Correspondence

Inform February 2021

Updated 18 January 2022

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You can find the latest from ESFA in our weekly newsletter, ESFA Update.

Applies to England

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfa-inform/inform-february-2021

1. Reminder: mid-year funding claims for 2020 to 2021

The mid-year funding claim window will open at 9am on Monday 8 February 2021. We understand that this is a difficult time for everyone, and time and resources are under strain.

However, we will still require you to submit an accurate mid-year claim so we have visibility of the challenges you are facing, which will inform the design of the year end reconciliation process.

Please submit your mid-year funding claim by 5pm on Friday 19 February 2021. This is slightly later than we originally published. The claim form will be available on Submit Learner Data.

You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through:

  • grant funded – ESFA Adult Education Budget (AEB) (Adult Skills, Community Learning, 19 to 24 Traineeships and Covid-19 skills offer)
  • learner support for ESFA AEB procured (Adult Skills and 19 to 24 Traineeships) – paid-on-profile
  • grant funded - Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB)

The form will include your R06 ILR and Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS) data and will be available from 9am on Monday 8 February 2021. You must include your forecasts for the remainder of the 2020 to 2021 funding year.

Once you have submitted your mid-year funding claim on Submit Learner Data, you will also be able to view it on Manage your education and skills funding.

You will not be able to complete the form after the deadline on Friday 19 February 2021.

For more information, please see the 2020 to 2021 funding claims guidance. The user guide to help you complete the form will be available on GOV.UK.

If you have any queries about this, please contact your Territorial Manager.

2. Information: 2020 to 2021 ESFA grant funded adult education budget (AEB) reconciliation

Due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19, including transferring all learning to online delivery where possible from 5 January, we are currently reviewing the end of year grant funded AEB reconciliation position for 2020 to 2021. We are looking at this in recognition of the difficulties and uncertainties many providers are facing.

We will communicate any changes to the published arrangements through Update in the coming weeks.

In areas where the AEB has been devolved, MCAs/GLA are responsible for considering any provider flexibilities in their areas.

3. Find an end-point assessment organisation

Find an end-point assessment organisation is a new function the apprenticeship service has developed to enable employers and training providers to find end-point assessors that deliver assessments for the standard their apprentice is completing.

The function allows employers and providers to search for the apprenticeship training that needs to be assessed and view all available end-point assessors who can deliver the assessment. If there is more than one assessment organisation for the selected standard, you will be shown a list of all available organisations to choose from.

For any queries, please contact the Apprenticeship Service on 08000 150 600.

4. It’s not too late to get involved in National Apprenticeship Week 2021!

National Apprenticeship Week takes place 8th to 14th February :

Please follow our social media accounts to keep updated and ask your contacts to tag us on their Twitter posts using @apprenticeships and use #NAW2021 and #BuildTheFuture so we can showcase the amazing work that is happening.

Don’t forget to please retweet and share our launch day posts which include a brand new NAW video.

Please contact the.week@education.gov.uk if you have any questions. Follow us on:

Remember to use the hashtag: #BuildTheFuture

5. Information: ILR specification for 2021 to 2022

The first version of the ILR Specification for 2021 to 2022 has been released.

The ILR summary of changes will give a complete view of the changes implemented for 2021 to 2022. A brief overview of the changes are:

  • the Prior Attainment field has been removed from the Learning Delivery entity and been replaced with a new entity containing level and data applies. This includes two new codes for Level 2 and Level 3
  • new Employment Status Monitoring type to capture redundancy on the employment status. This includes unassigned codes
  • change to the collection requirements of the Pathway and Framework fields to include T- Levels for the 16-19 provision
  • two Source of Funding indicators have been added for Combined Authorities
  • unassigned codes for Learning Delivery Monitoring and Source of Funding indicators

This release includes the baseline version of the Provider Support Manual. This version does not include the 2021 to 2022 changes at the moment, this will be updated and these changes will be published in due course.

Please continue to use the feedback link on the site to help us improve the functionality. On the introduction page, we will continue posting our functionality backlog and will edit it as we progress through it.

6. Information: ILR validation rules for 2020 to 202

The sixth version of the ILR validation rules for 2020 to 2021 has now been published.

7. Information: monitoring post-16 funding

We have published R05 data on the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard on View your education data. The Post-16 monitoring reports dashboard user guide 2020 to 2021 explains how to access the reports and any actions you must take to ensure data is correct.

Please ensure that you, or other members of your team, have a user account with the appropriate permissions to allow you to view and download the data before we begin contacting providers after R06. In addition to asking you make corrections, we may ask you to provide evidence to support some data. Annex C of the Post-16 monitoring reports dashboard user guide 2020 to 2021 indicates what action we will take to assure data and funding; we have also summarised this information on the landing page of the dashboard.

In response to user feedback, we have identified and subsequently resolved several issues in the R05 release of the reports:

  • Some users have tried, but been unable, to download data. The ‘underlying data’ option is an export of disaggregated data and is currently unavailable. To download the data, users only have the ‘summarised data’ export option. This option allows users to export the aim level data shown in the summarised data tab, as described in the user guide. We have changed some of the wording in the dashboard to reduce confusion around this. The tab previously called ‘underlying data’ is now called ‘summarised data’ to reflect the option that users need to select when exporting data.
  • We identified an issue causing some ULNs in the summarised data to be displayed with more than 10 digits. We have now updated the column settings and fixed the issue so ULNs display correctly. The fix will also update your R04 data, so you may need to re-export this if you want to reuse the R04 data.
  • We identified an issue in the way records were being matched in report ‘FRM42 - Work experience over 300 hours not recorded as core aim’. This meant that the report did not show the work experience aim (the matching aim) that corresponded with the core aim we investigated. We have now fixed this, and the data should display correctly. You must review this data and ensure you have correctly identified the learner’s core aim.

If you have any further feedback on the dashboard, please contact us using the feedback button on the landing page. If you need further support to resolve errors, please submit an enquiry.

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