Guidance

2024 to 2025 funding claims guidance

Updated 16 December 2024

Applies to England

1. Changes from 2023 to 2024 

• ESFA funded adult skills fund (ASF) has replaced ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB)  

• tailored learning has replaced community learning  

• ESFA funded 19 to 24 traineeships (grant funded) section has been removed in the claim to reflect that delivery completed in 2023 to 2024

• we have included a new section in this guidance at paragraph 5.4 for Project Simplification pilot providers 

• we have removed all references to the earnings boost as this only applied to the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 academic years 

 2. Introduction 

This document informs colleges and training providers of the funding streams that they are required to submit a funding claim for, sign off their final claim, how to make a claim and the dates for submitting a funding claim for the 2024 to 2025 funding year. This is a contractual requirement for the following funding streams: 

• grant funded - ESFA funded adult skills fund (ASF) (adult skills, tailored learning, funding for innovative provision, and level 3 free courses for jobs offer 

• grant funded - advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB) 

• 16 to 19 education (sign off for R14 final claim only) 

Alongside this information you should read: 

• Adult skills fund: funding rules 2024 to 2025 

• Advanced learner loans funding and performance management rules: 2024 to 2025 

• Advice: funding regulations for post-16 provision 2024 to 2025 

3. Deadlines for submitting claims  

The deadlines for each aspect of submitting the claim are in the table below. Failure to submit a claim by the due date will be a breach of the funding agreement. 

Funding claim	Deadline to provide Individualised learner records (ILR)	Claim form available on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to submit funding claim on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to sign funding claim on Manage your education and skills funding
R06 mid-year forecast funding claim*	06-Feb-25	10-Feb-25	13-Feb-25	N/A
R10 year-end forecast funding claim*	05-Jun-25	09-Jun-25	12-Jun-25	N/A
R14 final claim	23-Oct-25	28-Oct-25	31-Oct-25	04-Nov-25

• You do not need to submit a mid-year or year-end forecast funding claim for 16 to 19 funding. 

4. Where to complete and submit a claim 

You must complete and submit your funding claim in the data collections area of the Submit learner data portal. 

The funding claim form is available two working days after the close of the relevant Individualised Learner Record (ILR) and Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS) submission periods.  

5. Completing a claim 

5.1 ESFA funded adult skills fund (ASF) (grant funded) funding claims 

Your ASF funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following: 

• ESFA ASF adult skills – programme funding 

• ESFA ASF adult skills – learning support 

• ESFA ASF adult skills of which tailored learning 

• ESFA ASF innovative provision 

• ESFA ASF learner support – 19+ hardship 

• ESFA ASF learner support – 20+ childcare 

• ESFA ASF learner support – residential access funding 

• ESFA ASF learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs 

• ESFA ASF learner support – administration expenditure 

The Adult skills fund: funding rules 2024 to 2025 set out the following, where applicable: 

• You have the flexibility to use your tailored learning funding (stated in your funding agreement) in line with the ASF formula funded methodology (funding model 38), to meet local demand.  

• You must not claim more than 5% of your total learner support as administration expenditure. 

• the eligibility requirements and the maximum amount of funding you can draw down for innovative provision. 

Any claims you submit must be supported by the relevant funding and monitoring (FAM) codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate. 

5.2 ESFA funded adult skills fund - Level 3 free courses for jobs offer for 24 years old and over (grant funded) 

Your ASF funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following: 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – programme funding 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – learning support 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – 19+ hardship 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – 20+ childcare 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – residential access funding 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs 

• ESFA ASF Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – administration expenditure 

You must not claim more than 5% of your total Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support expenditure claim as administration expenditure. 

Any claims you submit must be supported by the relevant funding and monitoring (FAM) codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate. 

5.3 Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB) funding claims 

For those providers that are paid on profile for their ALLB allocation they will be required to complete a funding claim. Your ALLB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following: 

• bursary funding 

• hardship 

• childcare 

• residential access fund 

• area costs 

• excess claims 

• administration expenditure 

As set out in section 23 of Advanced learner loans funding and performance management rules: 2024 to 2025: you can claim up to 5% of your loans bursary expenditure for learner support activities (hardship, childcare and residential access fund) on administration expenditure.  

Any claims you submit must be supported by relevant Learner support reason and Advanced Learner Loans Bursary funding FAM codes in your ILR return for the relevant reporting period. If your data does not support your year to date or future claim, we will take action to ensure that your claim represents value for money and data is timely and accurate. 

5.4 Project simplification pilot providers 

Providers that are a part of the adult project simplification pilot will be sent detailed instructions on how to submit mid-year, year-end and final funding claims.   

You will still be required to submit your claim via submit learner data and sign your final claim on my education and skills funding within the deadlines published at section 3 of this guidance.   

5.5 16 to 19 Education claims 

If you have a 16 to 19 Education allocation your principal or delegated authority must sign off the R14 final funding claim. You are not required to submit a mid-year, year-end or final claim for 16 to 19 Education. 

Your 16 to 19 education final claim will show the data that has been taken from your ILR R14 submission that will need to be signed off.  

6. Relevant to all funding claims 

For all formula funded deliverable lines, we will pre-populate the ‘delivery to date’ figures on the claim form based on your ILR/EAS data submissions. You will not be able to amend this data. You should submit ILR data returns from R04 onwards, as set out in the ILR specification 2024 to 2025 Appendix A – Data Collection Timetable. 

