DfE Update further education: 17 September 2025
Published 17 September 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
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1. Action: Declare your subcontracting arrangements for the 2025 to 2026 academic year
Post-16 providers are required to submit a fully completed subcontractor declaration on Manage Your Education and Skills Funding (MYESF).
The window for declaring arrangements for the academic year 2025 to 2026 is now open.
Providers must submit their forecasted subcontracting declarations before 31 October 2025 and actual declarations by 30 June 2026.
If you do not subcontract, you must still provide a nil return to confirm this (schools and academies do not need to submit a declaration).
Further information on declaring arrangements is available on GOV.UK.
Use the Customer Help Portal if you have any questions.
2. Information: Publication of fraud awareness good practice guide
We have published a fraud awareness good practice guide for education and training providers.
This is something that providers have been asking for to support them with understanding fraud and with mitigating fraud risks.
The guidance is aimed at academy trusts, colleges, and independent training providers and covers an understanding of fraud, prevention, detection, and reporting.
It brings together a variety of supportive resources that will be helpful to different types of providers.
The guidance also offers suggestions for developing counter fraud policies and approaches. We have focused on cyber related fraud which is a clear risk in the education sector.
We will periodically review the guidance to ensure it reflects up to date fraud risks and best practice.
3. Information: Change to the T Level funding methodology for academic year 2027 to 2028
We have updated the T Levels funding guide 2025 to 2026 to confirm a change in the funding methodology from the 2027 to 2028 academic year onwards.
The funding methodology for the 2026 to 2027 academic year will remain unchanged, and we will continue to use the same as applied for academic year 2025 to 2026.
From 2027 to 2028, we will base initial allocations solely on student numbers from the start of the previous academic year as returned in your ILR (R04) or school census (autumn on roll pupils) data return.
Therefore, we will no longer ask institutions to submit estimated student numbers to inform allocations for 2027 to 2028 and beyond.
There will be no T Levels registration application process for providers planning to introduce T Levels in academic year 2027 to 2028.
We recognise that some institutions will begin delivering T Levels in future years and others are still expanding their provision. To support this, we will maintain an in-year reconciliation process to account for over or under-delivery.
4. Information: Update to the 16 to 19 individualised learner record returns guidance
We have updated the individualised learner record (ILR) returns for academic year 2025 to 2026, which is for all institutions that complete the ILR data return.
We have clarified the process for calculating responsive growth and recoveries, which now includes further information on affordability checks and the potential recovery of funds.
This update ensures that the funding process is clear and transparent.
If you have any queries, contact us through the customer help portal.
5. Your feedback: Further education workforce data collection
Having access to timely and accurate data on the further education (FE) workforce is vital to inform policy and funding decisions.
We are therefore exploring how to collect and publish FE workforce data much earlier so that it can better support key priorities and decisions.
We are considering bringing forward the data collection window from autumn to early summer, and the publication of data to the autumn term following the end of the academic year, starting as early as 2026.
We are currently conducting user research to understand the feasibility and impact of this change, and would welcome your participation in this survey.
We value your input and are very keen to hear directly from FE leaders about the opportunities and challenges this change might bring.
Your engagement will help ensure any changes we may make will be practicable and beneficial for the sector.
Thank you for your continued support.