Correspondence

Inform October 2020

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This correspondence was withdrawn on 25 September 2023

This page has been withdrawn as it is out of date.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. Action: Final funding claims for 2019 to 2020

You must submit a final funding claim by 5pm on Tuesday 3 November 2020 on Submit learner data.

You must submit a claim if you receive funds through:

• Grant Funded - Adult Education Budget (AEB) (Adult Skills, 19 to 24 Traineeships and Community Learning)
• Learner Support for AEB Procured (Adult Skills and 19 to 24 Traineeships) – paid-on-profile
• Grant Funded - Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB)
• 16 to 19 Education

The digital claim form will be available in Submit learner data from Monday 26 October 2020, following the R14 data collection. When you have submitted your claim you will also be able to view it on the Manage your education and skills funding service.

You will not be able to complete the form after the deadline on Tuesday 3 November 2020.

The claim must be signed digitally on Manage your education and skills funding by your principal or a delegated authority, the deadline for signing off the claim form is 5pm on Wednesday 4 November 2020.

The 19+ funding claims guidance and 16 to 19 education funding guidance for the 2019 to 2020 funding year can be found on GOV.UK.

The user guide to help you complete the form will be available before claims open.

Following submission of your final funding claim we will publish your final reconciliation statements for 2019 to 2020 funding year by the end of November 2020.

We recognise 2019 to 2020 has been a challenging year and our primary concern remains the stability of providers going into 2020 to 2021, alongside ensuring the proper use of public funds through an approach that will be fair, open, and transparent.

We will process the final reconciliation transactions for 2019 to 2020 in the December 2020 payment run. If this transaction is a recovery, then this will be offset against all December 2020 payments.

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

2. Information: 16 to 18 traineeship in-year growth for 2020 to 2021

The Chancellor announced on 8 July that we will provide additional funding for traineeship delivery in 2020 to 2021. We have now published guidance on how we will award in-year growth for 16 to 18 traineeships.

This guidance is for colleges, schools, academies, independent learning providers and other provider types with 16 to 18 funding allocations to deliver study programmes. It does not apply to those providers with standalone 16 to 18 traineeship contracts - separate guidance is available for this.

The process for awarding growth funding for traineeships will be entirely data driven, based on Individualised Learner Record and school census returns, and the guidance outlines how growth will be calculated and when it will be paid.

If you have any questions about this guidance, please contact us using our enquiry form.

3. Information: service improvements to submit learner data

As part of the planned service improvements to Submit learner data (SLD), we will soon be switching off DCFT (the Hub).

If you need to keep reports for audit purposes from the 2013 to 2014 funding year onwards, please download and save them to a safe location.

The final reports for each academic year will be migrated to SLD and will remain accessible there.

If you have questions about this change, please use our enquiry form.

4. Information: R14 ILR return webinar

In order to support organisations in their preparations for the closure of the 2019 to 2020 Individual Learner Record (ILR) on 22 October 2020, we have recorded a webinar which will offer helpful advice and tips on submitting a successful R14 return.

This will be of interest to all types of training providers who have made an ILR return in the 2019 to 2020 academic year, but it will be particularly useful for organisations who successfully applied to the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) since August 2019 and commenced delivery of apprenticeship training before the end of July 2020.

You can access the recording on the ESFA GoToWebinar channel.

5. Information: ESFA funded adult education budget funding rates and formula guide 2020 to 2021 version 3

We have published version 3 of the adult education budget (AEB) funding rates and formula guide for 2020 to 2021.

This document sets out how we will fund activity for ESFA funded AEB and 16 to 18 traineeships. In this version, we have described an increase to traineeship funding rates to £1,500 for starts from September 2020.

This guide covers 2020 to 2021 and is our current advice for the funding year. We know that providers are working through exceptional circumstances due to COVID-19.

We may publish further updates about the impact of COVID-19 on our guidance as these become clear. We will tell you about any changes in ESFA Update.

If you have any queries after reading our guidance contact us, marking your query for the attention of the 19+ Calculations group.

