16 to 19 funding: information for 2023 to 2024
Details for 16 to 19 funded institutions on how funding will work in academic year 2023 to 2024
Applies to England
Purpose and latest updates
This guide shows the changes we are making for 16 to 19 funding for the academic year 2023 to 2024 and provides you with the latest updates.
Changes for 2023 to 2024
July 2023 changes
On 13 July 2023 we announced a further investment of £185 million in 2023 to 2024 financial year and £285 million in 2024 to 2025 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education sector.
This funding will help colleges and other 16 to 19 providers to address key priorities as they see fit, including tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value technical, vocational, and academic provision which are of critical importance to our economic growth and prosperity.
We have increased the national funding rate for students aged 16 and 17 and students aged 18 and over with high needs in band 5, by a further £111 per student, to £4,753, and other funding bands will increase proportionately. This is a 4.6% increase compared to academic year 2022 to 2023. We have also increased all programme cost weightings.
Additionally, we have increased the disadvantage block 2 (DB2) and care leavers rates, investing a further £20 million in 2023 to 2024 financial year.
We will update our supporting documents and issue revised statements in September 2023 so institutions can see their revised funding allocations for academic year 2023 to 2024.
We have also changed the advanced maths premium allocations and the T Level funding where institutions have been impacted by deferred wave 4 T Levels.
The rates and policies shown on this page now include all the increases and amendments agreed.
February 2023
On 9 February 2023, we announced a 10 per cent increase to the national funding rates for T Levels (bands 6 to 9) specifically for academic year 2023 to 2024. This is to recognise the extra cost for providers transitioning from study programmes to T Levels, and to support providers with growing their T Level offer. All national funding rates for academic year 2024 to 2025 are still to be confirmed.
January 2023
On 27 October 2021, the Chancellor announced a three-year spending review outcome for 16 to 19 education, making available an extra £1.6 billion in 2024 to 2025 financial year compared with 2021 to 2022. This is in addition to the £291m for 16 to 19 education in 2021 to 2022 and the £400m that the government provided in 2020 to 2021.
National Funding Rate for 2023 to 2024
We have increased the national funding rate for students aged 16 and 17 and students aged 18 and over with high needs in band 5 again to £4,753, and we will continue to fund an extra 40 hours per student. This is built into the increases in each of the funding bands, which have also increased proportionately.
We published updated guidance to support institutions to understand requirements for additional hours for academic year on 27 February 2023.
National funding rate for students funded via the 16 to 19 funding formula
Table 1
| Band (study programmes excluding T levels) | Annual planned hours | Students | National funding rate per student |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 580+ hours | 16- and 17-year-olds and students aged 18 and over with high needs | £4,753 |
| 4a | 485+ hours | students aged 18 and over who are not high needs | £3,932 |
| 4b | 485 to 579 hours | 16- and 17-year-olds and students aged 18 and over with high needs | £3,932 |
| 3 | 385 to 484 hours | all students | £3,198 |
| 2 | 300 to 384 hours | all students | £2,528 |
| 1 | up to 299 hours | all students | £4,753 proportion of band 5 |
National funding rates for T Levels
Table 2
| Band (T levels) | Minimum planned hours for the programme 2 years | Average planned hours for the programme 2 years | National funding rate per student, per programme 2 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1730 hours | 1830 hours | £15,046 |
| 8 | 1580 hours | 1680 hours | £13,794 |
| 7 | 1380 hours | 1530 hours | £12,544 |
| 6 | 1180 hours | 1330 hours | £10,876 |
The national funding rates per student for 1 year of the T Level programme used for academic year 2023 to 2024 is half the amounts shown in table 2. The rates in table 2 above show the 2 year funding rate including the 10% uplift for 2023 to 2024. However, all national funding rates for academic year 2024 to 2025 are still to be confirmed.
We recognise the resource that institutions put into preparing to deliver some T Levels that are now deferred, including engaging with employers to secure industry placements. Therefore, whilst we will remove the funding related to the deferred wave 4 T Levels, we are allowing institutions that have not withdrawn from delivery to retain the industry placement element of their funding for academic year 2023 to 2024, to support continued engagement with employers and delivery of industry placement style experiences.
Specific formula elements
Disadvantage block – July 2023 change
For academic year 2023 to 2024 funding allocations, we will adjust the rate for disadvantage block 2 (which reflects the additional cost of teaching and supporting students who have low prior attainment) to take account of the change to GCSE results in 2020 and 2021. We will also adjust the care leavers rate.
We will increase the disadvantage block 1 rate to:
- £559 for students who are in care or who have recently left care
We will increase the disadvantage block 2 rate to:
- £559 for bands 4 and 5 students
- £341 for bands 2 and 3 students
- £758 for T Level students
High value courses premium
We will continue to fund high value courses premium (HVCP) in academic year 2023 to 2024 at £600, to further encourage courses with higher wage returns and support the Industrial Strategy. We have published the list of qualifying A level subjects and sector subject areas that we use to calculate HVCP for 2023 to 2024 allocations.
Programme cost weightings
We made 2 sets of increases to 16 to 19 programme cost weightings (PCWs) for the academic year 2023 to 2024 and we have set them out in this section, clearly showing when we made them.
January 2023 change
We have made several changes to PCWs following the findings of the recent DfE survey report into high cost provision. These include increases to the PCW for the engineering and manufacturing, construction and digital subject areas to help institutions with the additional costs of recruiting and retaining teachers in these subject areas.
We have also changed PCWs for science and land-based study areas, A level based study programmes and the Prince’s Trust Team Programme.
July 2023 change
On 21 July, we announced more increases to all PCWs. This funding will help colleges and other providers to address key priorities as they see fit, including tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value technical, vocational, and academic provision which are of critical importance to our economic growth and prosperity.
Advanced maths premium
We will continue to pay the advanced maths premium in academic year 2023 to 2024 at a rate of £600. We updated the baseline we used to calculate the premium to use advanced maths enrolments recorded between academic year 2019 to 2020 and academic year 2020 to 2021.
By updating the baseline, some advanced maths premium allocations will change significantly. In April 2023, we contacted institutions affected by this change and confirmed we will provide one year of temporary funding to institutions that would otherwise lose £20,000 or more in advanced maths premium funding in academic year 2023 to 2024 compared with 2022 to 2023.
16 to 19 tuition fund
As confirmed on 22 February 2022 in our ESFA update, the 16 to 19 tuition fund continues to be available for eligible institutions in academic year 2023 to 2024.
We published guidance and issued indicative allocations to eligible institutions in June 2023.
Teachers’ pension scheme employer contribution grant
We can confirm we will fund the teachers’ pension employer contribution grant for further education providers for the full academic year 2023 to 2024. We included details for this grant in 16 to 19 allocations issued in February and March 2023.
Last updated 21 July 2023 + show all updates
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We have updated this page to show all the changes for 2023 to 2024 due to the extra funding announced in July. You can see all the changes in our what's new section.
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We have added the section headed 16 to 19 tuition fund continues to be available in academic year 2023 to 2024.
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We have updated Changes for 2023 to 2024 and Table 2 to reflect a 10 per cent increase to the national funding rates for T Levels (bands 6 to 9) specifically for academic year 2023 to 2024.
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First published.