Guidance

How to submit a funding claim for 2023 to 2024

Updated 6 February 2024

Applies to England

1. Changes from 2022 to 2023  

• Providers delivering 16 to 19 education now only need to sign off their final funding claims. We will populate the ‘delivery to date’ figures on the claim form based on your ILR/EAS data submissions and this will automatically be available to review at final claim. You must continue to ensure that the principal or another senior post holder who has the delegated authority signs off the funding claim at final claim.

• We have added ‘ESFA AEB Innovative provision’ which enables eligible providers to earn up to 3% of their ESFA AEB allocation on the development of innovative provision. Further information about funding for developing innovative provision can be found in ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB): funding and performance management rules 2023 to 2024.

2. Introduction

This document informs colleges and training providers of the funding streams that they are required to submit a funding claim for, how to make a claim and the dates for submitting a funding claim for the 2023 to 2024 funding year. This is a contractual requirement for the following funding streams:

• grant funded - ESFA funded Adult Education Budget (AEB) (Adult Skills, Funding for innovative provision, Community Learning, 19 to 24 Traineeships and Level 3 free courses for jobs offer
• grant funded - Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB)
• 16 to 19 education

Alongside this information you should read:

• ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB): funding and performance management rules 2023 to 2024

• Advanced learner loans funding and performance management rules: 2023 to 2024
• Advice: funding regulations for post-16 provision 2023 to 2024
• Funding guidance for young people 2023 to 2024

3. Deadlines for submitting claims

The deadlines for each aspect of submitting the claim are in the table below. Failure to submit a claim by the due date will be a breach of the funding agreement.

Deadlines for AEB and ALL

Funding Claim	Deadline to provide Individualised learner records (ILR)	Claim form available on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to submit funding claim on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to sign funding claim on Manage your education and skills funding
Mid-year forecast funding claim*	06-Feb-24	08-Feb-24	13-Feb-24	N/A
Year-end forecast funding claim*	06-Jun-24	10-Jun-24	13-Jun-24	N/A
Final claim	17-Oct-24	22-Oct-24	25-Oct-24	29-Oct-24

Deadlines for 16 to 19 education

Funding Claim	Deadline to provide Individualised learner records (ILR)	Claim form available on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to submit funding claim on Submit Learner Data	Deadline to sign funding claim on Manage your education and skills funding
Mid-year forecast funding claim	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Year-end forecast funding claim	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Final claim	N/A	N/A	N/A	29-Oct-24

4. Where to complete and submit a claim

You must complete and submit your funding claim in the data collections area of the Submit learner data portal.

The funding claim form is available 2 working days after the close of the relevant Individualised Learner Record (ILR) and Earnings Adjustment Statement (EAS) submission periods.

5. Completing a claim

ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB) (grant funded) funding claims

Your AEB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• ESFA AEB adult skills – programme funding
• ESFA AEB adult skills – learning support
• ESFA AEB adult skills of which community learning
• ESFA AEB innovative provision
• ESFA AEB learner support – 19+ hardship
• ESFA AEB learner support – 20+ childcare
• ESFA AEB learner support – residential access funding
• ESFA AEB learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs
• ESFA AEB learner support – administration expenditure

The ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB): funding and performance management rules 2023 to 2024 set out the following, where applicable:

• your ESFA funded AEB allocation which includes an amount of non-formula community learning funding. We state this value in Appendix 1 of your contract. You must deliver non-formula funded community learning provision in line with the existing community learning objectives set out in annex B community learning objectives, up to this maximum amount.
• a maximum of 5% of your total Learner Support claim that you can claim as administration expenditure.
• the eligibility requirements and the maximum amount of funding you can draw down for innovative provision.

ESFA funded adult education budget - Level 3 free courses for jobs offer for 24 years old and over (grant funded) 

Your AEB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – programme funding
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – learning support
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – 19+ hardship
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – 20+ childcare
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – residential access funding
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs
• ESFA AEB Level 3 free courses for jobs offer – administration expenditure

You must not claim more than 5% of your total Level 3 free courses for jobs offer learner support expenditure claim as administration expenditure.

ESFA funded 19 to 24 traineeships (grant funded)

Your AEB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships – programme funding
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships – learning support
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships learner support – 19+ hardship
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships learner support– 20+ childcare
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships learner support – residential access funding
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships learner support – IT devices and connectivity costs
• ESFA AEB 19 to 24 traineeships learner support– administration expenditure

You must not claim more than 5% of your total 19 to 24 traineeship learner support expenditure claim as administration expenditure.

Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB) funding claims

If you are paid on profile for your ALLB allocation you must complete a funding claim. Your ALLB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:

• bursary funding
• hardship
• childcare
• residential access fund
• area costs
• excess claims
• administration expenditure

As set out in section 17 of Advanced learner loans funding and performance management rules: 2023 to 2024 you can claim up to 5% of your loans bursary expenditure for learner support activities (hardship, childcare and residential access fund) on administration expenditure.

16 to 19 Education claims

If you have a 16 to 19 education allocation your principal or delegated authority must sign off the final funding claim. This is the only action you need to take now. You are no longer required to submit a mid-year, year-end or final claim for 16 to 19 education.

