january-2022/esfa-update-further-education-26-january-2022
1. Action: variation to the ESFA Apprenticeship Agreement for Training Providers (for the provision of apprenticeship training)
A variation to the Apprenticeship Agreement for Training Providers will be published w/c 24 January 2022.
A number of changes have been made to the existing agreement, including:
- an extension of the Agreement for a period of three years from 31 July 2022;
- an Accountability Framework for Training Providers has been introduced; and
- a new schedule relating to sub-contracting requirements has also been added.
Training providers will receive a notification that the variation to the agreement is ready to sign. You will then be able to sign the variation to the agreement through the Manage Your Education and Skills Funding service.
2. Action: 16 to 19 Bursary Fund assessment processes
This is a reminder for institutions to ensure they comply with the funding rules in the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide 2021 to 2022.
Both types of bursary funding are designed to help students overcome the individual financial barriers to participation they face.
Institutions must:
- ensure funds go to those who genuinely need them and reflect the needs each student has, which will vary depending on individual circumstances
- not award any student a fixed or flat rate of funding without an assessment of the actual needs they have
- make sure their application forms and bursary policies avoid any terminology such as ‘guaranteed bursary’ or any wording that implies a student will get a fixed amount of funding.
The guide includes a summary of key points for institutions to consider when administering the bursary fund.
3. Reminder: mid-year funding claims for 2021 to 2022
The mid-year funding claim window will open at 9am on Tuesday 8 February 2022.
Please submit your mid-year funding claim by 5pm on Friday 11 February 2022.
The claim form will be available on Submit Learner Data. For more information, please see the 2021 to 2022 funding claims guidance.
You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through:
- grant funded - ESFA funded Adult Education Budget (AEB) (Adult Skills, Community Learning, 19 to 24 Traineeships and National Skills Fund Level 3 Adult Offer)
- grant funded - Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB)
Once you have submitted your claim you will also be able to view it on the Manage your education and skills funding.
If you have any queries about this, please contact your Territorial Manager.
4. Information: conducting due diligence checks on subcontractors returns by document exchange
We notified the sector in September 2021 that providers are required to share a minimum level of due diligence with the agency. Providers are in scope if they are using a subcontractor who receives an aggregate value of £100,000 or more of ESFA funding but does not have a direct relationship with the agency, in the 2021 to 2022 academic year (1 August 2021 to 31 July 2022). Schools and academies are not in scope as they are governed by other assurance processes.
The deadline to file the subcontracting due diligence form with us by ESFA Document Exchange is 11 March 2022.
You can view guidance on how to use Document Exchange in the user guide.
Guidance and further information on the process, is available on the guidance for conducting due diligence checks on subcontractors page.
5. Information: high needs place change request outcomes 2022 to 2023
We have published the High needs place change request outcomes: 2022 to 2023 that will inform the funded place numbers for the 2022 to 2023 academic year in academies, free schools, further education colleges and independent learning providers.
You should review the published outcomes as soon as possible, to ensure the numbers reflect those expected. If an institution is not listed, this means no change was notified for that institution and the published 2021 to 2022 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2022 to 2023 allocation.
Local authorities, academies or further education institutions can contact ESFA to query their 2022 to 2023 place numbers between 19 January 2022 and 4 February 2022.
More information about the enquiry window can be found in the high needs place change process guidance.
6. Information: FE initial teacher education (ITE) bursaries programme available for a further academic year (2022 to 2023)
The Department for Education (DfE) recently announced continuation of FE ITE bursaries for the 2022 to 2023 academic year for skilled non-graduates as well as graduates who are training pre-service to teach high-priority shortage subjects in the FE sector in England.
The pre-service bursaries are a tax-free cash incentive paid to individual trainees while completing a specified teaching qualification (Level 5 or above).
| Subject | Bursary Value |
|---|---|
| Mathematics , Science (including chemistry, physics, and biology), Engineering (and/or manufacturing), computing | £26,000 |
| SEND | £15,000 |
| English (capped at 100 places) | £12,000 |
More information is available on GOV.UK.
From academic year 2022 to 2023, in-service grants, previously offered alongside pre-service bursaries, will no longer be available under this scheme. Any information regarding support for in-service FE teacher training will be published on GOV.UK in due course.
