Ceri Fishlock

AEB/ASF Funding for Staff

Created

Now learning in the workplace is fundable again, does that mean we can fund our own staff?

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Steve Hewitt

Yes! ;)

Ceri Fishlock

Woo hoo!!! :)

Steve Hewitt

I was going to say "but not in work hours" but that's TOTALLY not there any more...

Ceri Fishlock

Hi Steve, do you think this will also apply to tailored learning?  Can we delivery CPD modules for our own staff under Tailored Learning?

Steve Hewitt

I mean, would you be willing to justify it to an auditor?

Ceri Fishlock

Good point!

Ryan Wiseman

Hi both,

We must have missed this update and have been leaving funded courses our staff do as Full Cost (but charge no fee) which suggests now we could claim some funding.

I've been trying to find something in the rules that confirms this change & have been struggling to locate. Would either of you be so kind to point out where this change is acknowledged in the guidance? 

Steve Hewitt

Hi Ryan

It's more the case that it doesn't say you can't (!!!), if you'll excuse the double negative. It used to explicitly say "no", and now it doesn't, so it must be fine.

Ruth Canham-James

I asked ESFA about this at the start of 23/24, and got this reply from the Policy Team:

Thank you for raising this, and please accept our apologies for not including this change to the rules in the what's new and summary of main changes sections of the AEB funding rules. This was an oversight and will be amended.

We can confirm that the new rule is correct and we have removed the barriers to funding learning in the learner's workplace. As we have explained in the rules, we will fund any regulated qualifications and/or learning aims at an employee's workplace as long as they are approved for ESFA funded AEB and are available on FALA.

I don't think they ever did did actively notify us of the change.

Ceri Fishlock

I did contact the ESFA helpdesk with this question:

Now 'learning in the workplace' is fundable again, does that mean we can fund our own staff and if so, will it need to be outside working hours?

and this was the response:

As we have lifted the restrictions regarding 'learning in the workplace' we no longer highlight this in our rules, so we would not dictate how this learning should take place.

It would be for Providers to decide.