6. Information: changes to funding rules monitoring reports

Following your feedback about accessing your reports earlier, we will produce some of your reports when you submit your ILR returns.

We have selected certain reports that are suitable for producing when you submit your data, they will be available alongside your funding reports in Submit learner data from R02.

We have selected the following reports that are suitable for production on submission (the report references are from the 2019 to 2020 guidance).

• FRM06 – Continuing learners from 2019 to 2020 who do not appear in the 2020 to 2021 ILR (will be available later this period)

• FRM07 – Breaks in learning where the learning is not re-planned when the learner returns

• FRM08 – Breaks in learning which exceed 12 months / 365 days

• FRM09 – Transfers with no new learning recorded in the ILR (withdrawal reason 40 only)

• FRM15 – Apprenticeship standards with no end-point assessment organisation (EPAO)

If you have any questions, please contact the Post-16 funding monitoring team using the enquiry form.

7. Information: Save the date - The Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers 2020

The Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers will be announced during a special live broadcast on the afternoon of Wednesday 21st October.

The broadcast will feature a full countdown of the new rankings, with analysis and research about the nation’s top apprenticeship employers.

We will be releasing further details including how to register, and how to watch the live broadcast in the oncoming weeks, and these updates will be published on our social media channels and on our website.

8. Information: Ofsted to inspect level 6 and 7 apprenticeship training provision from 1 April 2021

The Education Secretary announced on Monday 28 September that, following careful consideration, the Government has accepted the Augar Review’s recommendation that Ofsted become the single body responsible for the inspection of the quality of apprenticeship training provision at all levels.

From 1 April 2021, Ofsted will therefore assume responsibility for inspecting level 6 and 7 apprenticeships (both degree and non-degree) as they do currently for levels 2-5.

The Education Secretary has written to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman to confirm this policy change.

This change will ensure consistency in quality standards across apprenticeships, so that employers and apprentices can have confidence that apprenticeship training is subject to a consistent approach to quality assurance, regardless of provider type or the level of the apprenticeship.

A series of virtual conferences will be launched later this year to give providers an opportunity to hear directly from the ESFA, Ofsted and the OfS and understand what this change means for them. Further information will follow in due course.

9. Information: latest Apprenticeship Service support webinars

As part of our Apprenticeship Service webinar programme we are pleased to bring you the next in our series of support webinars.

On the 28th October we will be hosting 2 webinars about off the job training, one for employers and the other for training providers.

The employer webinar will cover

• what is off-the-job training and why do we have it?
• the difference between off-the-job training and on-the-job training
• tools to support understanding of off-the-job training
• working with training providers

The training provider webinar will cover:

• importance of off-the-job training
• review of the changes to the 20/21 Funding Rules
• tools to support understanding of off-the-job training
• working with employers
• what is required for ESFA audit?

For more information and registration details sign up now.

10. Information: The Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices – New YouTube Video

The Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices provides clear, accessible advice and guidance to individuals on the impact of redundancy, their options and next steps.

Since it launched on 1 August 2020, the service has been promoted widely through Education and Skills Funding Agency and Department for Education channels, but we would appreciate your support too.

Please share our new YouTube with employers and apprentices, it explains what the service is, the benefits and how to access it.

Overview of the redundancy support service for apprentices

If you are aware of an employer who would like to recruit a redundant apprentice or offer new apprenticeship opportunities, please ask them to visit Hiring an apprentice who has been made redundant or call 0800 015 0600 to find out more.

If you are aware of any apprentices who have been made redundant please encourage them to visit Facing redundancy during your apprenticeship or call 0800 015 0400 to speak to an adviser.

11. Reminder: Preparing final ILR returns for 2019 to 2020

The R14 ILR data collection is open, this is the final opportunity to submit Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data for 2019 to 2020 academic year. The collection will close at 6pm on 22 October.

It is important that your data is submitted error free, accurate and complete because errors or incomplete returns can impact on the payments your organisation receives.

The data cannot be updated or amended after R14 has closed.

We recommend you submit your data as early as possible and that you check your validation and funding reports, available on Submit learner data, to ensure your return is correct and complete.

