Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 22 January 2020

Published 22 January 2020

This correspondence was withdrawn on

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date.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

Applies to England

1. Action: mid-year funding claims for 2019 to 2020

The mid-year funding claim window will open at 9am on Monday 10 February 2020.

You must submit a mid-year funding claim by 5pm on Thursday 13 February 2020. The claim form will be available on Submit Learner Data. Failure to submit the form will be a breach of your agreement

You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through:

  • adult education budget (AEB) (Adult Skills and Community Learning) – grant-funded
  • Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB) – grant-funded
  • Learner Support for AEB procured (adult skills and 19 to 24 traineeships) – paid-on-profile

Once you have submitted your claim you will also be able to view it on the Manage your education and skills funding.

For colleges due to submit the integrated financial model for colleges (IFMC) at the end of February, please ensure figures in the mid-year claim are used to inform the financial planning you are currently undertaking.

If you have any queries about this please contact your territorial manager.

2. Action: Condition Data Collection (CDC) – accessing condition reports for your schools

The CDC programme collects condition, contextual and building management data for every state-maintained school and college in England which will help inform how we target future capital investment to where it is needed most. We have now completed the programme, visited, and released reports to over 22,000 schools and wanted to thank you for your support.

If you have not accessed the condition reports for the schools you are responsible for, you can download them from the CDC portal. You should already have access to the portal and instructions on how to access your reports. If you require further information, please submit your enquiry using our online enquiry form, including the name and URN of your school(s).

The portal will be taken offline at the end of July 2020, so please save a copy of your report before then, if required.

Guidance on managing your estate effectively is available on GOV.UK.

3. Information: Learning Records Service temporarily closed due to data trust breach

Due to a recent data breach by a UK Register of Learning Provider, we have temporarily closed the Learning Records Service whilst we complete investigations.

We are continuing to monitor access and audit logs to highlight unusual activity to ensure this situation does not happen again via any provider.

Our checks are almost complete and we will start to provide access to the Learner Record Service from tomorrow. We will endeavour to get the service fully up and running as quickly as possible.

We will leave no options off the table when it comes to taking action or seeking for others, such as the Information Commissioner, to take action against any learning provider that has breached its agreement with us and wrongly shared data.

4. Information: high needs place change request outcomes 2020 to 2021

We have published the place change request outcomes: 2020 to 2021 that will inform the funded place numbers for the 2020 to 2021 academic year in academies, free schools, further education colleges and independent learning providers.

You should review the published outcomes as soon as possible, to ensure the numbers reflect those expected. If an institution is not listed, this means no change was notified for that institution and the published 2019 to 2020 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2020 to 2021 allocation.

A local authority, academy or further education institution may contact ESFA to query their 2020 to 2021 place numbers within the enquiry window, which closes on Friday 7 February 2020. Requests to change place numbers received after 7 February are unlikely to be considered.

More information about the enquiry window can be found in the place change notification process: technical note.