Correspondence

Inform October 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This correspondence was withdrawn on 25 September 2023

This page has been withdrawn as it is out of date.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. Apply to join the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers using our new service

At the end of this year, the ESFA is launching a new service for organisations to apply to join the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (the register).

If your organisation wants to become an apprenticeship training provider, you can still apply using our existing service, or you can register your interest in using our new service for when we launch it.

2. Action: Apprenticeships non-levy allocations from April 2020

We will shortly be calculating the carry-over costs for procured non-levy contracts for the 2020 to 2021 financial year.

This allocation will include funding for learners that started with non-levy employers between 1 January 2018 and 31 March 2020.

We will also allocate funding for new starts from 1st April 2020. More information will be communicated shortly on how these contracts will support the managed transition of small and medium-sized employers onto the apprenticeship service during 2020.

We will calculate allocations using November (R04) data submissions. Please ensure you submit full, accurate and timely data at R04 as this will improve the accuracy of the allocation we calculate for you.

If you have any queries, please contact your territorial team lead.

3. Action: Declare your residential arrangements for learners aged 16 –18 and up to 25 for learners with high needs

All providers with residential provision are required, through funding conditions, to inform the department about students in residential accommodation.

All providers should complete the appropriate field on the individualised learner record (ILR).

Colleges and Special Post 16 Institutions (SPIs) should also self-record this information on GIAS (Get Information about Schools). They can update their GIAS record by signing into their DfE Sign-in account and there is GIAS guidance available.

Independent Training Providers (ITPs) are not included on GIAS but are required to inform the department if they have residential learners in this age group.

Residential provision includes the use of temporary accommodation, including hotels and arrangements made with host families.

The national minimum standards for residential accommodation for 16-18s in further education colleges are published in the Further education residential accommodation: national minimum standards guidance. These standards also apply, through funding conditions, to SPIs and ITPs.

Ofsted use the ILR and GIAS information to plan the inspection of residential provision. If you have any questions, please contact us via the ESFA online contact form.

4. 2018 to 2019 Final Reconciliation Statements

Thank you for submitting your 2018 to 2019 final funding claim.

The reconciliation statements will be available for you to view on the Manage your Education Skills and Funding service by the end of November 2019.

This will set out the final position for 2018 to 2019 that will inform the funding that you will be required to repay (if applicable) or the additional funding that we will pay.

Statements are published for submitted funding claims, if you receive funds through a:

• grant for your adult education budget (AEB)
• grant with an Advanced Learner Loans Bursary contract
• Learner Support contract

We will process the final reconciliation adjustments for 2018 to 2019 in December 2019.

Any under-delivery will be recovered against your December 2019 payment.

5. Information: New Funding Reports Guidance

We have published version 1 of the guidance on the 2019 to 2020 ILR funding reports 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:

• added the ‘Devolved Adult Education Funding Summary Report’ and the ‘Devolved Adult Education Occupancy Report’
• new adult funding line types have been introduced
• ESF Round 1 reports will no longer be produced following the end of ESF Round 1 contracts in April 2019
• removal of the ‘Beta Apps Co-Investment Contributions Report’ and the ‘Career Learning Pilot Occupancy Report’

6. Qualification achievement rate (QAR) dashboard updates on View Your Education Data

Since releasing the latest QAR dashboard in August, we have been monitoring feedback and service desk calls to improve the dashboard.

The common themes we identified in service desk calls were:

• we had filtered some tabs (E&T Summary, GCSE, Qualification and SSA E and T) to show 16-18 by default; we did this to avoid presenting a misleading QAR for all ages in the E and T dashboard. We included information about this filter on the screen but users were not aware of this default filter, or how to change the age band displayed.
• users were unable to see their data within the dashboard

The common themes we identified through the feedback button in the dashboard were:

• the graphs in the GCSE tab did not help users to understand their maths and English data
• seeing all information on the summary pages is helpful

6.1 What have the development team done to improve the QAR Dashboard?

Consequently, we will publish a new version of the dashboard by Friday 25 October 2019 and will contain the following updates:

1. E and T Summary Page

We have re-designed the tab; this now contains 16-18 and 19+ data side by side. This means that users will no longer have to filter between age bands and can start to compare the data more efficiently.

