Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 29 November 2023

Published 29 November 2023

Applies to England

1. Action: ensure compliance with 16 to 19 Bursary Fund following audit outcomes

Please take action to ensure compliance with 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guidance. Recent finding from auditors show these errors usually result in you repaying funds to us:

• flat rate payments to groups of students without assessing individual circumstances and needs
• not always undertaking household income assessments or using incomplete evidence
• not basing bursary fund support on actual needs or household income assessment
• making awards to ineligible students
• out of scope bursary funding spend such as general living costs support and learning support
• no suitable evidence to support payments made to students

Auditors found evidence of high balances of unspent bursary fund and/or free meals in further education funding. Our guidance specifies that you must fully use any unspent bursary or free meals money before using new academic year allocations. You can carry over unspent funds for one year.

You must:

• report unspent funding each year using our online enquiry form specifying the funding amount, specific scheme and the year/s the funding relates to
• check, as a minimum, on an annual basis that your organisation is complying with the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guidance, which includes a specific audit section, and the free meals in further education guidance for FE funded institutions that have allocations of that funding

Remember, you can set your own student eligibility criteria for the bursary fund, including the household income threshold that you deem most appropriate for your area / students. You should ensure that the policy you set is affordable from your funding allocation.

2. Action: consultation launched on introducing minimum service levels in education

A consultation on the introduction of minimum service levels in schools, colleges, and universities was launched on GOV.UK yesterday (28 November).

Minimum service levels would ensure that in the event of any future strike action, education would still continue for children and young people across schools, colleges and universities.

As part of this consultation, we would welcome your views as FE sector employers.

Following the consultation, the government may use powers within the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 to make regulations to set minimum service levels in the event of strike action. The consultation will provide us with information on the best solution for students, staff, and wider society.

The consultation is open for 8 weeks, until 23 January 2024.

3. Reminder: 2022 to 2023 final reconciliation statements

Thank you for submitting your 2022 to 2023 final funding claim.

Reconciliation statements will be available for you to view on Manage your education skills and funding by the end of November 2023. This will set out the final position for the 2022 to 2023 funding year and inform the funding that is required to repay (if applicable) or over delivery funding that we will pay.

Final reconciliation statements are published following submission of a final funding claim for the following funding streams:

• grant funded - ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB) (adult skills, community learning, 19 to 24 traineeships and Level 3 free courses for jobs offer (previously known as the national skills fund))
• grant funded - advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB)

If you are required to repay funds back to us, we will schedule those repayments from December 2023.

4. Reminder: don’t forget to submit a return for the FE workforce data collection

Please cascade to all relevant colleagues. The FE workforce data collection is currently open and will close 26 January 2024.

If you are in scope and haven’t already done so, please submit a provider response. This will ensure data findings represent the entire sector.

The online form is available for providers in scope to submit their data.

The online form is also available for FE and sixth form colleges to submit their governor data.

Staff Data Desktop Application is also available to help providers prepare their FE workforce data and produce an XML file.

We have released guidance documents for the collections to support staff who are completing the collections.

To access the collection, use the Submit learner data sign in process.

Submit learner data now uses DfE Sign-in method for authenticating users. Existing IDAMs users should have been migrated to the DfE Sign-in account July 2023. If you require an account, please follow our guidance.

5. Information: funding for time off timetable for early career teachers and mentors who participated in the national roll-out of the early career framework – autumn sweep up payments for eligible schools and organisations 

In August 2023, we published the funding for time off timetable for early career teachers and mentors who participated in the national roll-out of the early career framework (ECF) reforms’ allocations for eligible participants who undertook year 2 ECF training in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

The sweep up payment has been slightly delayed and will now be made in early 2024. This is to ensure all eligible schools and organisations not captured in the summer 2023 payment window will be paid in-year.

Please ensure all relevant actions are completed on the Department for Education (DfE) manage training for early career teachers service page and that your training provider has also confirmed participant engagement with the training programme with the department.

