Functional Skills funding | Guided Learning hours

1. No, there are no max or min hours to deliver, it will be based on learner need. Regardless, you still get £471.

2. Registers, usually, or some other record to show teaching took place.

3. I don't know where this 42 day idea has come from (this isn't the first time I've seen it recently). All it's there for is to determine whether early withdrawals count in the QAR or not. As such, there's no restriction on when you start delivering FS.

That's great - many thanks.

Hi, can we have help with a few more FS queries please:

1. Re point 179  - Does this mean that if we delivered FS over a 3 months duration, the £471 payment would be divided by 3, therefore we’d receive £157 each month?

2.    If so, will the FS payment be received at the same time that we receive the levy funding payments?

3.    If a learner withdraws from the programme before 42 days, does the training provider retain the FS funding paid given that some FS will have been delivered?

4.    If a learner withdraws from the programme after 42 days, does the training provider retain the FS funding paid given that some FS will have been delivered? 

5.    Re point 181 - Where the learner has gone past their planned end date, in what instances would it not be applicable for FS earnings to be paid? 

6.    Where the learner completes the apprenticeship before their planned end date and has achieved their FS, will any FS earnings need to be paid back?

Thanks, 

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No, it all gets clawed back.

4. Yes-ish, same as the on programme payments for the apprenticeship itself. If they withdraw before the last day of a month, you don't get paid for that month, even if it was the penultimate day. If they left in mid-March, but you didn't report until May, you will get March and April clawed back, but you keep funding earned before that.

5. If the Planned End Date of your FS was earlier than the Actual End Date of the apprenticeship as a whole, then you'd already have had all your FS funding by the time they completed the programme, so it wouldn't be applicable.

6. If the learner achieved the FS, you would never pay back any funding. If they complete the FS early, you get all remaining funding in a lump sum "balancing payment" at the end.

Just a tip for this forum, generally the only people who will have seen you second question, would be anyone who subscribed to this post already. Most users only get notified of brand new posts, or replies to their own posts. I happened to subscribe to this one as I was interested in the answers, so I got notified about your new questions. I always subscribe to posts I reply to, but I suspect not everyone does. Not many people will check through old posts to look for new replies. If you type @ then someone's username (don't add a space, it'll pop up with options as you start typing), they get notified. If you have more questions, it's worth creating a whole new post or, if it's directly related to a previous answer someone gave, use the @ and their name so they get notified and will hopefully reply :) That person may not have time to reply though (we're all just providers who do this in our own time to be helpful, ESFA don't respond on here often), so usually best to create a new post.

Ruth Canham-James

Many thanks for your helpful responses and useful forum tips - we'll apply them in the future!

Sooo....if a learner started a FS 17/01/23 with a planned end date of 17/05/23 would the funding be split into 5 x instalments (amount of months or part months that he was on the aim) or 4 x instalments (the amount of census dates he will have passed)? Ruth Canham-James

Many thanks

Ben

Not meaning to step on Ruth's toes.. but 4:

44. We spread these instalments equally over the number of planned months for the apprenticeship programme aim, based on whether the apprentice is in learning on each census date (the last calendar day of every month). The planned number of months is calculated from the ‘Learning start date’ and the ‘Learning planned end date’ in the ILR.

47. We calculate funding for English and maths qualifications up to level 2 separately from the apprenticeship programme aim. We will split the rate into equal monthly instalments using census dates, and there is no completion amount.

...so in my example, as the learner will have finished and is not planned to be on programme for the census date in May, does that mean 4 x instalments? (for the Jan/Feb/March/April census dates?) I am having real brain fog on this one...

Ben Cowdery yes, the £471 should be split into 4 monthly instalments of £117.75

Ben Cowdery Like Ben James says, 4. Just count the number of last days of the month that are included in that period. In your case, 31 Jan, 28 Feb, 31 Mar, 30 Apr. The last day of the month thing is really important. If that PED was 30 May, you'd still divide into 4. If it were 31 May, you'd divide into 5.

It's also why it's really important to get teams to give you realistic PED. Our staff used to love to give over-long dates "just in case" (of what, I'm not sure). The downside to that is when they withdraw after you've delivered half the content, but they're only a quarter of the way through the planned duration, you lose money. Also why Actual End Dates need to be super accurate if close to a month end.