16 to 19 funding allocations

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16 to 19 funding allocations

Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funds schools, academies, colleges and independent learning providers. We calculate funding using the 16 to 19 funding formula.

Funding allocations are driven by student recruitment and the funding formula includes factors that reflect student retention, higher cost subjects, disadvantaged students and area costs. The funding education for 16 to 19 year olds page includes further information about each element within the 16 to 19 funding formula.

We supplement the funding calculated using the 16 to 19 funding formula with additional funding for high needs students and funding that provides financial support to students to help with their education costs.

Information for academic year 2024 to 2025

We’ve published details on the key changes to funding for 2024 to 2025.

For funding allocation guides and allocation calculation toolkits, see 16 to 19 funding allocations supporting documents for 2024 to 2025.

Allocations timeline

We will publish updates to the timeline as we deliver funding allocations. Please read the latest news column on the timeline for regular updates.

Month	Activity	Latest news
December 2023	6 December 2023 is the individualised learner record (ILR) R04 deadline. This is the first 16 to 19 data return for 2023 to 2024.	The R04 data return is now closed.
December 2023	Publication of dedicated schools grant schools block and high needs block allocations for 2024 to 2025 (prior to academy recoupment).	We have published this information.
January 2024	Publication of outcomes of the high needs place change process for 2024 to 2025.	We have now published the allocation calculation toolkits and the high needs place change process.
February 2024	6 February 2024 is the ILR R06 deadline.	The R06 data return is now closed.
February 2024	We will issue supporting guidance and allocation calculation toolkits containing funding factors to institutions.	We have published this information.
March 2024	We will begin to issue allocations to all institutions and publish supporting guidance. We aim to issue all allocations by the end of the month.	We issued allocations by 31 March.
April 2024	The business case deadline is 30 April 2024 for all institutions to return any business cases in relation to a significant data error or exceptional circumstances affecting their allocation. This excludes institutions in scope of the high needs place change process because we opened a 2-week window for enquiries in January 2024.	The business case deadline has now passed.
May/June 2024	We will review and process business cases received by the deadline with full and complete information and communicate these outcomes by the end of June 2024.	We have reviewed and communicated business case decisions for most cases where we received the necessary information by the deadline. We are prioritising those that remain outstanding and will contact institutions directly, where appropriate, with an update.
July/August 2024	We will issue funding agreements/contracts to institutions either directly or through the lead contact. Agreements/contracts signed and returned by funded organisation.	We have issued funding agreements/contracts to all institutions.
August/September 2024	We will make the first payment to local authorities (in respect of schools with sixth forms) and directly to academies, colleges and other institutions.	We have made first payments to academies in September and all other institutions in August.

Business cases for major data errors

You should only submit business cases if you have made a significant error in your 16 to 19 schools census or ILR data. This should be by exception and only after you have received your funding allocation statement.

Timelines when submitting a business case

Cases received with full information before 30 April 2024:

we aim to communicate outcomes for straightforward cases by the end of June 2024
complex cases can take longer to investigate and we aim to communicate outcomes for these before the end of July 2024

Cases received after 30 April 2024 or those that require further information:

we aim to let you know the outcomes as soon as we are able, but for more complex or late cases you might receive decisions from July 2024 onwards
for these cases, we will action any adjustment to your allocation as a contract variation

When not to submit a case

This process does not cover business cases for high needs place funding for institutions that are within scope of the high needs place change notification process.

For institutions returning the ILR, we will not accept business cases where an error in the 2022 to 2023 R04 (or R46) has reduced the ratio for the 2024 to 2025 allocation. This is because any such error will have also resulted in an equivalent increase in the 2023 to 2024 allocation.

How to submit a case

You must contact us using our customer help centre clearly stating the nature of your business case. The head of institution must authorise all business cases.

Please do not upload business cases to Document exchange until you have completed an online enquiry form because we will not see them.

If you have any queries about using Document exchange, see our Document exchange support guide.

When appropriate, we will send you a pre-populated template after you contact us to make sure we have all the evidence we need.

We will not accept:

extracts from allocation calculation toolkits with associated corrections
templates from previous years

Thresholds for business cases

We apply standard minimum thresholds to decide whether we will consider a case.

