Correspondence

Inform September 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This correspondence was withdrawn on 25 September 2023

This page has been withdrawn as it is out of date.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. Reminder: Individualised Learner Record (ILR) for apprenticeships - R14 hard close

It is critical that you make any amendments to your 2018 to 2019 apprenticeship ILR data before the hard close at 6pm on Thursday 17 October.

After this date, you will not be able to fix any data match issues from your 2018 to 2019 ILR return and will not receive payment for activity relating to August 2018 to July 2019.

2. Qualification achievement rates 2018 to 2019

We are now approaching the final ILR data collection for 2018 to 2019; we use the final R14 data to calculate qualification achievement rates (QARs) and minimum standards.

We have released the R12 in-year qualification achievement rate (QAR) data for 2018 to 2019 on both the Hub and View Your Education Data dashboard. The in-year QAR guidance and QAR webpage provide details about this data release and accessing the dashboard.

If you have identified any issues in your 2018 to 2019 data, then these must be resolved before the R14 hard close on 17 October 2019.

Any data issues in your final R14 data for this year will affect your 2018 to 2019 QARs. Please review your Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data before you make your final R14 submission; you will not be able to amend your 2018 to 2019 data after the R14 hard close.

We have listed some of the common data issues affecting QARs, but you can find further information and guidance in the common data issues and funding monitoring reports and other documents available on the QAR webpage.

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

2.1 QAR: Overdue planned breaks

We flag a record as an overdue planned break when we cannot find a corresponding restart record in the same or following funding year; we treat these as withdrawals in the QAR calculations.

These aims are identified in your QAR data extract by a value of 1 in the column Overdue_Planned_Break. The funding rules monitoring report FRM08 can also help you identify overdue breaks.

When a learner returns from a break in learning, you must follow the guidance in the provider support manual about how to record this. If a learner withdraws without returning from their break in learning, then you must update the ILR to reflect this.

2.2 QAR: Overdue continuing aims

We flag continuing records from 2017 to 2018, that you do not subsequently report in 2018 to 2019, as overdue continuing aims. We treat these as withdrawals in the QAR calculations.

These aims are identified in your QAR data extract by a value of 1 in the column Overdue_Continuing_Aims. The funding rules monitoring report FRM06 can also help you identify continuance issues.

3. Apprenticeship service help videos

In the run-up to R14 close, these videos will help you understand data mismatches (often called data locks), what can cause them and how to resolve them.

We’ve also published guidance on how to fix apprenticeship service data mismatches, what they mean and how to fix them.

Apprenticeship Service: Preparing for R14: Hints and Tips for a successful hard close

Apprenticeship Service: Using pause and stop in the apprenticeship service

Managing apprentice records - When to pause and stop an apprentice record (Webinar)

4. Final funding claims for 2018 to 2019

You must submit a final funding claim by 5pm on Tuesday 29 October 2019 on Submit learner data You need to submit a claim if you receive funds through a:

• grant for your Adult Education Budget (AEB)
• grant for your 16-19 Funding
• grant with an Advanced Learner Loans Bursary contract
• Learner Support contract

The form will be available following the R14 data collection from Monday 21 October 2019. The form will not be submitted unless you click on the submit button.

Once you have submitted your claim in 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 Tuesday 29 October 2019.

Your principal or delegated authority must sign your claim through Manage your education and skills funding by 5pm Wednesday 30 October 2019.

Guidance for the 2018 to 2019 19+ funding claims, 16 to 19 education funding and user guide to help you complete the form are on GOV.UK.

Following final funding claim submissions, we will publish your final reconciliation statements for 2018 to 2019 by the end of November 2019.

We will process the final reconciliation transactions for 2018 to 2019 in December 2019 payment run. If this transaction is a recovery then this will be offset against all December 2019 payments.

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

5. Apprenticeship technical funding guide has been updated

We have published version 2 of the Apprenticeships technical funding guide for April 2019 to March 2020.

This explains how funding will work for apprenticeship frameworks and standards starting on or after 1 April 2019, including how we will calculate provider payments.

The main additions from the previous guidance are:

• the impact of the ILR changes from 1 August 2019; mainly on how to record completions and achievements for apprenticeship standards
• new guidance for how to record late data in your ILR
• new guidance for providers with apprenticeships following a merger

For all starts before 1 April 2019 please refer to version 4 of the Apprenticeships technical funding guide for starts from May 2017.

For further information please contact the service desk.

6. Apprenticeship assessment service updates

The Apprenticeship assessment service has been updated to include an application programming interface (API) that will allow users to record the outcome of end-point assessments that have been carried out.

This new feature offers much more flexibility when recording end-point assessment outcomes.

Read the record a grade guidance on GOV.UK

The assessment service has also been updated to enable end-point assessment organisations (EPAOs) with user permissions to edit their organisation’s details on the ‘Register of end-point assessment organisations’.

Users can update:

• contact name
• organisation telephone number
• organisation address
• organisation email address
• organisation website address

7. New Apprenticeship Service autumn webinar programme

We are pleased to announce a new autumn webinar programme for October to December 2019. All webinars are hosted by subject matter experts to help service users to understand more about the apprenticeship service and new service developments.

Attendees will have the opportunity to ask experts questions in a live Q&A and take part in interactive polls.

Topics include:

• service development updates
• end-point assessment (EPA) guidance
• recording end-point assessment activity in the ILR (Individualised Learner Records)
• end-point assessment organisations: how to register
• apprenticeship eligibility

The Apprenticeship Service webinar programme first launched in November 2018 and has been extremely successful, with over 30 webinars delivered to over 2000 attendees.

You can watch all webinar recordings on esfagovuk.

This autumn, all webinars will be hosted on a new platform, GoToWebinar, providing an improved, more intuitive webinar experience, with additional features such as extra capacity. This will ensure as many attendees as possible can join.

Sign up now

Follow @ESFAdigital on Twitter

8. Final month to complete DfE’s Education and Training Professionals Survey

Deadline looming – there is only one month left to take part in DfE’s Education and Training Professionals Survey. Thank you to everyone who has completed the survey so far.

If you haven’t yet, there is still time to take part and make sure you are represented.

IFF Research are continuing to contact eligible providers for the HR telephone survey. Providers who agree to take part will be asked to send out a link to the staff survey.

The online survey should take around 10-15 minutes to complete and will ask about qualifications, background, and experiences working in further education, as well as future intentions.

If you think your organisation qualifies to participate and you would like to get involved, please contact ETPsurvey@iffresearch.com at IFF Research or Rosie.Chalam-Judge@education.gov.uk at the Department for Education.

The findings will be published early next year and these results will be used to guide future policy, so by taking part you will help us support the FE sector.

9. Hub corner

9.1 R01 for 2019 to 2020 and R13 for 2018 to 2019

We continue to see providers waiting until late in a period to submit their first data return. This is a risky approach as you must have a submission with us by the deadline to guarantee your payments.

The table shows R01 returns being submitted toward the end of the period.

Date created	Validation	Validation and submission
22 August 2019	147	55
23 August 2019	73	42
26 August 2019	4	4
27 August 2019	140	84
28 August 2019	111	79
29 August 2019	216	133
30 August 2019	209	170
2 September 2019	320	277
3 September 2019	519	340
4 September 2019	756	576
5 September 2019	864	1119

In total in R13, we processed 5,087 files from 1,716 providers.

Over 650 providers submitted their first R13 file within the final 4 days of the R13 collection window, 195 of these submitted their first R13 file on the final day.

882 ILR files were submitted on the last day of the collection window, which is over 17% of the total files submitted during the entire collection window.