Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 4 October 2023

Published 4 October 2023

Applies to England

1. Action: 16 to 19 Tuition Fund 2023 to 2024 digital form

The 16 to 19 Tuition Fund 2023 to 2024 opt in/out digital form second window is now live. 

The deadline for your submission is 11:59pm on 20 October 2023.

We’ve published guidance to access and help you complete the form.  

You can read more on the 16 to 19 tuition fund 2023 to 2024 webpage.

2. Reminder: payments for ILR collection period R13 and R14

We will make payments and /or recoveries for R13 and R14 of 2022 to 2023 ILR collection with the payments for the R02 in October 2023 and R03 in November 2023, respectively.

You can find the data collection dates for the 2022 to 2023 ILR on GOV.UK.

3. Reminder: review hours for 16 to 19 qualifications and non-qualifications delivery before submitting your final ILR data return

We have identified some areas in advance of the R14 ILR return that need reviewing where we can see numerous providers with potential errors in their data. To help you reduce your data errors at R14 and the chance of being selected for audit, please use the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard to review these reports:

• FRM43 - 16 to 19 study programme students on qualifications with no planned learning hours (PLH)

• FRM56 - 16 to 19 study programmes with PLH but no regulated qualifications

• FRM69 - Proportion of planned employment, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) hours is greater than or equal to 50% of total planned hours and student is not identified as requiring additional learning support.

You must ensure your PLH and EEP accurately reflect the amount of qualifications and non-qualifications activity being delivered in the current academic year. The PLH field must reflect the total planned timetabled hours spent on DfE approved qualifications only. A value of zero PLH is only returned if the learner is only participating in employability, enrichment and pastoral activities during the year.

4. Reminder: submit your 2022 to 2023 16 to 19 Tuition Fund spend and tell us how you have used your additional hours

You will need to submit a digital form if your organisation either received 16 to 19 tuition fund for the academic year 2022 to 2023 and/or received the additional hours baseline data report, which was based on returns your institution made in academic year 2020 to 2021. We supplied the additional hours baseline data report to you in June 2022.

Please note that failure to submit a report on 16-19 tuition fund spend will result in recovery of 100% of your academic year 2022 to 2023 tuition funding.

We have produced a digital form so you can tell us:

• how much tuition fund you have spent in the 2022 to 2023 academic year
• what your institution used additional hours for and account for how you delivered the expected average increases in hours

You will need to submit the form as soon as you can, and no later than 11:59pm on 13 October 2023.

The digital form can be accessed online.

Guidance on how to complete the form can be found on GOV.UK.

5. Information: Launch of £40m degree apprenticeship development fund  

The Office for Students (OfS) launched a funding competition on the 28th September for OfS registered higher education providers to bid for a portion of £40 million for projects over the next two years. The funding will boost the range of apprenticeships available at Level 6 and help a wider group of people to take them up. 

Information for Providers: 

• The OfS encourages bids from both new and existing degree apprenticeship providers. If you are not OfS-registered, you will be still able to join-up with an OfS registered provider to submit a bid.
• All providers are invited to attend a webinar on 19th October to find out more: Degree apprenticeships funding competition - Office for Students.
• You can read more detail about the funding, including priority funding areas, within the guidance document here: Degree apprenticeships funding competition: Guidance for providers - Office for Students.

6. Information: increasing the Free Courses for Jobs over-delivery thresholds for non-devolved areas in academic years 2023 to 2024

It is a government ambition to expand the provision of high value L3 qualifications via the Free Courses for Jobs (FCFJ) offer. Therefore, we are increasing the FCFJ over-delivery threshold allow for additional growth of the program when needed. We’ve updated the performance management section in the adult education budget funding rules 2023 to 2024 to confirm this.

The new upper delivery threshold of 150% will apply in the 2023 to 2024 academic year. The increase is temporary and will return to 110% in 2024 to 2025 academic year.

This means that providers can deliver up to 150% of their allocation giving confidence to increase the volume of training and investment in high value skills at L3. We will continue to take active steps in monitoring delivery of FCFJs through regular review and performance management points in the year.

7. Your feedback: survey closing Friday 6 October on a Skills Bootcamps FE College provider forum

This short survey is for FE Colleges only.

We ask for your views on shaping the scope of a Skills Bootcamps provider forum, which could be created to support sharing of best practice in Skills Bootcamps delivery amongst FE colleges. The forum would run on a termly basis and be open to all FE colleges across England.

The survey consists of only 3 multiple choice questions. Please submit your responses by this Friday, 6 October.