Correspondence

Inform June 2019

Updated 18 January 2022

This correspondence was withdrawn on 25 September 2023

This page has been withdrawn as it is out of date.

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

Applies to England

1. Hub Corner

1.1 R10 for 2018 to 2019

In R10 we processed 6,987 files from 1,788 providers. Over 830 providers submitted their first R10 file within the final 4 days of the R10 collection window, 166 of these submitted their first R10 file on the final day.

1,402 ILR files were submitted on the last day of the collection window, which is over 20% of the total files submitted during the entire collection window.

1.2 Individualised Learner Record (ILR): R11 for 18/19

The ILR R11 data collection for the 2018 to 2019 funding year is now open and will close at 6pm on Thursday 4 July.

We recommend that you submit your data as early as possible and that you review your validation and funding reports that are made available to you on the hub and submit learner data.

1.3 Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS)

EAS for the 2018 to 2019 funding year is now open. If you need to submit an Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS) and you do not have access to this on the Data Returns tab in the Hub, please email our service desk to request this.

2. Funding rules monitoring

We have published the R10 funding monitoring reports on (the Hub)[https://hub.fasst.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx]. The funding monitoring reports user guide 2018 to 2019 explains how to access the reports and any actions you must take to ensure data is correct.

This release includes a data fix that affects reports FRM12 (co-investment) and FRM15 (recording End Point Assessment Organisations). Some providers may notice an increase in the records appearing in these reports from R10 onwards.

Please refer to the updated known issues log, which tracks issues that are affecting the suite of reports, for further information. For FRM12, these reports should now align to the funding reports on the Hub that highlight where employer co-investment is required.

If your organisation submits a funding claim, a provisional error value may have been included in your indicative year-end reconciliation statement. This value reflects any adult education budget queries that we contacted you about in-year. We confirmed this in the letter(s) you received, and the value represents the current year to date claim at R10 for any outstanding queries in the reports we contacted you about. This is not an in-year recovery of funds.

Providers who we contacted in-year must correct any errors where required, or provide evidence to support the funding claim for the learners identified. We will review evidence as quickly as possible and confirm what action you must take to correct any funding errors identified.

We will continue to contact providers in-year if we detect further or new data errors. Data must be correct by the final ILR submission for the year, and we will recover funds after R14 where we are satisfied that the claim has been made in error.

If you have any further queries about this information or have a specific query regarding data contained in a report, please contact the service desk marking your query for the attention of the funding rules monitoring team.

3. Recording accurate data in the ILR

We have identified through Qualification Achievement Rates (QARs), cases where providers have not accurately recorded the ILR for:

• breaks in learning (BIL) in apprenticeships. You must only use BIL where the apprentice plans to return and you agree this with the employer. This could include medical treatment, parental leave or personal reasons. A BIL should have an expected return date. If this date passes, then you should review the BIL and you should update the ILR accordingly. When the apprentice returns, you must have the evidence to show that they returned and are continuing their learning before reporting this in the ILR. You must not record a short-term absence (such as annual leave) as a BIL. You must not record redundancy or leaving employment as a BIL. For guidance on recording BIL on the ILR correctly, please see the ‘5.4.1 Recording agreed breaks in learning’ section of the Provider Support Manual.

• late reporting of withdrawn learners. This is where learners are either being withdrawn in-year or across funding years, where the withdrawal date is also within the funding qualifying period. You should regularly review your apprentices that are in learning in your ILR records to ensure that they are still learning. If you do not have the evidence that they are still learning, then you must report these as withdrawals as soon as you identify them. If the withdrawal date is in a previous funding year, you must declare this to us so that we can arrange to correct funding.

• withdrawal reasons. You should only use the withdrawal reason code 7 (‘Learner has transferred between providers due to intervention by or with the written agreement from the ESFA’) in the ILR with our explicit written permission from a deputy director in the agency. We are monitoring its use.

We systematically interrogate ILR data to identify data discrepancies, including these. We will report to you, and where necessary, challenge you on your data accuracy as you submit ILR data.

