Guidance

EFA e-bulletin for academies: 27 November 2014

Published 28 November 2014

This guidance was withdrawn on 13 May 2015

This is an old edition of the EFA e-bulletin, so has been archived. Please view our most recent e-bulletins and web pages for up-to-date information.

1. Action: deadline approaching for submitting your accounts and value for money statement

The deadline for academy trusts to submit their audited accounts and auditor’s management letter is 31 December 2014. Trusts open on or before 31 August 2014 must also submit a value for money statement by 31 December 2014.

Education Funding Agency (EFA) issued information to help you submit all of these documents in our 13 November e-bulletin.

You will need to submit your accounts and auditor’s management letter via the EFA Information Exchange, using our published guide to submitting your accounts

If you have not yet submitted, please ensure you have processes in place to meet the deadline. You will need to use the naming convention below for your accounts and management letter. For your:

• audited accounts, use Company Number-Trust Name-1314-FinStat
• management letter, use Company Number-Trust Name -1314-ManLet

Failure to use this convention could cause delays in processing your accounts and could also lead to additional queries.

2. Action: academy trusts’ August accounts returns

EFA’s webinar for finance staff within academy trusts takes place on 2 December, at 2pm. You can register and submit questions for the webinar on our event website. If you cannot view the webinar on the day, an online video will be available after the event.

The August accounts return is due from trusts that are preparing financial statements for the year ending 31 August and have academies open as at 31 August. You will need to submit it via the EFA Information Exchange using the recently updated accounts return guide.

3. Information: update to education services grant (ESG) supplementary guidance note

We have published supplementary guidance on the education services grant for the 2015 to 2016 academic year.

The updated note includes worked examples of the tapered protection for mainstream, special and alternative provision academies.

4. Information: Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) questions

We weren’t able to answer all of your questions during our live CIF webinar on 17 November due to time constraints. To make sure you have the information you need, we have produced an additional CIF question and answer video presentation, which provides answers to the most-asked questions posed at the webinar and also submitted to the EFA enquiries service.

5. Information: updated performance data for the Youth Contract to the end of September 2014

We have updated and published data for the delivery of the Youth Contract programme for 16- and 17-year-olds to the end of September 2014.

We publish delivery data for the Youth Contract programme for 16- and 17-year-olds every 6 months.

6. Information: 16 to 18 course information

The Department for Education will ask post-16 providers to make information available about the courses they plan to offer, to help young people access details on the full range of education and training courses and opportunities open to them.

This will be used to create a national database, available from September 2015. The information will be available through web based portals, and presented in user-friendly ways to help young people make informed decisions about their options. To achieve this, the established online portal market will be developed and we will build on good practice that exists in the post-19 sector.

The department will provide more information in the new year about what post-16 providers need to do. If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact martin.ngotho@education.gsi.gov.uk.