Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 11 October 2023

Published 11 October 2023

Applies to England

1. Action: deadline this Friday 13 October to submit your 2022 to 2023 16 to 19 tuition fund spend and tell us how you have used your additional hours

You will need to submit a digital form if your organisation either received 16 to 19 tuition fund for the academic year 2022 to 2023 and/or received the additional hours baseline data report, which was based on returns your institution made in academic year 2020 to 2021. We supplied the additional hours baseline data report to you in June 2022. 

Please note that: failure to submit a report on 16 to 19 tuition fund spend will result in recovery of 100% of your academic year 2022 to 2023 tuition funding.  

We have produced a digital form so you can tell us: 

• how much tuition fund you have spent in the 2022 to 2023 academic year  
• what your institution used additional hours for and account for how you delivered the expected average increases in hours  

You will need to submit the form as soon as you can, and no later than 11:59pm on 13 October 2023.  

Access the digital form.  

Guidance on how to complete the form can be found on GOV.UK.

2. Action: 16 to 19 tuition fund 2023 to 2024 digital form 

The 16 to 19 tuition fund 2023 to 2024 opt in/out digital form second window is now live.  

The deadline for your submission is 11:59pm on 20 October 2023. 

We’ve published guidance to access and help you complete the form.   

You can read more on the 16 to 19 tuition fund 2023 to 2024 webpage. 

3. Reminder: review hours for 16 to 19 qualifications and non-qualifications delivery before submitting your final ILR data return 

We have identified some areas in advance of the R14 ILR return that need reviewing where we can see numerous providers with potential errors in their data. To help you reduce your data errors at R14 and the chance of being selected for audit, please use the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard to review these reports: 

• FRM43 - 16 to 19 study programme students on qualifications with no planned learning hours (PLH) 

• FRM56 - 16 to 19 study programmes with PLH but no regulated qualifications 

• FRM69 - Proportion of planned employment, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) hours is greater than or equal to 50% of total planned hours and student is not identified as requiring additional learning support. 

You must ensure your PLH and EEP accurately reflect the amount of qualifications and non-qualifications activity being delivered in the current academic year. The PLH field must reflect the total planned timetabled hours spent on DfE approved qualifications only. A value of zero PLH is only returned if the learner is only participating in employability, enrichment and pastoral activities during the year. 

4. Information: Launch of £40m degree apprenticeship development fund   

The Office for Students (OfS) launched a funding competition for OfS registered higher education providers to bid for a portion of £40 million for projects over the next two years. The funding will boost the range of apprenticeships available at Level 6 and help a wider group of people to take them up. 

Providers should note that: 

• the OfS encourages bids from both new and existing degree apprenticeship providers. If you are not OfS-registered, you will be still able to join-up with an OfS registered provider to submit a bid.    
• all providers are invited to attend a webinar on 19 October to find out more 
• you can read more detail about the funding, including priority funding areas, within the guidance document