ALS funding

You only receive the £150 if the LSF record gets to the end of that month, and the LSF Date To can't be after the enrolment Actual End Date. If they finish mid month and you supported them in that month, I think you can claim that £150 in the Earnings Adjustment Statement. It's very unclear though, and I can't find anywhere that explicitly states that. There's this in the Apps Technical Funding Guide:

If you deliver part of an apprenticeship in less than one calendar month due to breaks in learning, and we do not generate the £150 rate from the ILR data, you may claim the value using the ‘Excess Learning Support’ column in the EAS.

I find this a really weird decision, to not pay us unless the LSF record includes the end date of the month in which we supported them. It either creates a lot of work on the EAS, or we just lose funding because of a peculiarity of the rules. Also, if we know we've actually spent less than £150 a month on the months in which we did get paid, should we not be claiming in the EAS? That's not how it would work if the AED date happened to be on 31st May rather than the 30th May, we'd just get the £150 for May.

You can't claim the £150 as EAS, you could only claim the *excess* as EAS. So, eg, learner been flagged two month ends and withdraws in month three will generate £300. If your total cost for supporting (including the SEN review in the last month) is only £350 then you can only claim £50 as EAS... 

Steve Hewitt So nobody can ever get the £150 in the final month of support, which includes all the expensive exam support and when you supported then all month?! We haven't considered that for a long time for various reasons, but we're trying to get better at claiming all the Learning Support we're due this year. If the total cost does end up more than the £150 a month, we'll claim the excess. Like in my example above, if the AED date happened to be on 31st May rather than the 30th May, we'd get the £150 for May, but if their classmate finished a day earlier, we'd lose out on the £150 for them. You said somewhere else, there's no concept of underspend with LSF, so if we only spent £100 a month, we get to keep the difference. Expect we're not allowed that extra if a student finishes near the end of a month, but not quite on the last day. I guess it balances out in the end.

What if you only provide support in the last month? Just tough? EAS guidance says:

60. When you can claim enough learning support funding through the ILR, you should not use the EAS. We expect you to use the EAS only when there is no alternative method to claim the funding.

That's a case of there being no alternative method to claim funding.

Yes, if there's only support that doesn't cross a month end then you just claim *actuals* via EAS (this used to be super clear in the rules?).

I think the problem here is you're looking at it month by month rather than the total amount the support costs to deliver vs total amount claimed?

So, anyone on a full year course, Sept-June, you'd get £1,350 for and then you compare that to your total spend for the year and if it's over £1,350 you bung an EAS claim in for the rest in their last month.