Correspondence

ESFA Update further education: 30 August 2023

Published 30 August 2023

Applies to England

1. For action: submit your academic year 2022 to 2023 16 to 19 tuition fund spend and tell us how you have used your additional hours

If you have submitted your form to tell us about your 16 to 19 tuition fund and additional hours, thank you. You do not need to read any further.

The submission deadline is 11:59pm on 13 October 2023. You can submit your information now, don’t wait until the deadline. We’ve produced guidance to help you return your information.

Failure to submit a report on 16 to 19 tuition fund spend means that we will recover 100% of your academic year 2022 to 2023 tuition funding.

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
• the additional hours baseline data report sent to you in June 2022, based on returns your institution made in academic year 2020 to 2021

If you have any questions after reading the guidance, please contact us through our enquiry form.

2. Reminder: adult funding carry-in allocations for the 2023 to 2024 funding year – business case deadline 6 September

We will shortly be reviewing business case requests for increased carry-in allocations for these funding streams:

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

You must complete the business case form if the allocation amount for 2023 to 2024 is insufficient. We will use your R12 data to validate requests.

For more information, please see 19+ allocations or contact your territorial team lead if you have any queries.

3. Information: Apprenticeship service changes – new transfers auto approval feature

When levy employers create a pledge to transfer apprenticeship funding, auto approval will now review any applications received.

If there is an application that meets 100% of their criteria, then auto approval will approve that application for funding immediately. Matches are approved in date order, with the earliest application being approved first.

Here is what levy employers need to know about auto approvals:

• How to delay auto approval – if they don’t want an application to be immediately auto approved, they will have the option to delay auto approval for 6 weeks. If delayed, they must review applications and approve or decline within 6 weeks of receiving them, or they will be auto approved at that time. When they create a pledge, they will be asked the following:

  Approve or delay applications for 100% match

  • approve immediately, no delay
  • I want to do my own checks: I understand I have up to 6 weeks to complete them

• Which pledges are affected – these changes will only affect new pledges set up from 23 August 2023. Any existing pledges created before this date will not be affected by auto approval; those levy employers will be contacted separately to ensure they review their existing applications.

• What happens if there is no 100% match – if auto approval doesn’t find a 100% match, the application will not be auto approved. Levy employers will need to manually review the applications and approve or decline them in a timely manner.

• What happens when their pledge funds run out – no further applications will be auto approved once their pledge has insufficient funds.

Read our auto approval guidance for more information.

4. Information: Apprenticeship service changes – we’ve made it easier for levy employers to manage their transfer finances

To make it easier for levy employers to manage their transfer finances, we’ve updated how they view their transfer allowance and estimated apprenticeship costs.

In their account they can now:

• view their estimated apprenticeship costs for a pledge application
• view their transfer allowance for this financial year
• view their estimated remaining transfer balance

This will help them estimate how much of their transfer funds are being spent and what allowance they have remaining.