Paul Taylor commented, 20 September 2022 14:35

Hi Laura In addition to the advice above it's worth spending some time going through the detail of the reports and understanding what income could come back in during the R14 and what steps you need to take to retrieve this income.  Clawback is usually due to the following factors; rule violations, Apps Service mismatches, or late processed leavers. You will need to find out for each of your learners why the clawback has occurred and then what can be done to fix this for each learner. It's not unusual to have a large number of rule violations at this time of the year as you are inputting data across two ILR years. Make sure you have a rule violation cleansing process that deal with each year and look for patterns or errors in your R02 22/23 and R14 21/22 submission as you may be able to pinpoint this to particular delivery areas or admin staff. Apps mismatches can be more difficult to fix as they involve some employer input. If you have payback then it could be that you have an employer or employers that have incorrectly stopped payment on the apps service earlier than the ILR end date. This will take some unpicking with your delivery staff and the employer but if it is an error the employer can correct this via the Apps Service. If it is late processed leavers that have generated payback (processed in September but with end dates back to May for example), then there may be little you can do abut this other than reporting this into your management teams and highlight where this occurs within your business and the financial impact. If you need help with this then your MIS may provide some data support services that you could call on or there will be colleagues in the sector that provide this service which may be worth paying for for given the scale of the income that may be at risk. You should develop a plan for managing your R14 process aimed at making sure you data is as clean as possible, maybe limiting access to the MIS post R02, and making regular submissions (daily if possible) through the R14 period to check rule violations, mismatches, and the income value. 

1. R13 huge clawbacks

Hi Laura In addition to the advice above it's worth spending some time going through the detail of the reports and understanding what income could come back in during the R14 and what steps you nee...

Paul Taylor commented, 17 September 2025 08:26

Hi Chris  I expect that Apprenticeships will come under DWP regardless of age. What should happen here is that all functions and processes are lifted out of the DfE and dropped into the DWP with the wiring as far as the sector is concerned relatively well hidden so we should see little change. This has happened in the past under different Governments and will not doubt happen again in the future. It would be useful for the Government to publish reasoning behind the move, and to provide more information in order to answer your question, but they may come in time. What would be better would be for them to tell us their plans on the Skills and Growth levy which is far too slow and not helping the sector but that is a different story. Thanks Paul 

1. DWP or DfE apprenticeships for under 19?

Hi Chris  I expect that Apprenticeships will come under DWP regardless of age. What should happen here is that all functions and processes are lifted out of the DfE and dropped into the DWP with th...

Paul Taylor commented, 07 January 2025 13:59

I have received another response from the Agency today suggesting that they will not be switching this from an error to a warning. I'm trying to substantiate if this is their final response and have asked for a call with someone who can clarify the approach, but for now we are in the process of updating Dam codes for affected learners to get most of these cleared today. I notice that the Agency have added a pinned response today to this forum pointing to the September published guidance on how to resolve errors relating to this and other similar violations. This is not going to prevent several million pounds of income being missing from funding reports this month. I'm going to follow up the approach to this issue with whomever I can find to speak to in the ESFA, but again suggest that others do the same with combined authority contacts who will not see the implications of this until funding reports are returned to them later this week. 

1. Rule violation LearnDelFamType_124

I have received another response from the Agency today suggesting that they will not be switching this from an error to a warning. I'm trying to substantiate if this is their final response and hav...

Paul Taylor commented, 06 January 2025 13:04

Re the points above from Dave and Simon on raising awareness of the issue and impact on the providers with the Agency I would encourage all on this thread affected to raise this point with the service desk and make this stick out in their stats.  I've also fed back to the Agency the very specific impact of this particular issue, as well as a more general point on the impact of their approach to this issue on providers. There is data to suggest that most providers will send their ILR submissions on the 3rd working day and not the 4th so if the fix is to be implemented at month end then will this be today or tomorrow? I wanted to know our income position for December 3 weeks ago and every week since. We don't just cross our fingers and wait until month-end. I'm sure there is a genuine technical issue that they are trying to resolve here but it is important that we communicate the impact to them. For those with ASF devolved funding I would also suggest communicating this issue to your combined authority contacts.  

1. Rule violation LearnDelFamType_124

Re the points above from Dave and Simon on raising awareness of the issue and impact on the providers with the Agency I would encourage all on this thread affected to raise this point with the serv...

Paul Taylor commented, 18 March 2024 11:00

I would raise this with your contract manager to seek clarification. Due to the lagged funding ethos, Study Programme contracting is not flexible to support demand led growth in the way that other commissioning can.  They 'may' support growth but it is likely that they will not confirm this until R10 or more likely post-R14 which is unlikely to give you the assurances you want. 

1. Over performance query

I would raise this with your contract manager to seek clarification. Due to the lagged funding ethos, Study Programme contracting is not flexible to support demand led growth in the way that other ...

Paul Taylor commented, 19 September 2023 13:01

Hi Joe Check the detail in Overdue_Continuing_Aim and the Overdue_Planned_Break columns as these most likely explain why you have learners that appear in 22/23 with pre-22/23 dates. If either of those columns have a 1 in for the learners concerned then it could be that you have updated ILR data (end dates or completion status / outcome) for a prior year after the year end submission for that year. Thanks Paul

1. QAR Data

Hi Joe Check the detail in Overdue_Continuing_Aim and the Overdue_Planned_Break columns as these most likely explain why you have learners that appear in 22/23 with pre-22/23 dates. If either of th...

Paul Taylor commented, 13 January 2023 13:09

Hi - yes the R14 data should be in the Power BI dashboard on VYE but the download are not yet there which is unhelpful for the checking process

1. QAR dashboards - provisional 2021 to 2022 data

Hi - yes the R14 data should be in the Power BI dashboard on VYE but the download are not yet there which is unhelpful for the checking process