Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 8 September 2021

Published 8 September 2021

This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2022

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Read the latest editions of ESFA Update for the latest news and information.

Applies to England

1. Action: qualification achievement rates (QARs) 2020 to 2021

The R12 in-year qualification achievement rates (QARs) dashboards are now available via the View Your Education Data portal.

Alongside the dashboard, we also provide data extracts to show achievement rates, pass rates and retention rates to match those in the QAR dashboard. The data extracts identify the learners expected to complete or that actually completed over the multiple funding years used to produce the QAR dataset for 2020 to 2021.

If you have any QAR queries, please reference the data from the data extracts and complete the data query form which can be downloaded from GOV.UK. This can then be submitted via our online enquiry form, selecting the QAR query type, and assigning the query to ‘ESFA Business Operations QAR’. 

To note, as QARs were not published for 2019 to 2020, this hybrid end year is not included in the data extracts.

This in-year release provides indicative QARs for apprenticeships, education and training and traineeships and the opportunity to identify and resolve potential data issues prior to the ILR R14 hard close on 21 October 2021.  Guidance for reviewing data based on the common data issues that arise is available on the qualification achievement rates 2020 to 2021 webpage. 

Please review your ILR data before you make your final R14 submission. You will not be able to amend your 2020 to 2021 data after the R14 hard close.

2. Action: New subcontractor declaration window open, first collection for 2021 to 2022 including nil returns – Deadline 30th September 2021

Our first mandatory collection of subcontractor declarations for 2021 to 2022 is now open.

In line with your contract/agreement and the subcontracting funding rules, organisations delivering ESFA funded post-16 education and training programmes, including AEB, traineeships, apprenticeships, ESF and 16 to 19 programmes, must ensure they declare their 2021 to 2022 subcontracting arrangements to us.

All providers must declare their subcontracting arrangements for the period 1 August 2021 to 31 July 2022 through the Manage your education and skills funding service (MYESF) . Please note that if you do not subcontract but receive direct funding from ESFA, you are still required to make a nil return. If you subcontract 16 to 19 provision, you are reminded that you must declare subcontracting of enrichment, employability, and pastoral (EEP) activity within your declaration. We will require a further breakdown of EEP subcontracting in future collections and this will be communicated via Update.

For the avoidance of doubt, in the case of adult education budget (AEB) provision, only ESFA AEB funded delivery should be declared (for learners resident in non-devolved areas).

The deadline for submitting your declaration is Thursday 30 September 2021 by 5pm.

You will need one of the following MYESF roles to complete and submit a declaration:

• contract authoriser

• contract manager

• data returns and claims authoriser

You can check the user roles and permissions in MYESF.

If you have any questions, please submit an ESFA online enquiry form.

3. Action: ‘My apprenticeship’ accounts launching 9 September

As communicated by email, ESFA Update 4 August and ESFA Update 18 August, we are launching ‘My apprenticeship’ accounts.

An account will allow apprentices to:

• confirm their apprenticeship details are correct
• review their apprenticeship details throughout their apprenticeship
• access guidance on what is expected of them, their training provider and their employer
• access additional support

3.1 Add apprentice email addresses

From 9 September, the employer or training provider must add a unique email address when adding an apprentice record to the apprenticeship service, including bulk uploads. This can be the apprentice’s personal, college or work email address, but not a group email address. Without a unique email address, you will not be able to bulk upload, save or approve the apprentice record, so funding cannot be allocated.

Once the email address is added, the apprentice will receive an email invitation to create a ‘My apprenticeship’ account. Whilst the setting up of a ‘My apprenticeship’ account is encouraged, it is not mandatory and will not impact the apprenticeship start date or your apprenticeship funding.

4. Reminder: updates to the apprenticeship service

4.1 Pledge and transfer apprenticeship levy funds

We’re making changes to ensure the apprenticeship service meets the needs of employers, training providers and apprentices.

Soon, employers who pay the apprenticeship levy (those with an annual pay bill of more than £3 million) will be able to pledge unspent levy funds (up to their 25% transfer allowance) to support apprenticeships in other businesses via a new online service.

