Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 9 October 2024

Published 9 October 2024

Applies to England

1. Action: Submit your 16 to 19 tuition fund end of year spend for 2023 to 2024 by Friday 11 October 2024

You must submit a digital form to tell us your tuition fund spend, if your organisation received 16 to 19 tuition funding for the academic year 2023 to 2024. 

You must submit the form by 5pm on Friday 11 October 2024.   

Failure to submit a report will result in the full recovery of your tuition funding for the 2023 to 2024 academic year. 

Guidance on how to complete the digital form is available in how to complete the 16 to 19 tuition fund: 2023 to 2024 form.

2. Action: Submit your earnings adjustment statement by Thursday 17 October

The earnings adjustment statement (EAS) operates within a funding year alongside the individualised learner record (ILR) each month. For R14, you must submit your EAS by Thursday 17 October 2024. You need to submit all ILR and EAS data by the final R14 collection date so that we can calculate the correct amount to pay you for the year. 

If you are a grant-funded provider (‘paid on profile’ for the adult education budget or the advanced learner loans bursary), your EAS claims will be included as part of your funding claims.  

Ensure your excess learning support (and other eligible categories) are correctly claimed through EAS rather than exceptional adjustment field in the funding claim. We may reject any exceptional adjustments recorded in the funding claim that we have not authorised before you submitted your claim.

3. Action: Final funding claim for 2023 to 2024 window opens on Tuesday 22 October 2024

The final funding claim window will open at 9am on Tuesday 22 October 2024.   

Submit your final funding claim by 5pm on Friday 25 October 2024. 

The claim form will be available on submit learner data. The funding claims user guide is available to help you complete the form.   

If you have any exceptional adjustments to enter on the claim form, you will require prior agreement by ESFA. The claim should be supported by relevant evidence, which we may request. Any unauthorised exceptional adjustments will be disallowed.  

Your principal or delegated authority must sign your claim digitally on manage your education and skills funding by 5pm on Tuesday 29 October 2024.   

You will need to submit a claim if you receive funds through these grant-funded contracts:    

• ESFA-funded adult education budget (AEB) (adult skills, community learning, 19 to 24 traineeships and level 3 free courses for jobs offer)   

• advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB)   

The 16 to 19 delivery section of the funding claim will be included in the final funding claim for your principal or delegated authority to sign off.  

Providers with only a 16 to 19 allocation do not need to submit a funding claim at R14 but they do need to sign the R14 form digitally on manage your education and skills funding by 5pm on Tuesday 29 October 2024.   

You must not enter any adjustments relating to the earnings boost in your funding claim. We will do this after you have submitted the claim. Your indicative reconciliation statement (for grant-funded providers) will include the earnings boost that we have calculated.  

We will contact all providers with the details behind the calculations as we did last year. We will review claims to ensure they are substantiated by the data you have submitted in your ILR and present value for money.  

Once you have submitted your year-end funding claim on submit learner data, you will also be able to view it on manage your education and skills funding.

4. Action: 2025 to 2026 high needs place change process

The high needs place change process for 2025 to 2026 is now open. 

You have until Friday 8 November 2024 to request changes to your high needs place numbers in ESFA-funded schools and colleges for the 2025 to 2026 academic year. In most cases, the 2024 to 2025 academic year place numbers will be used if no change is requested. 

You can request changes using the MS Excel workbook sent via the GalaxKey system, which we have sent to local authorities via a GalaxKey email. 

We have published guidance on the high needs place change process and how to complete the place change workbook. 

You can also request changes to hospital education funding through the workbook. The hospital education funding guidance explains the criteria for this. 

We have published the spring 2024 census data for high needs pupil numbers in special academies and free schools, and the place numbers for the 2023 to 2024 and the 2024 to 2025 academic years.  

We issued R06 data to local authorities, with the import/export adjustment for the 2024 to 2025 financial year, in June 2024. You can use this to inform local discussions about commissioning arrangements for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.

5. Information: Early years funding data collection 2024 to 2025: 2-year-old disadvantaged children and children with special educational needs and disabilities

We recently informed local authorities that we intend to collect information about the number of children taking up the 2-year-old disadvantaged 15-hour entitlement to early education and childcare. We also intend to collect information on the number of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) accessing all the government-funded entitlements for age 2 and under for the 2024 autumn term. 

To minimise burdens for local authorities, this additional data will be collected through the autumn term headcount form. Local authorities will still only need to submit 1 form.  The guidance for this additional data is now available.  

If you have any questions regarding the 15-hour entitlement for 2-year-olds, email [email protected].  SEND queries should be emailed to [email protected].

6. Information: Early years budget grant allocations for September 2024 to March 2025

We are providing £34 million in additional funding to local authorities in 2024 to 2025 to support early years providers with their costs, following the recent teacher pay award. We will distribute additional funding through a new grant, the early years budget grant (EYBG), in 2024 to 2025 (covering September 2024 to March 2025).  

We have now published local authorities’ EYBG allocations, which they will receive as a single payment on Friday 29 November 2024.  More information on the EYBG, including the methodology and conditions of grant, is available.

7. Information: Schools funding arrangements 2025 to 2026

The publication of the notional schools and high needs national funding formula (NFF) allocations for 2025 to 2026 has been delayed due to the timing of the general election.  

In advance of the Department for Education (DfE) confirming the NFF factor values and NFF allocations for 2025 to 2026, ESFA has published a summary policy note to help you with your planning.  

This sets out the structure of the schools NFF for 2025 to 2026. There will be no substantial changes to the NFF for 2025 to 2026.   

We aim to publish notional NFF allocations and all supporting documents for 2025 to 2026 as soon as possible following the budget announcement on Wednesday 30 October 2024. The dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations will then be published in December 2024. We have written separately to local authority contacts to set out further details.

8. Information: 2024 to 2025 individualised learner record funding reports guidance

We have published guidance for ILR funding reports in the 2024 to 2025 funding year.  

We have made these key changes in this year’s version:  

• added the 16 to 19 funding calculation full output report which provides easy access to all the funding variables that are output by the 16 to 19 funding calculation 
• added 2 new reports for devolved skills bootcamps; a funding summary and an occupancy report 
• removed all European Social Fund (ESF) reports, the destination and progression report, the traineeship section and funding lines and the funding lines for procurement from August 2021 
• updated the funding line types for adult education budget (AEB) provision following the change to adult skills fund (ASF) and updated the equivalent devolved authority funding lines