Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 18 August 2021

Published 18 August 2021

This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2022

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Read the latest editions of ESFA Update for the latest news and information.

Applies to England

1. Latest information on coronavirus (COVID-19)

The Department for Education has published guidance about COVID-19 in educational settings for staff, parents and carers, pupils and students on GOV.UK.

Please check GOV.UK regularly for updates.

2. Reminder: post-16 funding from ESFA 2020 to 2021 - Chief Finance Officers Certification

On 2 July 2021 we wrote to you about our requirement for the authorities’ Chief Finance Officers Certification regarding ESFA’s post-16 funding received by the local authority for 2020 to 2021 financial year.

The deadline for this return was 31 July 2021.

If you haven’t submitted your return, please plan for the return to be submitted as soon as possible. This return forms the basis of ESFAs assurance to the NAO.

2.1 Submit your return

The local authority should return the “CFO/202021cert”, return to academiesfinancialmonitoring.efa@education.gov.uk.

3. Your feedback: view my financial insights – research with alternative provision providers

The ESFA and DfE are currently reviewing the experience of View my Financial Insights (VMFI) for alternative provision (AP) and pupil referral units (PRU). Please can you share this opportunity with the school business managers (or equivalent) in these schools.

The researcher in the VMFI team would like to speak with school business professionals for AP and PRUs to understand how the service can be improved to meet your needs:

• research sessions will take place the week commencing 23 August and 6 September 2021
• each session will be conducted over Microsoft Teams and will last up to 45 minutes
• all responses will be anonymised

Please register your interest by 27 August 2021 and a researcher will be in touch with more information.

4. Information: domestic abuse statutory guidance consultation launched

Following Royal Assent of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the Home Office are consulting on draft domestic abuse statutory guidance which will support the implementation of sections 1 to 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act, which cover the definitions of domestic abuse and the recognition of children as victims of domestic abuse.   The aim is to provide guidance and support to frontline professionals who have responsibility for safeguarding and supporting victims of domestic abuse, including both adult and child victims.  

The consultation is aimed at a wide range of professionals, including, amongst others, those who work in:

• local authorities
• early years
• childcare and education settings (including schools, colleges, and higher education)
• children’s social care

Further details, including the draft guidance document and how to respond to the consultation can be found on GOV.UK.The consultation closes at 11.45pm on Tuesday 14 September 2021.

5. Information: post-16 monitoring plan for the 2021 to 2022 funding year

We have published the post-16 monitoring plan for the 2021 to 2022 funding year. Following user feedback, we have combined the monitoring plan and our reports dashboard user guide into a single piece of guidance in HTML format. This means you can now find all the information on each report in a single space; it also means that you do not have to wait until we release the R04 reports in December to see the relevant guidance.

While the first dataset for the year will be published after R04 (December), this year we will also publish School Census data within the monitoring dashboard in the following spring, enabling a comprehensive in-year analysis of young peoples’ funding for the first time. We are developing a support offer for providers that submit the School Census and have not previously been directly engaged by monitoring and will communicate this in the autumn.