7. Information: availability and review of provisional qualification achievement rates (QAR) 2020 to 2021 and data query window 31 January 2022
Provisional QAR for 2020 to 2021 was released last week and providers can now access their data through View Your Education Data portal. Providers have until 5pm on Monday 31 January 2022 to inform us of any concerns about how we have implemented our published methodology. You cannot request fixes or adjustments to your 2020 to 2021 Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data.
If you have any queries with the provisional data, please complete and submit the data query form and submit this via our online enquiry form, selecting the QAR query type, and ask us to assign your query to ‘ESFA Business Operations QAR’.
On the Education and Training (E&T) dashboard, many providers are reporting not seeing the data they anticipated. This could be due to where a substantial proportion of E&T delivery fall under the ‘Teacher Assessed Grade’ rule noted in both the QAR Business rules and E&T Technical Specification which means they are out of scope for QAR.
As alerted previously in ESFA update, the spreadsheet within Ofqual’s Summer 2021 Qualification Explainer Tool confirms which categories apply for normal assessment/teacher assessed grades. This is in recognition of the ongoing impact of the pandemic and published guidance on the awarding of qualifications for summer 2021. Qualifications confirmed as:
- subject to normal assessment (category A) will be included in institution level QARs and shared with Ofsted and providers.
- teacher assessed (category B1) and those which may be subject to a teacher assessed grade (if they cannot safely access an assessment) (category B2 and Access to HE courses regulated by QAA) will not be included in institution level QARs or shared with Ofsted or providers for 2020 to 2021.
Alongside this release of data, following feedback from providers, we have also provided clarification on a number of points across the business rules and technical specifications. This includes greater detail on the derivation of the Achievement Year for Apprenticeship Standards (data item ‘P_Achyr’) in the contents table of the QAR dataset. These documents provide technical information about how we produce the QAR dataset and should be read alongside the business rules, which explain the methodology for calculating QARs for 2020 to 2021 and can be accessed on qualification achievement rates 2020 to 2021.
8. Information: 16 to 19 subcontracting
We have published the 16 to 19 subcontracting data for the 2020 to 2021 academic year on GOV.UK. This publication includes subcontracting data for FE institutions, schools and academies funded by ESFA. It is based on the R14 individualised learner record (ILR) return produced by FE institutions, and the autumn census return for schools and academies.
9. Information: Financial Assurance: Monitoring post-16 funding for 2021 to 2022
R05 data is now available in the post-16 monitoring dashboard. Please ensure you review your data and make necessary corrections in your R06 data submission as this is used for mid-year claims and calculating future allocations.
We’re contacting certain providers before R06 about learner support claims where there are potential data issues. Please ensure you record the appropriate learner support reason FAM code for learners you’re making a claim for (this is required under the adult education budget (AEB) funding rules 2021 to 2022).
We’ve published further guidance to support our FRM37 report, which reviews off the job training (OTJT) hours reported for apprentices. This report monitors both planned and actual OTJT hours and includes continuing apprentices where planned OTJT hours don’t meet the minimum required for their employment intensity band. This document can be used alongside Apprenticeship off-the-job training: policy background and examples.
10. Information: Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the further procurement of Skills Bootcamps
We have launched an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the further procurement of Skills Bootcamps during the 2022 to 2023 financial year. This tender forms part of ambitious plans to greatly expand the geographical reach and skills offer via Skills Bootcamps.
Potential providers have been asked to bid for a share of up to £150 million of Wave 3 funding to deliver skills in digital, technical, construction and green skills, as well as for Skills Bootcamps that support learners to progress to accelerated apprenticeships.
We are looking for delivery to start from 1 September 2022. Full guidance and detail on the lots, policy background and delivery requirements is available on the call for competition page.
11. Information: coronavirus (COVID-19) mass testing exceptional premises costs claim form to open shortly
There will shortly be an opportunity to submit claims for exceptional premises costs incurred during the mass testing of pupils and students on their return in January 2022.
Schools and academies with secondary age pupils, along with colleges and other eligible establishments, will be able to submit claims from Monday, 31 January 2022.
The window will then close on Sunday, 20 February 2022 giving schools and colleges three weeks to submit a claim.
The process to claim is changing and the claim submission guidance has been updated on GOV.UK.