Guidance

Common themes and advice for applying to the provider growth fund

Updated 5 July 2021

Applies to England

We have put together some common questions and themes. Providers may want to review these when completing an application to the higher technical education provider growth fund.

Please also refer to the higher technical education provider growth fund guidance.

If you have questions on this guide or application form, please email team.highertechnicaleducation@education.gov.uk, allowing up to 3 days for a response. Depending on the nature of your query, we may update the published guidance on GOV.UK in response.

Latest updates

Updated 5 July 2021

Eligibility

Clarification on whether T Levels that will be delivered from September 2021 can be used to support a provider’s eligibility criteria - providers need to be either currently delivering Level 4/5 provision or, currently delivering T Levels and have developed plans to offer Higher Technical Qualifications as a progression route from T Levels in order to apply for the funding.

Clarification of whether eligibility is target subject specific - providers will only be eligible if they are currently delivering Level 4/5 provision in the target subject that closely aligns to the occupational standard or approved Higher Technical Qualification e.g. if a provider is delivering Engineering only, they will not be able to apply for Digital or Construction for this round of funding.

Clarification on financial health status within a consortium and how this affects the eligibility criteria - all partners within a consortium need to fulfil all of the eligibility criteria. If one partner has a financial health grading of requires improvement, then predicted learner numbers from this provider could not be submitted. We recognise that in some circumstances, a provider in this situation could still benefit from consortium purchases such as shared equipment or resources. However, if the financial health rating were to be lifted at the point of signing the grant letter in early September, the learner numbers for this provider could be included.

Institutes of Technology (IoT) -specific

Clarification on who signs the grant letter for an IoT - the Grant Letter needs to be signed by the person within the IoT who has the appropriate authority to sign grant letters, such as the licence holder.

Clarification on how the funding is issued to an IoT/consortium - the funds will be given to one provider/licence holder to then distribute to other members of an IoT/consortium according to the spending plans laid out in the application.

Clarification on how many routes members of an IoT can apply for - if an IoT application covers all 3 target subjects, then none of the providers can put an individual application for the same subject, even if they are planning to deliver against different occupational standards within the target subject.

Clarification on word limit for an IoT - if you are applying as an IoT or consortium, we would expect you to set out how the funding will support the IoT/consortium. The 500 words is in total not per provider.

Clarification on an IoT and individual college submitting separate/joint applications - if an IoT decides not to offer a route that relates to its specialism, a provider can submit a separate application on an individual basis. In addition, a provider can also plan to deliver a different route outside of the IoT’s licence agreement and delivery plan and submit a separate application for this route on an individual basis. You cannot apply for the same route as an individual provider and as part of an IoT. If a college who is not part of an IoT wishes to collaborate with the IoT on a bid, then they would need to submit a consortium bid and meet the eligibility criteria.

Clarification on franchising arrangements within an IoT - within a franchise arrangement, it is the delivery partner that is awarded the funding, not the franchiser. If the delivery partner is also a member of an IoT and delivering the IoT’s specialism then the IoT would be able to include these learner numbers within their application.

Learner numbers and eligible qualifications

Clarification on not using the level L4/L5 element of a Level 6 qualification to predict learner numbers - when predicting learner numbers, these should be based on standalone qualifications, not exit awards for students who signed up to a Level 6. As part of learning lessons, we will monitor the impact of the Growth Fund, and if future funding is available, we will consider if and how qualifications that are part of a Level 6 qualifications could be included.

Clarification on which year to include when calculating learner numbers - we require the number of students that you predict will start in the year you are requesting funding for. This will be first year students. You do not need to provide first and second year student numbers.

Clarification on different start dates for the same qualification.

Scenario 1

Within an IoT, 2 colleges plan to deliver an approved Digital Higher Technical Qualification, one college in 2022 and the other in 2023. This would be allowed.

Scenario 2

A provider begins delivery of a higher technical digital qualification in 2022 and continues delivery in 2023. Funding in this case would only be awarded for the first year.

Clarification on whether there is a pricing spreadsheet that needs to be completed to support the application form - we do not require the completion of a pricing spreadsheet, as the funding allocation will be dependent on the number of applications we receive. As part of the application, we will expect the provider to set out how they plan to use the funding they receive to build capacity and improve the quality of provision.

Clarification on timescales for when the Health & Science standards will be reviewed - the Health and Science route review has been postponed due the pressures on the sector during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Clarification on flexible qualifications / modules - current funding is based upon full qualifications, not modules.