2. GCSE

We have re-designed this tab to help users to understand their data. The page is split into two sections; English and Maths. We are displaying volumes and proportions for each grade band and identifying where Outcome Grades have not been reported in the ILR. The charts on this page will change when we release the provisional QAR in January, which will include GCSE results reported in R14.

3. GCSE, Qualification and SSA E and T tabs

These tabs now contain 16-18 and 19+ buttons at the top of each page. This allows users to easily navigate and update the data. The tabs are set to 16-18 by default, but you can change this by selecting the 19+ button which will then highlight in green.

4. Accessing your Data

We have updated the security tables behind the dashboard. These changes correct the issue where some users struggled to access their data.

6.2 Your feedback matters

Thank you to those who have shared their feedback with us so far. We are keen to ensure that the QAR dashboard meets your requirements, so please continue to leave feedback by clicking on the ‘Feedback’ button, which is at the top of each tab in the Dashboard.

If you would like to share an idea for something you would like to see in the dashboard, please click on the ‘Log Idea’ button that is also available at the top of each tab.

7. The FE Choices Learner Satisfaction Survey will launch this November

The FE Choices Learner Satisfaction Survey will launch in November. Eligible providers will receive invitation letters next week.

There have been changes made to the survey this year, including to the publication rules, so please review the guidance as soon as possible after receiving your invitation.

The survey will run from November to April, so please encourage your learners to have their say.

All participating providers receive a report containing their results – results are also published on GOV.UK, National Careers Service and Find Apprenticeship Training to help learners decide where to train.

The Employer Satisfaction Survey will not be running in 2020. FE Providers who provide Apprenticeships training, should encourage their employer partners to complete the real time ‘provide feedback’ when they receive an invite from the Apprenticeship Service.

If you have any queries, please email enquiries.EFA@education.gov.uk. Many thanks.

8. DfE’s Education and Training Professionals Survey has been extended

Thank you to all the staff and providers who have responded to DfE’s Education and Training Professionals (ETP) survey so far. We have extended the survey to 29th November, to give more FE teaching/training/assessment staff the opportunity to respond and speak directly to DfE.

Visit the IFF Research website to find out more about taking part, and make sure you don’t miss out!

IFF Research are continuing to contact providers for the HR telephone survey, and the staff survey link will be distributed to teaching and training staff by providers who have agreed to take part.

If you think your organisation qualifies to participate and you would like to get involved, please contact ETPsurvey@iffresearch.com.

We will publish the findings, alongside summary reports with the findings for independent training providers, sixth form colleges and adult and community learning providers.

We will use these findings to inform future policies so your input will help us support the FE sector.

9. R14 for 2018 to 2019

In total in R14, we processed 7,506 files from 1,779 providers.

Lots of providers are leaving their submissions until the last minute. This is a risky approach as you must have a submission with us by the deadline to guarantee your payments.

Over 575 providers submitted their first R14 file within the final 3 days of the R14 collection window, 169 of these submitted their first R14 file on the final day.

1759 ILR files were submitted on the last day of the collection window, which is over 23% of the total files submitted during the entire collection window.

10. feconnect: October update

Feconnect is an online forum where you can talk to colleagues about funding and data issues, and help each other to resolve queries. It has almost 5,000 registered users.

In October feconnect had over 90,000 page views and 11,500 users. There were almost 250 new discussion topics posted in October – the highest monthly figure this year.

The most viewed pages this month related to apprenticeship payments, apprenticeship data match reports and the Funding Information Service.

Although ESFA colleagues occasionally post updates and monitor responses, you need to go through the ESFA service centre to formally raise an issue.

If you have any feedback on feconnect or suggested improvements, please email fe.connect@education.gov.uk.