For all non-formula funded deliverable lines, for example, tailored learning or learner support, you will need to enter a figure from your own records. 

As a provider, you need to fill in the ‘forecasted delivery’ for each field for the mid-year forecast claim and year-end forecast funding claim for the rest of the year. This forecast does not get used for setting allocations. We use forecasts to understand the wider performance of the sector and to manage budgets. Therefore, the forecast you provide in your mid-year and year-end forecast funding claims must be realistic; it must be based on actual and/or expected demand.  

We will assure your mid-year and year-end learner support claims to identify where claims have been made without references to ‘LSR’ codes and where there is a high average cost per identified learner and will contact providers accordingly. 

Before submitting your forecast, you must ensure any funding errors identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard have been corrected in your latest data return. We will calculate provisional error values based on your data which we will include as an adjustment to illustrate the potential impact when you submit your final claim.   

In your final funding claim, you only need to agree the figures, as we will use your ILR/EAS to pre-populate your actual delivery figures. We will account for any monitoring errors identified in your ILR data submission at this point. You will still need to enter figures for non-formula funded deliverable lines.  

You must only use the ‘exceptional adjustments’ column for final claim to make changes if you’ve agreed an exceptional adjustment with us beforehand.  To gain authorisation to submit an exceptional adjustment, please contact the customer help portal. You must also retain relevant evidence and we will request this information once we have received your claim. If you do not send us the evidence in the timeline we set out, we will reject the exceptional adjustment.   

You will have 4 working days (7 for final claim) after the relevant claim opens to submit your funding claim. If you do not submit a required funding claim in accordance with the dates above, then we will issue a minor breach notice, as this is a contractual requirement. 

We will publish a user guide document giving further information on how to submit your funding claim. 

7. When to sign a claim 

Providers with adult and/or 16 to 19 provision must sign final funding claims in the Manage your education and skills funding service by 4 November 2025 You do not need to sign mid-year and year-end forecast claims. 

7.1. Who needs to sign a claim 

An authorised person in your organisation must sign final funding claims. This can be the principal or another senior post holder who has the delegated authority. 

They will need the Contract authoriser or Data returns and claims authoriser role in Manage your education and skills funding 

8. Audit 

The ILR data return and EAS are subject to ESFA’s audit and assurance regime to ensure the accuracy of ESFA funding claimed by a provider. We will monitor tailored learning and support funding through the ILR, EAS and claim submissions from the mid-year claim point onwards. Specifically, we will monitor the amount of funding you spend on tailored learning and support costs. We will also compare your costs to the volume of learners you have recorded and may request additional evidence if required.  

All providers must ensure that appropriate audit evidence is retained to support the ILR, EAS and all other returns made to ESFA. Where overclaims are identified we may instigate recovery action through data adjustments, offsetting or by invoice. 

If your auditor tells you that you must make an adjustment because of an audit, you must amend your ILR data or make the agreed adjustment using the EAS. 

9. Reconciliation statements 

For mid-year funding claims, we will not issue any reconciliation statements. 

For the following funding streams, we will issue an indicative and final reconciliation statement: 

• ESFA ASF- adult skills and tailored learning – grant-funded 

• ESFA ASF- innovative provision 

• ESFA ASF- Level 3 free courses for jobs offer for 24 years old and over – grant funded 

• advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB) – grant-funded 

We will issue indicative and final reconciliation statements through the Manage your education and skills funding service after your submitted year-end forecast and signed final funding claims. 

The indicative statement will give you an indication of the funding you may need to pay back to us, and the final statement will confirm the amount to be paid back or if an additional payment is due. The thresholds that will be applied to calculate the amount to be paid back or if an additional payment is due is published in the Adult skills fund: funding and performance management rules 2024 to 2025. 

Where provision was grant-funded, we will process monitoring errors identified in your R14 ILR data submission as an adjustment to your final reconciliation statement. If we are not satisfied that provision identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard is eligible, we may need to request further evidence demonstrating the learners’ eligibility before we can publish your statement. 

If you must pay amounts back to us, we will schedule those repayments from December 2025. 

If you have an issue with your reconciliation value, you must tell us by 31 December 2025. We will not consider any requests after this date. We will publish your reconciliation statement(s) by 28 November 2025. 

10. Exceptional Learning Support (ELS) 

If you need to claim for learning support costs over £19,000, you must go through the ELS process at the beginning of the learner’s programme. You can submit estimated costs and final claims for exceptional learning support by completing the exceptional learning support cost form. You must only claim the amount above £19,000 through the ELS process. The amount up to £19,000 in total should be through a combination (if necesasry) the £150 a month in the ILR and the remainder up to £19,000 through the EAS. 

You must submit the ELS cost form for ESFA learners only, via Document Exchange on DfE Sign-in, ensuring that you select ‘Exceptional Learner Support’ as the document’s purpose. For full instructions, please refer to Section 1 of the exceptional learner support estimated cost form for 2024 to 2025. If you do not have access to DfE Sign-in, please speak to your organisation’s Super User in the first instance. Alternatively, contact us via the ESFA enquiry form. 

Please contact your Mayoral Combined Authority or the Greater London Authority for support funding for learners funded through devolved ASF arrangements. 

For further information about ELS please refer to the relevant section of the ESFA funded Adult skills fund: funding rules 2024 to 2025