ESFA Update academies: 4 December 2019
Published 4 December 2019
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2019
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1. Action: academies financial returns deadline
Thank you to everyone who has submitted their trust’s financial statements and accounts return. If you are still working on them, please submit these before the deadlines.
The deadline for your trust’s financial statements using the accounts submission coversheet is Tuesday 31 December 2019. If you are having difficulties submitting your financial statements, please see our guidance.
The deadline for your external auditor to submit your trust’s accounts return is Monday 20 January 2020. Please make sure your external auditors are registered and set up to use the financial returns online forms.
If you have any questions, please use our online enquiry form. Please select option ‘Academies financial returns’ and provide your trust’s UPIN or company number.
2. Action: teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) supplementary fund claim form now available
The online form for eligible mainstream academies to claim for TPECG supplementary funding is now live, and will be available until Friday 17 January 2020.
The window for local authorities to apply for supplementary funding for specialist institutions (for example special schools, special academies and free schools) will open in April 2020.
Please read the published guidance for more information on eligibility, how to register with DfE Sign-in, and how to complete the claim form.
3. Reminder: individualised learner record (ILR) R04 return
The R04 ILR data return closes at 6pm tomorrow, Thursday 5 December. It’s critical that your return is accurate and on time.
We use your R04 data return in several ways, particularly to:
- calculate 16 to 19 funding allocations for the 2020 to 2021 funding year
- calculate the carry over costs for procured apprenticeships non-levy contracts for the 2020 to 2021 financial year
- measure the performance of your 16 to 18 traineeship (for providers without 16 to 19 funding) and 19 to 24 traineeship contract value as set out in the adult education budget funding and performance-management rules
The R04 data return is also part of the 16 to 19 funding reconciliation monitoring system for independent learning providers as set out in our ILR funding returns guide for 2019 to 2020.
4. Information: publication of high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census 2018 to 2019
We have updated the 2018 to 2019 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census file to reflect the high needs student numbers recorded in the 2018 to 2019 ILR R14 data return.
We also use the data in line with the high needs place change notification: technical note 2019 to 2020 to determine 2020 to 2021 high needs place numbers when local authorities have submitted ‘not agreed’ place change notifications for further education and independent learning providers.
The workbook also includes an additional tab containing actual data for special post-16 institutions (SPIs). This data is provided for information purposes only and is included as SPIs return R14 data to ESFA.
5. Information: reminder of advice on aluminium composite material cladding
The Department for Education (DfE) wishes to remind building owners of advice on Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) cladding, published previously by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as part of its Building Safety Programme (BSP).
The relevant advice, which sets out all actions which must be taken, can be found in BSP Advice Notes 11 and 18, which were published respectively on 5 September 2017 (updated 27 February 2018) and 28 September 2018.
6. Your feedback: our online remittances for post-16 funding
We are redesigning our online remittances and related content in order to improve the usability and satisfaction of our service.
We are seeking feedback to support the project through a survey tailored to providers who receive post-16 funding from ESFA. The concepts and design suggestions contained in the survey are as a result of previous user research with such providers. The first part of this survey covers the transaction description changes and the second part is about the proposed design improvements to the online remittance view.
The survey is available online and closes on Sunday 15 December 2019.
Thank you for your interest in helping to improve our service.