For cases affecting T Level allocations:

we will consider cases where data errors had an impact on 5 or more T Level students

For cases affecting lagged student numbers, full-time/part-time split, funding factors and the maths and English condition of funding:

an overall impact of 5% on total programme funding or £100,000, whichever is lower. Total programme funding refers to the core programme funding (including any condition of funding adjustment) as outlined in ‘Figure 1: 16 to 19 funding formula’ in the 16 to 19 funding: how it works guidance

For cases not covered above:

an overall impact of 5% of the funding related to that element
for example: if the case relates to the high value courses premium, the 5% would be in relation to the total high value courses premium funding

We have maintained the reduced T Level threshold for business cases for academic year 2024 to 2025. Higher thresholds may apply for future academic years.

Data sources

Data sources for 16 to 19 and post-16 high needs funding for academic year 2024 to 2025

This section sets out the methods we will use to determine the number of students attracting funding in 2024 to 2025. We have set this out by institution type.

Please note, from academic year 2024 to 2025, we will include all T Level data in the calculation of funding factors.

Schools, academies, free schools, studio schools, university technical colleges

We base lagged numbers on 2023 to 2024 students in the autumn 2023 census. We fund some academies on estimated numbers where their funding agreement states this.

Further education (FE) colleges, some other FE or higher education institutions

We take the number of eligible students with a reference date of 1 November 2023 based on R04 (2023 to 2024).

We multiply this by the ratio of 1 November to all-year student numbers based on R04 (2022 to 2023) and the R14 return for that year.

We compare this figure with the student numbers calculated from R06 (2023 to 2024), both the year-to-date (as at 1 February) figure and the number recruited by 1 November (R46) to determine the final student number methodology that we will use: R04 multiplied by the ratio, R46 multiplied by the ratio or R06.

Independent learning providers

Depending on the profile of recruitment for the individual provider, we will either use:

a 12-month rolling figure for February 2023 to January 2024 based on R14 (2022 to 2023) and R06 (2023 to 2024) data
the same approach as set out above for FE colleges, or
the average of approaches 1 and 2

There may be a delay in issuing allocations for institutions where we use R06 data.

Local authorities, some other FE institutions

If using in-year data is not appropriate, we will use a full-year figure based on R14 (2022 to 2023).

Maintained special schools

We allocate post-16 high needs place funding directly to local authorities. Local authorities then determine the post-16 place funding to allocate to individual maintained special schools.

Special academies

We use published 2023 to 2024 academic year high needs place numbers, revised by place changes notified to ESFA by local authorities in November 2023.

Special post-16 institutions (SPIs)

We will allocate programme funding (element 1) and high needs funding (element 2) using counts of valid students from 2023 to 2024 ILR R06 data returns. We will use a reference date of 1 February 2024.

Lagged approach

Note that for those institutions normally subject to lagged funding, the lagged approach does not apply where there is a material change in the volume of provision offered by the institution. In those cases, we remove the institution from the lagged approach and we calculate funded student numbers as set out in the funding rates and formula guidance.

Formula elements

These are the methods we will use to determine the other formula elements for institutions with 16 to 19 funding in 2024 to 2025.

Data sources for formula elements/Institution type	Institutions making ILR return	Institutions making census return	Institutions with no historical data
Retention/Size of programme/Programme cost weighting/Disadvantage block 2 instances/High value courses premium and English and maths funding	R14 2022 to 2023	Autumn census 2023 (end-year 2022 to 2023 data)	National average for institution type
Disadvantage block 1 factor/instances and discretionary bursary instances	R14 2022 to 2023	Autumn census 2023 (end-year 2022 to 2023 data)	Local authority average for institution type
Large programmes	2021 to 2022 young people’s matched admin dataset (YPMAD)	2021 to 2022 YPMAD	No impact
Industry placements/Condition of funding	R14 2022 to 2023	Autumn census 2023 (end-year 2022 to 2023 data)	No impact
Advanced maths premium	2023 to 2024 R04 data with a reference date of 1 November 2023	Autumn census 2023 (2023 to 2024 data)	If institution is open in 2023 to 2024, then ILR/census as appropriate. If not open in 2023 to 2024, then no impact
Core maths premium	2023 to 2024 R04 data with a reference date of 1 November 2023	Autumn census 2023 (2023 to 2024 data)	If institution is open in 2023 to 2024, then ILR/census as appropriate. If not open in 2023 to 2024, then no impact

Contact us

If you have questions after reading our guidance, or if there’s anything else you need help with, you can find more support in our customer help centre.

Published allocations

You can find a list of our previously published allocations transparency data on our funding education for 16 to 19 year olds collection page.

16 to 19 funding allocations

Applies to England