ESFA Update further education: 4 December 2019
Published 4 December 2019
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2019
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-update-4-december-2019/esfa-update-further-education-4-december-2019
1. Reminder: submission of college financial statements
Colleges are reminded that they must submit by Tuesday 31 December 2019 their 2018 to 2019:
- audited financial statements
- finance record
- financial statements management letter (including college response),
- subsidiary company financial statements
- annual report of the audit committee
These must be submitted through IDAMS.
If a college is concerned that it may not be able to meet this deadline they should speak to their ESFA Territorial Team.
The consequences for not meeting this deadline or agreeing a new deadline are outlined in our college oversight support and intervention guidance.
2. Reminder: individualised learner record (ILR) R04 return
The R04 ILR data return closes at 6pm tomorrow, Thursday 5 December. It’s critical that your return is accurate and on time.
We use your R04 data return in several ways, particularly to:
- calculate 16 to 19 funding allocations for the 2020 to 2021 funding year
- calculate the carry over costs for procured apprenticeships non-levy contracts for the 2020 to 2021 financial year
- measure the performance of your 16 to 18 traineeship (for providers without 16 to 19 funding) and 19 to 24 traineeship contract value as set out in the adult education budget funding and performance-management rules
The R04 data return is also part of the 16 to 19 funding reconciliation monitoring system for independent learning providers as set out in our ILR funding returns guide for 2019 to 2020.
3. Reminder: register for our webinars on how to support smaller employers transition to the apprenticeship service
Providers can register to join our webinars to hear about the arrangements for smaller employers (that don’t pay the apprenticeship levy) on accessing the apprenticeship service from 2020. The webinars cover the arrangements in more detail, so providers can support employers with the transition to the service.
We are hosting sessions on:
- Thursday 5 December 2019
- Wednesday 11 December 2019
- Wednesday 18 December 2019
4. Information: applications to the register of apprenticeship training providers
If you want to apply to the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP), you can do so using the Department for Education portal (Bravo).
Please note, for organisations that are interested in applying through the new RoATP application service that will be piloted in 2020, you are currently unable to register an interest during the pre-election period.
5. Information: publication of high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census 2018 to 2019
We have updated the 2018 to 2019 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census file to reflect the high needs student numbers recorded in the 2018 to 2019 ILR R14 data return.
We also use the data in line with the high needs place change notification: technical note 2019 to 2020 to determine 2020 to 2021 high needs place numbers when local authorities have submitted ‘not agreed’ place change notifications for further education and independent learning providers.
The workbook also includes an additional tab containing actual data for special post-16 institutions (SPIs). This data is provided for information purposes only and is included as SPIs return R14 data to ESFA.
6. Information: reminder of advice on aluminium composite material cladding
The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to remind building owners of advice on Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding, published previously by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as part of its Building Safety Programme (BSP).
The relevant advice, which sets out all actions which must be taken, can be found in BSP Advice Notes 11 and 18, which were published respectively on 5 September 2017 (updated 27 February 2018) and 28 September 2018.
7. Your feedback: our online remittances for post-16 funding
We are redesigning our online remittances and related content in order to improve the usability and satisfaction of our service.
We are seeking feedback to support the project through a survey tailored to providers who receive post-16 funding from ESFA. The concepts and design suggestions contained in the survey are as a result of previous user research with such providers. The first part of this survey covers the transaction description changes and the second part is about the proposed design improvements to the online remittance view.
The survey is available online and closes on Sunday 15 December 2019.
Thank you for your interest in helping to improve our service.