Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance to help institutions report on their 16 to 19 tuition fund spending for 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022
Updated 8 November 2022
Applies to England
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As a condition of opting into the 16 to 19 tuition fund, institutions were required to notify the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) of any unspent funding at the end of the 2021 to 2022 academic year so that it could be recovered. To support this, we asked institutions to:
- record the use of the funding, including whether a third party is being used for delivery
- refer to the individual students that receive the support and the needs of those students
- record the number of hours of tuition delivered
- retain the necessary evidence of the tuition provided and additional cost
We confirmed in the tuition fund guidance that any underspend from the 2020 to 2021 academic year could be rolled over to support students in the 2021 to 2022 academic year. From the 2021 to 2022 academic year, all unspent tuition funding for both years must be reported and will be recovered.
You are now required to report on the level of tuition fund spending in each academic year. If you only received tuition funding in one year, you just need to report your spending for that year. However, if you carried over any tuition funding, you need to report what you spent from that carried over amount in 2021 to 2022, even if you did not receive a new allocation for that year.
1. If you overspent in 2020 to 2021
Only underspend in 2020 to 2021 could be rolled over to 2021 to 2022. If you overspent in 2020 to 2021 this will not be taken into consideration in calculating any recovery.
2. What happens if an institution has been renamed or has merged
Where an institution has been renamed, the new name for the institution will show on your digital form, along with any allocations which were awarded under both the old and new names.
When institutions have merged, the tuition funding awarded to each institution before the merger will be added together, along with any award after merger and the name of what is now the lead institution will appear on your digital form.
3. My institution carried over part or all of our allocation from 2020 to 2021 but did not receive a new allocation in 2021 to 2022
If you carried over tuition funding from 2020 to 2021 but did not receive a new allocation for 2021 to 2022, you will need to state the amount of funding that you carried over and spent in 2021 to 2022.
A completed return will still be required where you have used all of your 16 to 19 tuition fund allocation on eligible activity detailed in the tuition fund guidance.
Please note this form is different to the one published for the second opportunity to opt in for tuition funding for the 2022 to 2023 academic year, which was published on 3 October 2022.
4. Next steps
If you received this funding, you should have received a link to a digital form for you to access and tell us what you spent from the tuition fund for both the 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 academic years. The form is now open and the deadline for completion of the form is 6:00pm on 24 October 2022.
You must complete this form if you received tuition funding in either 2020 to 2021 or 2021 to 2022.
We have published guidance for completing the form and the link to the form can also be found there.
5. What happens when we have received your digital form?
We will calculate the level of underspend for each year. If an underspend is identified, the amount will be offset against your 2021 to 2022 tuition fund allocation. Underspend reported from the 2020 to 2021 academic year will not be recovered if the amount that was carried over was used for eligible activity in 2021 to 2022.
If your underspend for both 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 is higher than your 2021 to 2022 tuition fund allocation, the outstanding balance will be offset against your total mainstream 16 to 19 education funding.
If you have returned your form by the deadline of 24 October 2022, we will confirm the level of funding to be recovered in early November 2022. This will then be recovered by offsetting against your January payments.