Guidance

Employer support fund: funding rules

Updated 11 August 2023

Applies to England

This temporary support fund has been set up to support employers with the extra costs of providing T Level industry placements.

We’ll allocate this funding to all T Level providers who:

• have an agreement for the provision of 16 to 19 education
• are delivering T Levels to learners in the 2022 to 2023 or 2023 to 2024 academic years

The funding is for providers to make payments to employers who provide an industry placement, to cover legitimate costs. It must not be used to pay for providers’ own costs.

These rules set out the requirements for the employer support fund allocation. This funding is in addition to what providers already get for T Levels and industry placements.

You must read this guidance alongside your funding agreement.

Eligibility

You can only give funding to employers who claim for legitimate costs for providing an industry placement in the qualifying period. This means industry placements that take place between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024. It covers learners on the T Level programme in the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 academic years only.

Any single employer can be paid up to a maximum of £25,000 in the qualifying period.

You are responsible for identifying eligible employers who can provide suitable T Level industry placements. You must be satisfied that the industry placement:

• provides a high quality and practical opportunity to learners
• follows the principles set out in the industry placement delivery guidance

All employers are eligible for this funding, except government departments and arm’s length bodies.

Funding principles

You must follow these rules. If you do not, it will be a breach of your funding agreement.

This funding is for paying employers who claim for legitimate costs associated with hosting an industry placement learner in the qualifying period. You must not use the funding to support work experience, apprenticeships or any other work-related training.

You must:

• not exceed your total funding allocation during the qualifying period
• monitor the payments you make to employers to check they’re following these funding rules
• not use any of the funding for your own purposes
• repay any unspent funding when requested

You must make sure you spend the funding in a way that ensures:

• value for money
• the protection of public funds
• you provide high-quality T Level industry placements for learners

Legitimate costs

You can only give funding to employers who claim for legitimate costs for providing an industry placement in the qualifying period.

Employers must only claim for the actual costs they have incurred when offering an industry placement. Employers must not profit from the additional funding.

We define legitimate costs as:

• administrative costs - direct costs for setting up systems to deliver the industry placement, this includes the costs of setting up:
  • processes and procedures
  • organisational systems
  • a physical workspace to support delivery of the industry placement
• training costs - direct costs of training existing staff to develop their knowledge and build their confidence in offering high quality industry placements, this includes:
  • short workshops
  • internal guides
  • online courses
  • training for line managers in mentoring and working with learners
  • providing them with the practical skills
• tangible costs - employers’ operating costs directly relating to the industry placement, this includes:
  • equipment
  • insurance
  • security passes
  • mandatory vaccinations
  • mandatory training
  • software licensing
  • materials and supplies directly related to the industry placement
  • supervisory and transportation costs where applicable

Employers must give you evidence of these costs in the employer declaration form.

Employers must not claim for wider business costs that are not directly attributable to the industry placement.

Employer relationship

Employers can only get funding for legitimate costs when they’re providing an industry placement during the qualifying period. You can only provide funding up to a maximum of £25,000 per employer.

Before offering an employer funding, you must be satified that the they are claiming for legitimate costs associated with hosting a T Level industry placement. The industry placement must meet the principles set out in the industry placement delivery guidance.

You must make sure that employers’ legitimate costs claims are not covered by any other government funding.

Employer declaration

After making an offer or entering into an agreement, you must get each employer to complete and sign a declaration. A director or equivalent senior office holder must sign the declaration.

The declaration gets employers to confirm that they’ll:

• provide an industry placement within the qualifying period
• not misappropriate or misuse any funding they get
• repay any misused funds, together with interest where due

Before making any payment to an employer, you must countersign an employer declaration form setting out:

• details of the employer including their registered company name
• the address where placement is taking place
• details of the learner undertaking the industry placement
• the date the industry placement is starting
• details of the legitimate costs incurred, including evidence of the costs

You’ll need to enter these details on the data tracking tool to record the details of each claim processed.

Submitting employer data

You must submit high quality, accurate and timely information for each claim into the data tracking tool. You’ll need to get employers to provide you with the relevant data.

Multiple employers

Where an industry placement is provided by multiple employers, as permitted within the approaches defined within the industry placement delivery guidance, you can pay funds to each employer for legitimate costs they incur. You’ll need a signed declaration form for each employer.

You’ll need to add these as separate submission entries onto the data tracking tool. You must enter into appropriate contractual arrangements ensuring compliance with these requirements with each employer separately.

Repaying funding

Employers must commit to repaying funding if they breach or may breach the requirements set out in these funding rules.

You are responsible for monitoring the administration of funds you provide to employers. This means you’ll need to recover and repay any funding that has not been used to fund legitimate costs for providing a T Level industry placement.

Submit data

You must submit information through the data tracking tool to show how you have allocated funding.

The information you submit must be accurate. Update the data tracking tool every 6 weeks.

You must not enter information in arrears (from a previous 6 weekly block) except where you have not yet paid the employer. Where you’re paying an employer at an agreed time, after the industry placement has started, you’ll need to pay the employer before 31 March 2024.

You must upload all data to the data tracking tool by 5 May 2024. We’ll not accept submissions after this date.

As part of our quality assurance process, we may ask you to provide more data on the funding claims you have received and the payments you have made.

Monitoring data

We’ll monitor and review the data you submit on the data tracking tool. This is to make sure that any payments meet the requirements set out in the signed declaration.

For each claim processed, you must add to the data tracking tool:

• the name, size and location of the employer
• the number of learners per employer
• each learner’s unique learner number
• the T Level programme the learner is on
• the academic year when the learner started the T Level programme
• the placement start date for each learner
• details of the legitimate costs being claimed and evidence of these costs
• whether the payment factored into the employer’s decision to offer placements (using the employer declaration form)

You must provide information in the data tracking tool every 6 weeks. We recommend that you submit data within 15 working days of making payments to employers.

You must enter the correct information onto the data tracking tool. This includes a declaration form signed by both you and the employer. We’ll spot check this data as part of our quality assurance process.

Recovery of funding

We’ll recover any underspend based on the information you provide in the data tracking tool. It is your responsibility to make sure this information is accurate and up to date. We’ll use it to reconcile actual expenditure and calculate the correct amount of unspent funding to claw back in August 2024.

We’ll ask you to return any unspent funding within 90 days of the closing date of the data tracking tool. The tool closes on 5 May 2024.

Evaluation

We’ll monitor and review the data you submit on the data tracking tool. This will help us to understand the impact of the funds on offering T Level industry placements.

We may ask you to provide extra information at the end of the employer support fund to inform our evaluation. We’ll ask employers on the declaration form if they are happy for us to contact them about the evaluation.

Data protection

You must:

• get written consent from us to transfer personal data
• make sure only staff who should have access to personal data can access it
• make sure these staff are aware the personal data is confidential

See the DfE personal information charter for more information about how we use your data.