Darren Hands

Completion Holdback

Created

None

I'm hoping someone may be able to offer some suggestions here.

We have an apprentice who passed their EPA last month and was processed in our ILR return.  However, it than transpired the ESFA have put them down as a Completion Holdback so it wasn't paid.  

They started in Feb 2019 at the age of 18 years and 11 months with a Non-Levy employer, (the only apprentice this employer has had with us and to our knowledge the only one they have had).  8 months later they moved to a different employer who is also a Non-Levy employer.  This employer has had 9 apprentices over the years with us but in the academic/funding year they changed employer, including this apprentice, they only took on 3.  With both employers being Non-Levy and at the original start date, the learner being 18, no co-investment payment was collected.  

On the Co-Investment report at the period end, there is an amount showing against this learner as due in previous and this funding year - with the employer reference being the one they moved to.

The ESFA service desk have said they "imagine the employer's fund were exhausted at some point and has therefore triggered co-investment.  Not related to learners age or change of employer".

Does anyone have any thoughts on what the issue could be?  Except for the completion side of things, this was all processed on the ILR before I joined the company here and I am at a loss as to what it could be.

If it makes a difference, - we use the PICS system for our data management.

TiA

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Steve Hewitt

Hi Darren

What you need to do is go on to SLD and download *last year's* R14 Period End Reports and have a root through the Contributions report to work out when and what is apparently due for this learner.

This is clearly a BAD ANSWER from the Service Desk though as a non-levy employer cannot exhaust their funds.

More likely to be a missing SEM flag at some point? The new employer is small, right?

Darren Hands

Thanks Steve - I will give that a look.

The new employer is indeed a SEM - so I think that may be my first port of call

Darren Hands

Looks like although the Employer SEM code was set to "Small", the Employer Band was set as "Medium" when the new employer was set up.

Fingers crossed, correcting that will sort this out.

Thanks again Steve for your suggestion regarding the SEM flag

Steve Hewitt

If they didn't have the SEM flag in R14 last year, you might be stuffed (or,  at least, have to collect the money from the employer). AS/ESFA being super annoying about this at the moment...

Ruth Canham-James

Yes, someone had this recently, and there's no way to get the completion element if you accidentally didn't record as SEM in a closed year, and don't then claim the contribution. It's a heavy penalty for an admin error. You shouldn't incur more co-investment requirements for this year, but you can't solve previous years other than collecting the amount required.

I do think this would all be much easier if the co-investment report were clearer (ESFA have tried, it's a tricky one). It's so important to check that one really carefully for unexpected required co-investment. It takes some doing though, we only do it quarterly.

That answer from the service desk is absurd if you told them both employers were non-levy.