Correspondence

DfE Update further education: 3 June 2026

Published 3 June 2026

Applies to England

1. Action: Submit Care to Learn and 16 to 19 Bursary Fund for defined vulnerable groups funding claims

The third submission window is now open for academic year 2025 to 2026. Use our Care to Learn and 16 to 19 Bursary Fund for defined vulnerable groups guidance when completing the form. 

You must submit new funding claims using our form on or before Wednesday 1 July 2026 for the:

• Care to Learn scheme 

• 16 to 19 Bursary Fund for defined vulnerable groups 

You can also use this window to submit late claims for both schemes or adjust previous claims.  

Local authorities are responsible for submitting defined vulnerable group bursary claims on behalf of maintained special schools and for eligible students they place in independent provision. 

1.1 Submit end of year data 

If you claimed Care to Learn funding in the first or second submission window, then you must also submit end of year data using the same digital form as your funding claims on or before Wednesday 1 July 2026. We will recover funding in full if you do not provide this data. 

You do not have to submit end of year data for 16 to 19 bursary fund for defined vulnerable groups. 

2. Information: College financial forecasting return republished

We have published an updated version of college financial forecasting return (CFFR) template 2026. The new version number is V1.7, which you can see in cell C9 of the Guide sheet.
A formula error was identified on row 163 of the Fin Stat sheet in the version released on Wednesday 6 May 2026 (V1.6).  We have corrected this error.
If you have started entering your data into V1.6, please download the updated V1.7 and copy your entries into it for resubmission.

Unfortunately we are unable to accept any submissions made on V1.6 and would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause

3. Information: Updated college financial benchmarking tool and related dataset

We have published an updated college financial benchmarking tool with data from the 2024 to 2025 finance records of further education college corporations, sixth-form college corporations, and designated institutions (institutions established or designated under the provisions of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992).

The dataset includes fully completed accounts which were submitted to, and reviewed, by Department for Education up to Monday 11 May 2026. 

The tool allows colleges to compare their performance with others in the sector.

We have also published the college accounts dataset for Thursday 1 August 2024 to Thursday 31 July 2025 based on these finance records.

4. Information: Individualised learner record reports guidance for 2025 to 2026

We have updated the individualised learner record (ILR) funding reports for funding year 2025 to 2026  on the check ILR reports for possible data errors in your return guidance page.

This update includes information on how apprenticeship units are incorporated and introduces new reports for this funding year.

We have updated the cross year indicative payments report and updated the funding line types for adults and apprenticeships to include short courses.

We have also created the following new reports:

• funding summary report with short courses
• funding summary report with short courses (produced at period end)
• short courses indicative earnings report
• short courses monthly payments report
• short courses co-investment contributions report

Read our guidance to understand the new reports.