We will take action where appropriate; which could involve funding recovery, applying conditions to your contracts or termination in the most serious cases.

It is vital that the ILR data is accurate. Inaccurate data affects regulators and customers who use this data to make judgements on the quality of provision, in addition to funding and QARs.

4. In-year Qualification Achievement Rates (QAR) for 2018 to 2019 now available

We have released the R10 in-year QAR data for 2018 to 2019 on both the Hub and through a dashboard through the View Your Education Data portal. There will be two releases of in-year QAR data for 2018 to 2019 – at R10 and R12.

The in-year QAR guidance and QAR webpage provide details about this data release and accessing the dashboard.

You should review your in-year QAR data to check that your data is accurate. We have supplied some more information about the common data issues and funding monitoring reports that can help you review your data. We urge you to review your data now as we cannot correct your data after the final R14 submission.

To access the data, please ensure you have the correct IDAMS user access. Please see the IDAMS user guides for creating access or checking your user permissions.

If you have any questions, please contact the service desk.

5. Qualification Achievement Rate (QAR) technical specification documents and in-year guidance document for 2018 to 2019 

  We have published the following documents for QAR 2018 to 2019:    

• The QAR technical specification documents - these documents provide technical information about how we produce the QAR dataset.

• Data extract guidance – this document explains how you can use the data extract to show achievement rates, pass rates and retention rates to match those in the QAR dashboard.

• In-year guidance document- this document provides answers to the most common questions users of the in-year QAR data raise.

• Minimum standards 2018 to 2019 – this document sets out the Department’s position on all age apprenticeship and 19+ minimum standards   You should read these documents alongside the business rules, which explain the methodology for calculating QARs for 2018 to 2019.  

6. 2018 to 2019 year-end forecast funding claim – indicative reconciliation statement

Following the 2018 to 2019 year-end forecast funding claims process relevant to the funding streams below your indicative year-end reconciliation statements will soon be available via the Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF).

• grant funded Adult Education Budget (AEB)
• learner support for procured AEB
• Advanced Learning Loans Bursary

These statements are provisional following the R10 data return, the final reconciliation statements will be published on MYESF in November 2019 following the final funding claim process in October.

Where appropriate, we will record any Adult Education Budget funded queries in the provisional reconciliation statements published in July. This is so you are aware of the potential impact before year-end reconciliation statements. We will recover any over claim after the final R14 ILR return for 2018 to 2019.

If you have any queries please contact the service desk or your territorial team.

7. Change in payment dates from August 2019

We are changing the date on which we make payments from August 2019.

We are combining the adult payment dates into one and will pay the following funding streams on the 14th working day of the month:

• adult education budget (AEB)
• apprenticeships
• Advanced Learner Loans Bursary
• European Social Fund (ESF)
• National Careers Service
• 16 to 18 Traineeships
• Career Learning Pilots

Any payments relating to these funding streams will reach bank accounts on 20 August 2019, and then on the 14th working day thereafter. If you have any questions, please contact the payment queries mailbox.

8. EPAO validation error article

ESFA we will be switching the EPAOrgID_01 validation rule from a warning to an error from R12. This means that if you record an end-point assessment organisation that has not been approved to carry out the end point assessment for the apprenticeship standard being delivered on your learner data records within your ILR file it will fail validation. This will result in you not being paid for those learners and any funding previously paid for these learners in 2018 to 2019 will be recovered.

Please make sure that where this data is returned you have recorded the end-point assessment organisation correctly in your R12 data submission to avoid failing validation.

Details of the apprenticeships each end-point assessment organisation is approved to assess can be found at register of end-point assessment organistaion and this information is updated monthly. The validation rules are published on GOV.UK.

9. Learning Records Service (LRS) guidance video

In light of recent improvements to the LRS portal including changes to the ‘Submit Batch File’ pages, a new guidance video has been produced to help new users understand how to obtain Unique Learner Numbers (ULNs) for multiple records.

This will show schools and further education providers how to obtain ULNs by submitting either CTF files or LRB batch files.

Watch the tutorial

Further guidance can be found on LRS batch load documents for schools and providers.