All businesses will be able to see these transfer opportunities on a gov.uk webpage and employers will be able to apply for funding to pay for 100% of their apprenticeship training and assessment costs (up to the funding band maximum).

We will share more details once the new service is live

4.2 Access the latest versions of apprenticeship standards

We’re making changes to ensure the apprenticeship service meets the needs of employers, training providers and apprentices.

Soon, when you, or an employer, add a future apprentice to the apprenticeship service, they will be automatically assigned to the latest version of the chosen apprenticeship standard, based on the planned start date for the apprentice.

Employers and providers will also be able to upgrade existing apprentices onto the latest versions of apprenticeship standards.

This will ensure apprentices receive training and assessment in line with the latest industry requirements, and employers can benefit from their up-to-date skills.

We will share more details once the new functionality is live.

5. Reminder: less than 3 weeks to submit your further education (FE) workforce staff and vacancy data returns

Data can be returned up to the 4:00pm deadline for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

Minister Keegan has written to FE providers about the importance of the collection.

The first collection for academic year 2020 to 2021 is voluntary.

Providers are encouraged to send a return to familiarise themselves with the data items required and the methods of completing the data return.

Returned data also provides an initial view of the sector to support policy development and feedback useful data to the sector.

The data return will be mandatory for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

You should complete a return if you receive funding through one or more of the following funding models:

• 16-19 (excluding apprenticeships)
• Adult skills
• Apprenticeships (from 1 May 2017) including levy funding
• Community Learning
• European Social Funding (ESF)
• Other Adult
• Other 16-19

Returns are not required if you are a school or academy which returns the school workforce census or a HE provider which returns the HESA staff record.

Documentation including a technical specification and a support manual has been produced to facilitate the staff data collection.

The FE Workforce collection is hosted within the Submit learner data (SLD) service. Users will need an IDAMS account and appropriate ‘roles’ assigned to their profile to access the FE Workforce collection.

For users who do not have an IDAMS account, refer to instructions on how to register for IDAMS.

Contact ESFA support desk with queries about FE Workforce data collection:

• Telephone: 0370 267 0001 (Monday to Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm Friday 9:00am to 4:00pm)
• Email: sde.servicedesk@education.gov.uk

6. Information: FE workforce governor data collection for FE and sixth-form colleges

A new online data return to support policy development opens on Monday 13 September 2021 and closes on Friday 22 October 2021 at 4PM. The governor data collected will provide a snapshot of board composition in the FE sector to the Department for Education and used to feedback data to the sector.

This return is for 2020 to 2021 academic year and is planned to be an annual return.

You should complete a return if your organisation is a FE or sixth-form college and receives funding through one or more of the following funding models:

• 16-19 (excluding apprenticeships)
• Adult skills
• Apprenticeships (from 1 May 2017) including levy funding
• Community Learning
• European Social Funding (ESF)
• Other Adult
• Other 16-19

The governor data collection is hosted within the Submit learner data (SLD) service. Users will need an IDAMS account and appropriate ‘roles’ assigned to their profile to access the collection.

For users who do not have an IDAMS account, refer to instructions on how to register for IDAMS.

Contact ESFA support desk with queries about FE Workforce data collection:

• Telephone: 0370 267 0001 (Monday to Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm, Friday 9:00am to 4:00pm)
• Email: sde.servicedesk@education.gov.uk

7. Information: adult education budget (AEB) reconciliation business case process for ESFA grant funded providers for 2020 to 2021 academic year

In July, we confirmed we were developing arrangements to allow grant funded providers to submit a business case, requesting the retention of proportionate costs where they have been unable to deliver at least 90% of their ESFA grant funded adult education budget (AEB) allocation.

Details of the new arrangements, including how eligible grant funded providers can submit a business case, have now been published on GOV.UK.

Grant funded providers have until 23:59 on 7 October 2021 to submit a business case. We will confirm the outcome by 15 November 2021.

If you have any questions, please contact your ESFA territorial case manager.

8. Information: additional guidance published on interim measures for managing the subcontracting market now that ROTO has formally closed

On 31 July 2021, the Register of Training Organisations (ROTO) was formally decommissioned.

