Inform March 2020
Updated 18 January 2022
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2022
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfa-inform/inform-march-2020
1. Information: Access to the ESFA Developer Hub
The Education and Skills Funding Agency is in the process of reviewing all of its online resources and migrating legacy websites with the former sfa.bis.gov.uk Universal Resource Locators (URL) address over to the new education.gov.uk address.
A number of URL’s have already been successfully updated.
Importantly two URLs that are scheduled for migration shortly may require users to take action, these are:
-
ESFA Developer Hub - https://developers.apprenticeships.sfa.bis.gov.uk, a portal where developers can register an account to access and test our Application Programme Interfaces (API)
-
the URL associated with the Application interface https://apis.apprenticeships.sfa.bis.gov.uk
On Friday the 6th March 2020, we will be migrating the ESFA Developer Hub from its current URL onto the new URL https://developers.apprenticeships.education.gov.uk. To continue to access your account on the developer Hub you will need to use the new address.
We will shortly also begin working on the migration of the Application Interface. To ensure there is no interruption to your systems you will need update applications you have created with the Application Interface, with the new URL when it becomes available.
If you have any queries then contact the:
- Help Desk: 0370 2670 001
- National Contact Centre: 08000 150 600
2. Reminder: Contract approval
Your contracts, and any variations to the allocations or terms and conditions held within them, are available in Manage your education and skills funding.
These need to be reviewed and signed by a contract authoriser promptly to ensure that the correct payments are received and you are aware of the current obligations.
Please ensure that you have at least one person in your organisation with a contract authoriser role on IDAMs and that their email address is up to date to receive alerts. Your super user can arrange this.
There are a number of contracts and variations currently awaiting signature – please check to see if you have anything outstanding.
If you have any queries about this please contact your Territorial Manager.
3. Information: Final qualification achievement rates (QAR) 2018 to 2019
We will publish your final QAR 2018 to 2019 data on Thursday 26 March. All the data will be available through the View Your Education Data.
The QAR webpage provides details about this data release and accessing the dashboard. 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.
We will publish the National Achievement Rate Tables for 2018 to 2019 on Thursday 26 March at 9:30am.
If you have any questions, please contact the service desk.
4. Information: Review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below in England - Process for removal of funding approval for qualifications with low and no enrolments
In the first stage consultation of the review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below, which closed in June 2019, the Department outlined its intention to make early progress in removing funding approvals for qualifications with low and no enrolments. This will help to streamline and stabilise the publicly funded offer in advance of further reform.
On 13 February, we set out how we will be taking forward the process to confirm which qualifications with low and no publicly funded enrolments will have public funding approval removed from August 2021. The qualifications in scope of this process were detailed in a list, also published on 13 February.
Awarding Organisations must tell the Department if they believe a qualification should retain approval for public funding. They must do this by 27 March 2020.
We know that in some cases there will be clear reasons why a qualification might have low demand, and we have designed the process to consider this. We will assess the evidence provided by awarding organisations against specific criteria including, for example, that removing funding for a qualification would have a significant adverse impact on particular student groups, occupations or geographical areas.
If you are concerned about a qualification on the list, you should contact your awarding organisation. All relevant information and documentation can be found on GOV.UK.
5. Information: Have your say on adding apprentice’s details
Have your say! We’ve released a survey as part of work to improve the process of adding multiple apprentice’s details to the apprenticeship service.
We’d like to hear from training providers.