Correspondence

DfE Update further education: 25 June 2025

Published 25 June 2025

Applies to England

1. Information: Publication of the college financial handbook 2025

We have published the College financial handbook 2025, which will come into effect on Friday 1 August 2025.

It describes the financial responsibilities of colleges, reflecting their status as charitable corporations acting in the public interest and classified as central government bodies.

It applies to all further education (FE) and sixth form college corporations, and designated institutions who have an accountability agreement with the Secretary of State for Education.

There are minimal changes from last year’s edition, that are detailed in the summary section.

We have also incorporated some responsibilities previously included in the Post-16 Audit Code of Practice. 

This letter from Andrew Thomas, Director of Funding and Financial Oversight, provides more information.

Using the new handbook

You can print or save a PDF copy of the handbook by clicking ‘Print this page’ under the contents list. Choosing ‘Save as PDF’ will allow you to save a copy.

2. Information: Qualification achievement rates (QAR) 2024 to 2025 guidance published

The qualification achievement rates (QAR) guidance for 2024 to 2025 has been published.

This guidance sets out QAR policy, how they are calculated and what data is included or excluded.

Following user research carried out during 2023 to 2024, the QAR guidance can now all be found in one place, rather than multiple documents. 

There are also some significant changes to the QAR dataset for 2024 to 2025:

• tailored learning aims will be included in the Education and Training QAR dataset from 2024 to 2025. To provide a comparable time series, 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 QAR data will be recalculated to include Community Learning aims
• QARs will now contain 3 headline rates within the Education and Training dataset: Overall QAR, Regulated Provision QAR, Non-regulated Provision QAR. More detail on how learning aims will be categorised can be found in the guidance
• in response to user research, QAR data will no longer match to R04 data. This will allow earlier release of the R14 QAR data, currently proposed for November 2025

We are currently planning a provider webinar in July, before the first data release for 2024 to 2025 in the View Your Education Data (VYED) service, to explain the changes above and will share the registration details when ready.

For more information on QARs, previous reporting period guidance, and how to access QAR data, visit introduction to qualification achievement rates.

If you have any queries in relation to QARs, which may not be covered by the upcoming webinar, you can contact us using the customer help portal and selecting the ‘data and MI’ query option.

Further advice and support can also be found under the help centre articles and communities section for peer support.

3. Information: Free courses for jobs construction expansion

We announced in May that we are expanding the free courses for jobs (FCFJ) offer to support providers to deliver more construction training.

We are pleased to confirm that all providers with a non-devolved funded free courses for jobs allocation 2025 to 2026, will receive a 20% uplift to their funding allocation.

We expect you to use this additional funding to deliver construction training places and will upload your revised allocation statement to manage your education and skills funding on Monday 30 June 2025.

There is no ringfence in place for this funding, therefore providers who do not specialise in construction are free to put on other high-value courses found on the national list.

Business case requests

If you do not want the additional funding, or you do not have the capacity to deliver, use the digital business case form to decline or request a reduced amount. 

The form will be available when updated allocation statements are issued, until Friday18 July.

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.

4. Information: Individualised learner record returns

We have published the individualised learner record (ILR) returns for 2025 to 2026 academic year, which is for all institutions that complete the ILR data return.

• We have made changes on the requirements for returning final claims for the 2025 to 2026 funding year. We have clarified the process and dates on under performance and overperformance calculations.   

• We have updated Annex C to reflect the most up to date calculation steps and timelines for recoveries.  

• We have updated the list of PDSAT reports to reflect the post-16 funding reports that are available.  

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.

5. Information: 16 to 19 funding update

We have published increased rates and programme cost weightings to reflect the £190 million additional investment we announced in May for colleges and other 16 to 19 providers.

Revised funding allocations reflecting these changes and where applicable, confirming free meals funding, have now been issued.

Payments will begin from the start of academic year 2025 to 2026.

6. Information: Financial assurance: monitoring post-16 funding for 2025 to 2026 guidance

We have published Financial assurance: monitoring (FRM) post-16 funding for 2025 to 2026.  

We are continuing to monitor the same areas as last year with the following changes:

• the FRM37 report will continue to review planned and actual off-the-job training hours for apprentices who started before 1 August 2025 but will not be used to monitor starts from Friday 1 August 2025 onwards, as these apprentices will be subject to different off-the-job requirements
• apprenticeship frameworks can no longer be reported in the ILR, as the last date on which providers or apprentices could apply for certification by an issuing authority to certify frameworks was Monday 31 March 2025 – these have now been de-scoped

We will share our findings through the post-16 monitoring dashboard on view your education data.

The first dashboard will be available from December 2025 and published monthly, once the individualised learner record (ILR) submission window closes and we have quality assured the data.

7. Your feedback: Tell us about your experience of our funding service

If you receive education and skills funding, we want to hear about your experience.

Complete this short survey by 11.59pm Wednesday 2 July 2025; it should take you 5 to 10 minutes to complete.

We aspire to run an excellent education and skills funding service that gives providers as much certainty as possible.

The survey, run twice a year, asks whether we deliver:

• certainty on what we pay you and when
• clarity on how to comply with funding rules
• services that are accessible and easy to use
• answers when you have funding-related queries

We will keep your personal data confidential, and your feedback will help us to improve the service.