Funding

Clarification on how resource and capital is distributed - capital and resource funding payments will be paid at the same time but will show as two separate amounts on the remittance advice and in the grant agreement, so it will be clear how much is for which element.

Clarification on funding being awarded for the 2024 to 2025 academic year - funding via the Provider Growth Fund is only available for Higher Technical qualifications in Digital in 2022 and Cycle 2, Digital, Construction and Health & Science. We are not offering funding for the 2024 to 2025 academic year at this time.

Applying for funding, additional information added for clarification:

• This £18m growth fund is part of a much larger investment of £110m designed to boost skills and inject funding into post 16 education, right across the country.
• The HTE growth fund is for the financial year 2021-2022 and so the provider must spend the funds by March 2022. For this reason, we welcome applications from providers who are in a strong position to meet the aims and objectives of the fund and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. Therefore, providers that have an Ofsted rating that is Requires Improvement or Inadequate are not eligible to apply for the Growth Fund.

1 - Applying for funding, we have removed reference to ‘mandated’ qualifications in apprenticeships within the eligibility criteria.

• Qualifications within an apprenticeship must be regulated by Ofqual or the Office for Students to meet the eligibility requirement.

1 - Applying for funding, we have clarified the eligibility criteria:

• If you are eligible for an Ofsted inspection, either as a:
  • Further Education college; or a
  • Higher Education Provider (for example a university) for your apprenticeship provision, you must have a rating of ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’.
• If you are not eligible for an Ofsted inspection or you do not yet have an Ofsted rating, you must be registered on the Office of Students register.

Applying for the growth fund

1. Applying for funding

The provider growth fund is open to applications from Further Education Colleges, Higher Education Providers, independent training providers and Institutes of Technology (IoT) and consortia.

As a provider, you must signal your intention of offering:

• a cycle 1 approved Digital Higher Technical Qualification from September 2022 and / or
• a cycle 2 Higher Technical Qualification in Digital, Health and Science or Construction from September 2023.

In addition, you must meet the following eligibility criteria to apply for funding:

• currently (i) delivering Level 4 and/or Level 5 technical qualifications which relate to your intended Higher Technical Qualification(s) in Digital, Construction or Health and Science, and which are regulated by Ofqual or the Office for Students*; or (ii) delivering T Levels and have developed plans to offer Higher Technical Qualifications as a progression route from T Levels.
  
  *Please note, providers will not be permitted to base their predicted learner numbers on the first or second year of a Level 6 qualification. The qualification selected to base the predicted learner numbers on, must be a destination qualification in itself and not part of a Level 6 qualification.
  
  **Apprenticeships are not in scope as part of the eligibility for applying for the Higher Technical Education Provider Growth Fund. However we recognise there are Level 4/5 qualifications that are regulated by Ofqual or the Office for Students within apprenticeships which would meet the eligibility criteria.
  
  
• have a financial health rating of ‘satisfactory’ or above. This means you are not in receipt of a published notice to improve, unless this is lifted prior to the grant letter being signed.
• if you are eligible for an Ofsted inspection, either as a:
  • Further Education college; or a
  • Higher Education Provider (for example a university) for your apprenticeship provision), you must have a rating of ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’.
• If you are not eligible for an Ofsted inspection or you do not yet have an Ofsted rating, you must be registered on the Office of Students register.

Additional information

This £18m growth fund is part of a much larger investment of £110m designed to boost skills and inject funding into post 16 education, right across the country.

The HTE growth fund is for the financial year 2021-2022 and so the provider must spend the funds by March 2022. For this reason, we welcome applications from providers who are in a strong position to meet the aims and objectives of the fund and deliver value for money for the taxpayer. Therefore, providers that have an Ofsted rating that is Requires Improvement or Inadequate are not eligible to apply for the Growth Fund.

2. Applying as an IoT

IoTs are welcome to submit an application for funding as a collaboration under the terms of your licencing agreement and you will need to be clear as to how this funding will be used separately to any previous IoT funding received.

3. Applying as an IoT and as an individual provider

You cannot apply for the same route as an individual partner and as part of an IoT.

However, you can apply as an individual provider and submit a separate application on an individual basis if:

• your IoT decides not to offer a route that relates to your specialism
• you want to offer a different route outside of the IoT’s licence agreement and delivery plan

4. Applying as a consortium

We welcome applications from consortia. Please note, all delivery partners within a consortium will need to meet the eligibility criteria to apply.