For those schools and organisations within Buckinghamshire who were incorrectly identified as ‘rest of England’ instead of the ‘London fringe’ area, we will also be making payment corrections in the autumn sweep up.

These corrections will be applicable for 2023 payment allocations.

Please note that corrective payments will be made automatically to those affected schools and organisations.

6. Information: backfill payments for time off timetable for early career framework (ECF) mentor training for the 2022 to 2023 academic year – sweep up payments for eligible schools and organisations

In August 2023, we published the backfill payments for time off timetable for early career framework (ECF) mentor training allocations (national roll-out) for participants who have undertaken ECF mentor training in the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

The sweep up payment has been slightly delayed and will now be made in early 2024. This is to ensure all eligible schools and organisations not captured in the summer 2023 payment window will be paid in-year.

Please ensure all relevant actions are completed on the Department for Education (DfE) manage training for early career teachers service page and that your training provider has also confirmed participant engagement with the training programme with the department.

For those schools and institutions within Buckinghamshire who were incorrectly identified as ‘rest of England’ instead of the ‘London fringe’ area, we will also be making payment corrections in the early 2024 sweep up.

These corrections will be applicable for 2022 and 2023 payment allocations.

Please note that corrective payments will be made automatically to those affected schools and organisations.

7. Information: ESFA Adult Skills Fund - tailored learning 2024 to 2025

This is an update on the tailored learning element of the Adult Skills Fund (ASF) after our ESFA Update on 1 November.

7.1 Allocation and calculation

We will give all grant funded providers a tailored learning allocation. 5% of the AEB overall allocation will be the minimum value for all grant providers.

We will review your non-regulated learning delivery in academic years 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 and take the higher of these 2 values. We will add this to your community learning amount which will become tailored learning.

We aim to publish further information in the Adult Skills Fund rules and allocation statements by the end of March 2024.

7.2 Purpose

As outlined in the government response to the DfE consultation Skills for jobs the purpose of tailored learning is primarily to support learners into employment and to progress to further learning, in line with the overall purpose of the Adult Skills Fund.

The current system will also support wider outcomes, including using it to:

• improve health and wellbeing
• equip parents/carers to support their child’s learning, and

develop stronger and more integrated communities

8. Information: ESFA investigation publishing policy update

ESFA is committed to transparency and learning lessons in reporting how public money has been used within the education sector. 

Publishing the outcomes of our investigations is one aspect of how ESFA supports the education sector in understanding where valuable lessons may be learned when instances of fraud, financial irregularity or error are identified. Specifically, our vast education provider base can implement or review their own preventative measures to assure themselves and ESFA that public money paid to them is being used as Parliament intends.

ESFA has updated our investigation publishing policy. We will continue to publish outcomes from our investigations, and the new policy will bring a consistent approach across all of our education providers.

The new policy will be effective for all new investigations from 12 December 2023. The scope of our policy will apply to academy trusts, colleges, independent training providers, high needs institutions and higher education institutions.

9. Information: R03 release of data in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard

We have published reports for the 2023 to 2024 funding year in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard. This supports providers to identify any data errors early and make necessary amendments in their R04 ILR return. The landing page table will be fully populated at R04.

 For 16 to 19 learners, please ensure that planned learning hours, and employment, enrichment, and pastoral hours are recorded correctly for the current teaching year.

If you are unfamiliar with either these reports or accessing the dashboard to view queries, please refer to the Financial Assurance: Monitoring post-16 funding for 2023 to 2024 guidance for instructions on what to do. If you require further assistance, you can submit an enquiry or visit the help centre, via the blue buttons on the landing page of the dashboard.

10. Information: updated provider data self-assessment toolkit

We are expecting to release an updated version of the provider data self-assessment toolkit (PDSAT) on 30 November 2023.

The new version allows users to run the 2023 to 2024 funding year reports. The tool can be accessed online and as well as through the link on the PDSAT section of GOV.UK.

PDSAT is regularly updated to incorporate the latest Learning Aims Reference Service (LARS) data and changes per the specification from the ESFA.

For further information, please use the ESFA online form.