We have published some guidance to help you correct the most common data problems in the 2019 to 2020 ILR.

For support with issues you are unable to resolve using the published guidance, you can contact our customer service team for assistance on specific issues and support not covered by the guidance.

Some issues may take some time to resolve and it may not be possible to clear issues raised with us very close to the deadline, so we strongly recommend that you submit as early as possible to ensure you are able to request support in good time if needed.

For the team to deal with your questions efficiently please can you ensure your ILR file has been submitted on Submit Learner Data.

It will also help to include how many learners the error is affecting and if possible, a sample of ULNs and the ILR rule violation name. Please remember not to include any personal learner data when contacting us.

You can contact us by using our enquiry form.

12. Information: Customer feedback on R12 ILR to payment process

The ESFA’s customer experience team gathers feedback from education and training providers so we can understand what it’s like to work with the ESFA, and prioritise improvements based on your needs.

Last month we asked for feedback on the R12 ILR to payment process.

Here is a summary of the 140+ responses, the things you want us to address and what we’re doing about it.

Graph showing customer feedback results summarised for submitting data, understanding reports and reconciling payments.

Submitting data is rated 8.65 out of 10, understanding reports is rated 7.18 out of 10 and reconciling payments was rated 6.27 out of 10.

12.1 Key themes

From the scores and free text comments, the feedback was really positive about how easy it is to return ILR data, but more negative about reconciling payments.

ILR submission process is easy, but trying to understand payments, particularly for employer incentives is a nightmare.

The data collection system is much better than the old one, quicker reports and easier to locate things.

I find the process overly complicated and the remittance information is poor which makes tracking payments difficult.

12.2 Suggested improvements

Providers want us to make improvements in the following areas:

• Simplify guidance – the responses were clear that our guidance is complicated and should be better arranged, signposted and simplified. There should be training or other resources for newer staff to help them understand the processes, which ILR reports to prioritise and how to track payments back to ILR data.

• Make payments easier to match to learners - customers find it very hard to match payments to specific learners, particularly for apprentices, and do not get all the information they need through our reports, which they find are difficult to understand

• Improve reports – there were a number of specific reporting improvements suggested in the responses, for example, include learner names in reports, send alerts when reports are available and make funding rules monitoring reports available on submission.

12.3 Planned work and recent 2020 to 2021 improvements

In response to this feedback and other learning from one to one user research sessions with training providers, work is already underway.

12.4 Apprentice level payment information

For the 2020 to 2021 funding year, there is a new tool in Submit learner data for apprentices who started after 1 May 2017.

It provides an onscreen summary of your expected payments at learner level – it compares the apprenticeships monthly payment report and indicative earnings report. If there is a difference, the report explains why and what providers should do to investigate problems.

For example, giving reasons why payments are not being made for a learner such as data lock, clawback or being held back for completion. This went live at the end of August.

12.5 Earlier reports and more notifications

As requested, we now make some of the Funding Rules Monitoring (FRM) FRM reports available on submission, so that the reports are available when you return your ILR files.

We are also looking to:

Notify users when period end reports are available (and improving internal processes so that we can meet our published expected dates for those reports)

Make ILR return dates more visible and possibly having a countdown within Submit learner data

Improve the Learner entry tool (if you use this and want to contribute to user research please complete our survey)

If you are interested in joining a user research session to give specific feedback on issues like those above, then please contact customer.experience@education.gov.uk.

13. Information: ESFA communities is replacing feconnect

A new peer to peer discussion forum for further education and training providers will replace the dated feconnect. The new version is more accessible, scalable and easier to use.

As with the existing feconnect service, all users will need to register and have their accounts approved before being able to post topics/replies or subscribe for alerts.

We expect to dual run both the new service and the legacy feconnect for a few weeks (certainly until R14 has passed), so that you can wrap up existing conversations on the old platform.

As requested by feconnect users and described in Laura’s post, we plan to leave a ‘frozen’ version of the feconnect site available so that you can continue to access the thousands of conversations you have had in recent years.

If you have any comments or queries, please email customer.experience@education.gov.uk.