5. Applying as a franchise

We recognise that providers may be working in a franchising arrangement. In this situation, we would expect the franchisee (the delivery partner) to meet the eligibility criteria and apply for the funding as an individual provider (unless otherwise stated in their franchise arrangement)

6. Apprenticeships and mandated qualifications

Apprenticeships are not in scope as part of the eligibility for applying for the Higher Technical Education Provider Growth Fund. However, we recognise there are some level 4/5 qualifications mandated within apprenticeships, for example Foundation Degree in Nursing Associate, which would meet the eligibility criteria.

Support package

7. What the funding can be spent on

The £18 million Provider Growth Fund is split into:

• £12 million capital expenditure which can be spent on:
  • specialist equipment and perpetual software licence costs (software licences costs for 1 year should be classed as resource)
• £6 million resource expenditure which can be spent on:
  • developing local employer partnerships to support learners
  • support and upskill reaching and technical staff
  • support curriculum planning and development
  • promoting and raising awareness of higher technical education

8. Capital spend on general equipment

We want to allow providers to make the right decisions about what will benefit your learners, and the needs of your local employers. Therefore, provided your purchases meet your capitalisation policy criteria, you can use your capital allocation on whatever specialist equipment and perpetual software licence costs will make a difference to you delivering Target Subject Higher Technical Qualifications. Please note, if your software licence cost is for one year only, this would be classed as ‘resource’.

9. Salary Costs

Funding cannot be spent on salaries but can be used to fund backfill for teachers who are undertaking training necessary to enable them to teach the Higher Technical Qualification(s).

Predicted learner numbers

10. Basing predicted learner numbers on level 6 qualifications

Providers will not be permitted to base their predicted learner numbers on the first or second year of a Level 6 qualification. The qualification selected to base the predicted learner numbers on must be a destination qualification in itself and not part of a level 6 qualification.

11. Predicting learner numbers

As part of our Higher Technical Education reforms, new approved Target Subject Higher Technical Qualifications will relate to one or more published occupational standards at Level 4 or 5.

Predicted learner numbers should be based on existing technical qualifications that align as closely as possible to the following occupational standards. See section 3.2 of the provider guidance.

12. Calculating predicted learner numbers

There are no minimum predicted learner numbers for your Target Subject Higher Technical Qualifications(s) that need to be met in order to apply for the Provider Growth Fund.

However, we want the funding to be used for a viable cohort, which will help you create demand, promote Higher Technical Qualifications, build employer relationships and enhance the learner experience.

You should provide student number projections for each approved Target Subject Higher Technical Qualification that you will be offering and that you are requesting funding for. Your student number projections must be based on the number of students you are expecting to start each approved Higher Technical Qualification, aligning to the cycle start dates, either 2022 or 2023.

13. Full-time / part-time learners

There is no differentiation between full-time and part-time in terms of predicting learner numbers.

14. Remote learning

Learner numbers can be predicted from any Level 4 or 5 Target Subject technical qualification whether taught from the provider’s premises or remotely.

15. Demonstrating growth in learner numbers

We expect that the number of learners taking Higher Technical Qualifications will grow over time. You will need to provide a robust justification case on your proposed starts for the Target Subjects, (for Digital, this could be either 2022 or 2023). This should include an explanation on how you will engage with students in scope to take a Target Subject Higher Technical Qualification.

You will need to explain and justify your student number growth plans. This should consider demographic growth, any structural changes (within your organisation or mergers), and your plans to engage students in Higher Technical Qualifications, including learners from BAME backgrounds and other protected characteristic groups.

16. Offering new provision and continuing existing provision

To apply for the Higher Technical Education Growth Fund, providers must be either currently delivering Level 4 / 5 technical qualifications in the Target Subjects (Digital, Construction or Health and Science) OR delivering T Levels and have developed plans to offer Higher Technical Qualifications as a progression route from T Levels.

Higher Technical Qualifications are Level 4 or 5 qualifications that have been quality marked by the Institute to indicate their alignment to employer-led occupational standards. New or existing Level 4 or 5 qualifications submitted to the Institute’s approvals process will receive a quality-mark if the qualification satisfies their approvals criteria. Higher Technical Qualifications align to existing occupational standards, providing learners with entry-level competence and allowing them to enter their chosen profession or progress onto higher education.

Funding Allocation

17. Funding allocation

The funding will be based on a funding formula where the funding allocated to each provider will be directly proportional to the number of students you have predicted in your application. Funding will be capped at a maximum of £5,000 per learner. Please note, this is not an indication of the final amount likely to be received as this will depend on the number of successful applications.

18. Supporting higher technical education provision

Funds should be focused on Higher Technical Qualifications although we appreciate that this may also indirectly benefit other Level 4 or 5 provision.