We will populate your 16 to 19 education final claim with your data from your ILR R14 submission. The fields you will see in the form include:

16 to 19 Study programme students

• 14 to 16 direct funded students (Row A) – Bands 1 to 5
• 16 to 19 high needs students (including high needs students) (Row B) – Bands 1 to 5
• 19 to 24 students with an EHC plan (Row C) – Bands - 1 - 5
• 19+ continuing students (excluding EHC plan) (Row D) – Bands 1 – 5

T Level Students

• 14 to 16 direct funded students (Row A) – Bands 1 to 9
• 16 to 19 high needs students (including high needs students) (Row B) – Bands 1 to 9
• 19 to 24 students with an EHC plan (Row C) – Bands - 1 - 9
• 19+ continuing students (excluding EHC plan) (Row D) – Bands 1 – 9

T Level students will usually fall within bands 6 to 9, but where the planned hours recorded are lower, they may be categorised as bands 1 to 5. Where T Levels are categorised as bands 1 to 5, they will be shown within both the total numbers for that band, and as a sub-category showing the number of students in the band which are T Levels. 

6. Relevant to all funding claims

For all formula funded deliverable lines, we will pre-populate the ‘delivery to date’ figures on the claim form based on your ILR/EAS data submissions. You will not be able to amend this data. You should submit ILR data returns from R04 onwards, as set out in the ILR specification 2023 to 2024 Appendix A – Data Collection Timetable.

For all non-formula funded deliverable lines, for example, community learning or learner support, you will need to enter a figure from your own records.

As a provider, you need to fill in the ‘forecasted delivery’ for each field for the mid-year forecast claim and year-end forecast funding claim for the rest of the year. We do not use this forecast for setting allocations. We use forecasts to understand the wider performance of the sector and to manage budgets. Therefore, the forecast you provide in your mid-year and year-end forecast funding claims must be realistic; it must be based on actual and/or expected demand. Before submitting your forecast, you must ensure any funding errors identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard have been corrected in your latest data return. We will calculate provisional error values based on your data which we will include as an adjustment to illustrate the potential impact when you submit your final claim. 

In your final funding claim, you only need to agree the figures, as we will use your ILR/EAS to pre-populate your actual delivery figures. We will account for any monitoring errors identified in your ILR data submission at this point. You will still need to enter figures for non-formula funded deliverable lines.

You must only use the ‘exceptional adjustments’ column for final claim to make changes if you’ve agreed an exceptional adjustment with us beforehand. You must also retain relevant evidence (that we may request to validate your claim). Any unauthorised exceptional adjustments will not be included in your delivery figures.

You will have 4 working days (7 for final claim) after the relevant claim opens to submit your funding claim. If you do not submit a required funding claim in accordance with the dates above, then we will issue a minor breach notice, as this is a contractual requirement.

We will publish a user guide document giving further information on how to submit your funding claim.

7. When to sign a claim

Final funding claims must be signed in the Manage your education and skills funding service by 30 October 2024. You do not need to sign mid-year and year-end forecast claims.

 Who needs to sign a claim

An authorised person in your organisation must sign final funding claims. This can be the principal or another senior post holder who has the delegated authority.

They will need the Contract authoriser or Data returns and claims authoriser role in Manage your education and skills funding

8. Audit

The ILR data return and EAS are subject to ESFA’s audit and assurance regime to ensure the accuracy of ESFA funding claimed by a provider. We will monitor community learning and support funding through the ILR, EAS and claim submissions from the mid-year claim point onwards. Specifically, we will monitor the amount of funding you spend on community learning and support costs. We will also compare your costs to the volume of learners you have recorded and may request additional evidence if required.

All providers must ensure that appropriate audit evidence is retained to support the ILR, EAS and all other returns made to ESFA. Where overclaims are identified we may instigate recovery action through data adjustments, offsetting or by invoice.

If your auditor tells you that you must make an adjustment because of an audit, you must amend your ILR data or make the agreed adjustment using the EAS.

9. Reconciliation statements

For mid-year funding claims, we will not issue any reconciliation statements.

For the following funding streams, we will issue an indicative and final reconciliation statement:

• ESFA AEB – Adult Skills and Community Learning – grant-funded
• ESFA AEB Innovative provision
• ESFA AEB – Level 3 free courses for jobs offer for 24 years old and over – grant funded
• ESFA AEB – 19 to 24 Traineeships (grant-funded)
• Advanced Learner Loans Bursary (ALLB) – grant-funded

We will issue indicative and final reconciliation statements through the Manage your education and skills funding service after your submitted year-end forecast and signed final funding claims.

The indicative statement will give you an indication of the funding you may need to pay back to us, and the final statement will confirm the amount to be paid back or if an additional payment is due.

Where provision was grant-funded, we will process monitoring errors identified in your R14 ILR data submission as an adjustment to your final reconciliation statement. If we are not satisfied that provision identified in the post-16 monitoring reports dashboard is eligible, we may need to request further evidence demonstrating the learners’ eligibility before we can publish your statement.

If you must pay amounts back to us, we will schedule those repayments from December 2024.

If you have an issue with your reconciliation value, you must tell us by 31 December 2024. We will not consider any requests after this date. We will publish your reconciliation statement(s) by 29 November 2024.

10. Exceptional Learning Support (ELS) 

If you need to claim for learning support costs over £19,000, you must go through the ELS process at the beginning of the learner’s programme. You can submit estimated costs and final claims for exceptional learning support by completing the exceptional learning support cost form.

You must submit the ELS cost form for ESFA learners only, via Document Exchange on DfE Sign-in, ensuring that you select ‘Exceptional Learner Support’ as the document’s purpose. For full instructions, please refer to Section 1 of the exceptional learner support estimated cost form for 2023 to 2024. If you do not have access to DfE Sign-in, please speak to your organisation’s Super User in the first instance. Alternatively, contact us via the ESFA enquiry form.

Please contact your Mayoral Combined Authority or the Greater London Authority for support funding for learners funded through devolved AEB arrangements, as referenced in the adult education budget (AEB) funding rules 2023 to 2024.

For further information about ELS please refer to the relevant section of the ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB) funding rules 2023 to 2024