Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 25 October 2023

Published 25 October 2023

Applies to England

1. Action: final funding claim for 2022 to 2023

The final funding claim window will open at 9am on Tuesday 24 October 2023. 

Please submit your final funding claim by 5pm on Friday 27 October 2023. The claim form will be available on submit learner data. The funding claims user guide is available to help you complete the form. 

If you have any exceptional adjustments to enter on the claim form, you will require prior agreement by the ESFA. The claim should be supported by relevant evidence, which the ESFA may request. Any unauthorised exceptional adjustments will be disallowed.

Your principal or delegated authority must sign your claim digitally on Manage your education and skills funding by 5pm on Tuesday 31 October 2023. 

You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through these contracts:  

• grant funded - ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB) (adult skills, community learning, 19 to 24 traineeships and national skills fund Level 3 adult offer (Level 3 Free Courses for Jobs))
• grant funded - advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB)
• 16 to 19 education

Once you have submitted your year-end funding claim on submit learner data, you will also be able to view it on Manage your education and skills funding. 

You must not enter any adjustments relating to the earnings boost in your funding claim, we will do this after you have submitted the claim. Your reconciliation statement will include the earnings boost that we have calculated.

If you have any queries, please use ESFA help centre to contact us.

2. Action: reporting unspent 16 to 19 Bursary Fund and free meals in further education funding

You must contact ESFA each year to report the amount of unspent 16 to 19 Bursary Funding and/or free meals in further education funding that you are holding outside of the one year carry forward rule.

For academic year 2023 to 2024, this means you need to inform us of the total amount of any unspent funds (that you haven’t previously reported to us) from any year up to and including the 2021 to 2022 academic year. We encourage you to do this as soon as you are aware, however you must tell us no later than 31 March each year. We will recover all unspent funds.

When you know you have funds to return, you should contact us using our online enquiry form. When you make contact, it is helpful if you specify the amount of funding being returned, whether it is bursary fund or free meals in further education and which year the funding is from. This is particularly important if funds for more than one year are involved.

We will send further reminders as the academic year continues.

3. Information: national professional qualifications (NPQs) targeted support fund 2022 to 2023 allocations

We’ve published the revised national professional qualification (NPQ) targeted support funding 2022 to 2023 grant allocations on 25 October, for participants who started in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

If you think your school or organisation meets the eligibility criteria but has not yet already received a payment or due to receive a sweep up payment as indicated on the published grant allocations, please contact your training provider to check confirmation of training engagement has been submitted to the Department for Education.
Please note, any further eligible payments for the 2022 to 2023 grant funding period will be paid in the 2024 payment.

If you do not have a training provider or have any queries, please contact continuing-professional-development@digital.education.gov.uk .

You can read further information on targeted support funding and more information on NPQs currently available can be viewed in our course prospectus.

4. Information: exceptional in-year growth for 2023 to 2024 for 16 to 19 education

Each year (subject to affordability) we award in-year growth funding to those grant-funded institutions which have recruited significantly more students than allocations were based on. For academic year 2023 to 2024 only, we are publishing the rules for calculating in-year growth awards early. This does not guarantee that we will do the same for the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

By publishing this early, it provides a guarantee that growth will be funded, giving certainty to providers to aid with their financial planning. There are some important changes this year to the methodology from the one used in 2022 to 2023, we have:

• reintroduced the adjustment for under-delivery in the previous year. We removed this last year as a response to COVID
• reduced the threshold for the free meals in FE growth awards

We have now published the details of the calculation for awarding exceptional in-year growth for 2023 to 2024. We will be informing institutions eligible for growth by mid-February 2024 and revised funding allocations will be available through Document Exchange. Eligible growth will be paid from spring 2024.

5. Information: school staff instructor (SSI) funding grant, conditions of grant and allocations for 2023 to 2024

We have now published the allocations for the school staff instructor (SSI) funding grant for 2023 to 2024.

We have also published the conditions of grant, setting out the terms and conditions academies, maintained schools, FE institutions and local authorities must follow.

6. Information: Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) 2024 to 2025 application round

Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) 2024 to 2025 application round opened for applications on 19 October and closes on 14 December 2023.

CIF is an annual bidding round for eligible academies, sixth-form colleges and voluntary aided (VA) schools to apply for capital funding.

CIF funding is primarily to address significant condition need. Only a very small proportion goes to high performing schools and colleges to address overcrowding or to create additional pupil places.

Schools with a signed academy order as of 1 September 2023 that DfE expects to convert to a CIF-eligible responsible body by 1 April 2024, are also eligible to apply.

If your school has been invited to bid for CIF 2024 to 2025, your responsible body will not receive any School Condition Allocation on your behalf. If you have condition investment requirements, you should therefore apply direct for funding.

The Information for Applicants guide gives detailed information.

7. Information: common findings from funding assurance work on post-16 education providers

We have published the common compliance issues arising from ESFA’s funding assurance reviews of 2021 to 2022 post-16 funding claims.

This report aims to raise awareness of common post-16 funding rules’ compliance issues, to help education providers ensure or improve their compliance and submit complete and accurate post-16 funding claims.

It is for principals, headteachers, CEOs, senior management, and staff in academy trusts/schools with sixth forms, FE colleges, higher education institutions and independent training providers and their auditors.

8. Information: making better use of data held across government to reduce evidence requirements for providers and employers

We are continuing to simplify our policies and processes to make it easier for providers and employers to engage and participate in apprenticeships. In July 2023 we announced that we will use the data held by other government departments to simplify the way that we verify the employment of apprentices. This will enable us to reduce the evidence requirements we place on employers and providers.

To verify that an apprentice meets the ‘employed status’ eligibility criteria, we will match the information we hold against the information that the employer has submitted to HMRC through their Pay As You Earn Scheme (PAYE). Over the coming months we will start to test the simplified verification process, engaging with employers and providers to give them the opportunity to share feedback.

We will be sharing this message with the wider sector and employers to inform them of this work and describe the planned benefits. Employers may ask you for advice on how to add a PAYE scheme to their apprenticeship account. Please direct them to this article which explains what they need to do.