19. IoT applying outside of IoT specialism and increasing agreed learner number Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for IoTs

In agreement with the Department’s IoT policy team, we do not need the IoT to get agreement to apply for the funding to expand their provision outside of their current licence agreement. If IoTs wish to add the learners to their KPIs they will need to seek approval from the Department in the normal way, however this can be done at any time before the learners start.

20. Using the fund within a consortium

We welcome applications from consortia, perhaps to share resources, or to engage with employers or specialists as a group. Please note, all delivery partners within a consortium will need to meet the eligibility criteria in order to apply.

The application will need to list all delivery and support partners in the consortium and clearly state how the funding will be used by each partner, along with brief details of the consortium governance structure and how the funds will be managed.

As part of the application, you would need to set out the predicted learner numbers for the delivery partners against each approved Higher Technical Qualification that you are applying for.

Partners cannot submit an individual application for the same route as the consortium bid, although a provider who plans to deliver a different route outside of a consortium’s delivery plan can apply for this on an individual basis.

When applying as a consortium, the funds should be allocated to the delivery partners that plan to offer approved Higher Technical Qualifications. We recognise that in some circumstances, were a member of a consortium is not planning to deliver some of the approved HTQs that the whole consortium is applying for, they can still benefit from consortium purchases such as shared equipment or resources. However, the funding will only be allocated based on predicted learner numbers for approved Higher Technical Qualifications.

Application process

21. Timeline for application outcome and payment

Date	Timeline
July 2021	The Department will review applications received from providers
August 2021	The Department will confirm funding allocation to providers via grant offer letters
September 2021	Signed grant offer letters returned by 6 September and funding allocated to providers. If grant letters are returned after 6 September, payment will not be allocated to providers until October.

22. Deadline for submitting applications

Providers must submit applications by 11.59pm, Friday 9 July 2021, via email to team.highertechnicaleducation@education.gov.uk.

Monitoring and evaluation

23. Funding monitoring

We will provide a monitoring form and providers must confirm how they have spent the funding and how it has contributed to improving the quality of higher technical education.

We will ask providers to provide a return in:

• November 2021 to demonstrate spend progression
• January 2022 to confirm spend to date and planned spend between January and March 2022.

Clawback

24. Deadline for funding spend

The funding is for the financial year 2021-2022, so we will require providers to spend all allocated funding (for both September 2022 and/or September 2023 roll-out dates) by March 2022.

Funding can only be spent on the Target Subjects (Digital, Construction, Health and Science) for 2022 and 2023 roll out.

25. Funding clawback

Once the funds have been allocated, we will monitor the spend throughout the grant period and will ask providers to confirm actual student numbers in September 2022 and 2023. We will claw back funds in the following situations:

• funds that have been misspent (i.e. not in accordance with grant agreements) or not spent by March 2022.
• a provider decides not to deliver an approved Higher Technical Qualification in Digital, Construction and Health and Science.
• where the provider fails to reach 80% of their predicted learner numbers, we would claw back the difference between their actual number and 80%. For example, if they had 70% of predicted learner numbers, we would claw back 10% of funds.

If you are offering more than one Higher Technical Qualification, the clawback clauses will be relevant for each individual course.

26. Funding Shortfall

The Provider Growth Fund is intended as a contribution towards your proposed delivery plans. Final amounts will be determined by the number of applications received and total learner numbers predicted.

27. Funding for qualifications that are submitted but fail to gain approval

If you decide not to deliver an approved Higher Technical Qualification in a Target Subject, we reserve the right to recover any grant funding we have paid. If you are not able to offer your chosen Higher Technical Qualifications(s) for reasons beyond your control, we will discuss this with you on a case-by-case basis. Please see section 5.3 of the provider guidance.

28. Clawback on individual or multiple courses.

If you are offering more than one Higher Technical Qualification the clawback clauses will be relevant for each individual course.

Approvals timeline

29. Higher Technical Educations approval timeline

Cycle 1 approved Digital Higher Technical Qualifications will be announced by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, at the end of June 2021 and applications for the Provider Growth Fund close 9th July, so this information will be available.

We recognise that for Cycle 2, the approved Digital, Construction and Health and Science Higher Technical Qualifications will not be announced by Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education until September 2021. Providers will want to reflect on the occupational standards that the Higher Technical Qualifications will be based on to consider what qualification they may want to offer.

30. Raising awareness of Higher Technical Qualifications

There will be a range of resources available on GOV.UK and the IfATE website to raise awareness of the benefits of Higher Technical Education, and we will be engaging with employer and IAG representatives to promote the benefits of Higher Technical Qualifications.