On the 10 March we published an article in ESFA Update telling you that we had set the interim measures for managing subcontracting until the externally assessed standard is introduced in 2022 to 2023.

Following the publication of the funding rules, today we have published guidance which sets out our expectations for due diligence and financial monitoring/assessment that lead providers should conduct on their subcontractors and the process to submit information to us, if they are determined to be in scope. This is to ensure all subcontractors are eligible to receive ESFA funding to deliver education and training and help safeguard public funding.

Where a lead provider is required to stop working with a subcontractor, further information will be added to the guidance, in relation to the market exit strategy.

9. Information: traineeship in-year growth for 2021 to 2022

We can confirm that the 16 to 18 traineeship in-year growth introduced in 2020 to 2021 for institutions with a 16 to 19 study programme allocation, will continue into 2021 to 2022.

The underlying principle of guaranteeing growth funding (subject to a traineeships growth cap) remains unchanged if an institution has both:

• delivered above its overall 16 to 19 study programme allocation and
• increased its traineeship delivery.

There are minor changes to how the process will operate, please see traineeship in-year growth for more details.

10. Information: new funding reports guidance

We have published version 1 of the guidance on the 2021 to 2022 ILR funding reports. These reports are generated when providers submit a file to Submit Learner Data. This guidance for young people and adult programmes covers:

• 16 to 19 (excluding apprenticeships)
• adult education budget (devolved and non-devolved)
• all apprenticeships
• European Social Fund
• advanced learner loans bursary
• community learning

The key changes from last year’s reports are:

• the Cross Year Indicative Payments Report is no longer a BETA report. We issued this at R12 2020 to 2021 and we will issue this again between R01, R02 and R03 in 2021 to 2022 (building towards when we merge payments on your remittance for R02 and R03 with the R13 and R14 from the previous ILR respectively). This helps explain apprenticeship payments during the period of the year where two ILR years are open and being paid for in your remittances
• the 16 to 19 Funding Claim report does not have a filter on it this year. Instead, there two additional columns that reflect the data that the filter previously showed

11. Information: new webinar on what’s involved in an assurance review (audit)

The Apprenticeship Service is holding a webinar in October for training providers and employer providers.

This webinar will give you an overview of “What’s involved in an assurance review (audit) and how can you be prepared” and could be especially useful to those yet to have had an audit visit. We will give an insight of why we audit, what processes we follow, and what you can do in preparation for your visit.

Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions in a live Q&A.

The webinar will take place on Wednesday 13 October 2021, 12.00pm to 13.00pm. Sign up now.

You can watch all Apprenticeship Service webinar recordings on YouTube.

Follow @ESFAdigital on Twitter.

12. Your feedback: workshops to discuss financial and governance processes for independent training providers (ITPs)

During October we will be running a series of workshops focussing on financial and governance processes in the ITP sector. We are interested in what ITPs already have in place and in talking about how financial and governance processes can be developed across the sector.

If you are interested in attending a workshop please email us by no later than Monday 20 September. The e-mail should contain the full name of your organisation, your UKPRN, and a contact e-mail address to send any invite to.

The workshops will take place online via Microsoft Teams and will last approximately 90 minutes. We are looking for a cross-section of ITPs to attend which range in size, contract value, and organisation type. Places will be limited so please be advised that expressing an interest is not a guarantee of being invited to a workshop.

In addition to holding direct workshops with ITPs we will also be holding similar sessions with the Association of Employer & Learning Providers (AELP) so if you are an AELP member it is possible you might also be asked for input via that route.

For clarity these workshops are for independent training providers only and are not applicable for academies, colleges or local authorities.

The workshops will take place between 13 to 21 October. Invites will be issued during week commencing Monday 20 September.

13. Your feedback: recording attendance - research participants needed

We are currently conducting research to better understand challenges faced by FE providers when recording attendance.

The session would involve:

• an informal 1-2-1 video call lasting an hour
• they are conducted by impartial researchers who are not policy decision makers themselves
• video calls do not involve any evaluation of you or who you work for
• video calls are confidential - your name will not be associated with any of the data collected through this research

You can find more details and register your interest in taking part by completing this ‘take part in research form’.