Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 12 July 2023

Published 12 July 2023

Applies to England

1. Reminder: college and local authority accountability agreements deadline

A reminder that the deadline for submitting your final accountability statement is 31 July 2023.  

Further information and the college and local authority accountability agreements guidance can be on GOV.UK.

2. Reminder: recording the lender name for commercial loans on the CFFR 2023

We would like to ask colleges preparing their College Financial Forecasting Return (CFFR), to ensure that they clearly identify the name of the lender for each of their commercial loans.

As set out in section 14.1 of the CFFR User Guide, the name of the lender should be entered in column D of the Loans sheet, in the relevant row 13-32. Please ensure that in these cells, the lender name comes first, with any further description separated from the name by a space.

For example, for two different loans with Santander the relevant entries might be:

• D13: Santander loan1
• D14: Santander building loan

3. Information: FE workforce data collection

We have now released support guidance for the upcoming FE workforce data collection.

Please share this information with the relevant colleagues in your organisation.

These documents hold detailed information on the questions being asked and guidance on how to complete returns for the staff record and vacancy strands of the collection.

Support guidance is designed to be used by staff as they complete the collection as a reference tool. It will also help give providers time to look at the data required and prepare before the collection opens on 27 September 2023.

This collection will help:

• provide a better understanding of the implications of government policy reforms, including their impact on the composition of staff and their specialisms.
• provide a greater understanding of contracts and pay in the sector.
• reveal skills gaps in the sector.

The collection is separated into three strands:

• Staff level data: asking questions about members of staff, their contracts and responsibilities.
• Provider level vacancy data: asking questions about organisation’s vacancies and ability to fill them.
• Governance data: asking questions about organisations governing bodies.

All three strands are mandatory for eligible providers.

We will be publishing outcomes in the summer, for the benefit of providers and key stakeholders, such as Ofsted and sector representatives.

Support guidance and other documentation can be found on GOV.UK.

4. Information: updated college financial benchmarking tool and college accounts dataset

We have republished the college financial benchmarking tool with data from further education and sixth-form colleges’ 2021 to 2022 finance records, submitted to the ESFA and reviewed up to 23 June 2023. The tool allows colleges to compare their performance with others in the sector.

The republished tool incorporates the records for additional colleges, additional data cleansing, where a small number of fields had been completed incorrectly by colleges, and improvements to the income-based benchmarking populations.

We have also republished the college accounts dataset for 2021 to 2022 to include the additional finance records.

5. Information: Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF) will use DfE Sign-in from 21 August 2023

Signing in to Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF) will be changing from 21 August 2023.

As a MYESF user, you will need a Department for Education (DfE) Sign-in account to continue using the service.

An email notifying you of this change will be sent to the email address linked to your IDAMs account from DfE Sign-in.

If you are a registered MYESF user and have not received an email by 14 August 2023, check your spam and junk folders or contact us using the DfE Sign-in help form.

Whilst this change will not affect the way MYESF works and what you can do once you sign in, your IDAMS roles will be known as sub-services in DfE Sign-in and will look different. To understand these role changes to sub-services, visit Help with role changes in Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF) .

Also, as part of this change, you will not be able to access the apprenticeship service for providers directly from MYESF. You will need to access it using this link with your existing IDAMS log-in until it is available again via MYESF later in the year.

Get more information on DfE Sign-in.

6. Information: apprenticeship grant for employers (AGE) reports to be removed in Manage your education and skills funding from 21 August 2023

We will remove the apprenticeship grant for employers (AGE) reports from the Manage your education and skills funding service from 21 August 2023.

You will not be able to download them after this date.

Please ensure you have downloaded and saved any reports you need to access before this date.

7. Information: R10 in-year qualification achievement rate (QAR) 2022 to 2023

We are aiming to release your in-year 2022 to 2023 QAR data this week. If there is any change to this, we will communicate this via Communities and the ESFA help centre.

In-year QARs can be accessed through view your education data, which provides:

• a QAR dashboard that uses your ILR data from the R10 return to show your rates
• a QAR data download to show your learner level information

As part of this release, we confirm the QAR calculations at learner level will match on the Unique Learner Number (ULN) and where we are unable to do so we will match on Learner Reference Number (LRN). The technical specifications and supporting documents will be updated shortly.

7.1 Further support

If you have any queries in relation to QAR, please contact us via our online enquiry form, and select the QAR query type. Further advice and support can also be found under the Help Centre articles and Communities section for peer support.

8. Information: adult funding carry-in allocations for the 2023 to 2024 funding year

We have uploaded carry-in allocations for the 2023 to 2024 funding year to Manage your education and skills funding service.

These will include:

• ESFA funded adult education budget procured carry-in
• apprenticeship carry-in
• 16 to 18 traineeships carry-in
• 19 to 24 traineeships carry-in

We have updated our technical guidance to explain how we have calculated your allocation.

Please make sure you have access to Manage your education and skills funding so that you can view your allocation statement.  You can request a new role through the Identity and Access Management Service or by asking your organisation’s super user.

Contract authorisers and/or managers will receive an email confirming when your allocation statement is available to view.

9. Information: post-16 level 3 qualifications from 2025: early indication for providers

All level 3 alternative academic and technical qualifications must get new approval for funding from 2025.

To help you prepare for the changes, the Department for Education has be published data that gives an early indication of how many of these qualifications awarding organisations intend to submit for approval for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.

We will provide a further update in September with the number of qualifications actually submitted for approval.

10. Information: 16 to 19 study programme guidance for 2023 to 2024

We have now published the updated version of the 16 to 19 study programme guidance for the 2023 to 2024 academic year.

All students funded through the 16 to 19 funding methodology must be enrolled on a study programme or T Level programme, which typically combines qualifications and other activities, and is tailored to each student’s prior attainment and career goals.

The study programme guidance is designed to help providers understand their obligations and duties in relation to the provision of 16 to 19 study programmes in their institutions.