Key information
Publication type: General
Publication date:
Contents
Introduction
This guidance note sets out information about the final return of ILR data and the Final Funding Claim return for Adult Education Budget (AEB) Grant funded provision in 2020-21.
1. 2020-21 R14 Individual Learner Record (ILR) return and final claims
1.1 Timetable
In line with the national timetable for returns, the closure of the 2020 to 2021 Individual Learner Record (ILR) is 21 October 2021. This is the final return for ILR data for GLA funded provision in 2020-21.
GLA AEB providers are also required to submit final funding claim returns for the 2020 to 2021 funding year, to the following deadlines:
1.2 Where to complete and submit a claim
You must complete and submit your funding claim in the GLA Open Project System (OPS). The Final Claims should be returned by 5 November 2021 via the GLA Open Project System (OPS) platform.
The system will open for returns from 28 October and will close on 5 November.
1.3 Completing the claim
Guidance about the completion of Final Claims in OPS will be sent to each provider. Your AEB funding claim will show relevant sections for you to complete from the following:
- GLA AEB Adult Skills
- GLA National Skills Fund
- GLA AEB Innovation Fund
- GLA AEB Strand 1 COVID 19 Response Fund
- GLA AEB COVID 19 Skills Recovery (additional AEB for London Recovery)
- GLA Community Learning, Learning and Learner Support.
In your final funding claim, you only need to agree the figures for GLA AEB Adult Skills programme and learning support funding, as we will use your ILR and EAS to pull through your actual delivery figures.
You will need to enter figures from your own records for all non-formula funded deliverable lines, for example, community learning, or other GLA-specific funds. Please note you will be required to keep evidence for claiming this and we may request this evidence to substantiate your claim.
As set out in the Funding Rules, you must not claim more than 5% of your total Learner Support claim as administration expenditure.
1.4 Community Learning
For GLA non-formula funded community learning, your claim should include your fixed costs for maintaining your delivery infrastructure during the COVID-19 period where these costs cannot be attributed to the delivery to specific learners. This may include costs for unfurloughed staff and costs you were obliged to pay to subcontractors.
You must maintain the evidence to support this claim for audit. Any over delivery for Community Learning against your Community Learning allocation will be included within your final delivery percentage.
1.5 Signing the claim
An authorised person in your organisation must sign final funding claims. This can be the principal or another senior post holder who has the delegated authority.
The claim is signed by the authorised person submitting the project with Final Funding Claim via GLA OPS. The deadline for all claims is 5 November.
Where you have submitted a business case for performance below 90%, the GLA will use the information provided in your final claim to make any funding adjustments. In signing the Final Claim, you are reconfirming the costs information provided in your business case are correct.
Where you have requested to carryover COVID-19 Skills Recovery (Additional AEB for London Recovery) funding, we will take this request into account in the final reconciliation.
2. Audit
Under the national arrangements with the ESFA, audit firms have been appointed to complete checks that funding claims are accurate.
If your claim is selected for audit, you will have been notified and audit work will have been completed prior to the final claim.
If your auditor tells you that you must make an adjustment to your funding claim as a result of an audit, we expect this adjustment to be reflected in your final return.
3. Reconciliation statements
We will issue a final reconciliation statement after you have submitted and signed your final funding claim. The final statement will include adjustments for any errors identified through the funding rules monitoring (FRM) reports.
For more information on these reports and the FRM process, please refer to Financial assurance: monitoring the funding rules for post-16 funding for 2020 to 2021. We will write to you confirming any recoveries we are making from the FRM process.
If you have to pay amounts back to us, we will schedule those repayments from December 2021 in discussion with you.
If you have an issue with your reconciliation value, you must tell us by 31 December 2021.
4. Exceptional Learning Support (ELS)
If you need to claim for learning support costs over £19,000 then you will need to have gone through the ELS process at the beginning of the learner’s programme.
Please contact your Provider Manager where you need to claim ELS. The deadline for submitting a claim is 29 October 2021.
5. Recording GLA funded AEB provision in the final ILR return (R14) for 2020-21
The R14 ILR data return for 2020-21 is a hard close, after which no further corrections can be made to submitted data. Your final ILR and other returns should be an accurate record of all eligible provision for which you are claiming funding in 2020/21.
Please ensure that 2020-21 data is correctly coded using the Devolved Area Monitoring and Learning Delivery Monitoring codes published in the guidance document, Technical Guidance Note 2020/21.
The Funding Line Type of learning delivery records in the R14 ILR must reflect Grant-funded delivery. Codes DAM 002 for AEB Procured, and DAM 004 for Flexible Allocation, apply only to learning delivery under a procured contract and must not be used for Grant-funded delivery.
ILR data should additionally be cleansed using the provider data self-assessment toolkit (PDSAT) and Funding Rules Monitoring reports, to ensure that funding is only claimed for eligible delivery.
Document control
Issue date: 11 October 2021
Amendment made from previous version: N/A
Approved by: N/A
Review date: 30 September 2022
Senior owner: Chris Wright, Senior Manager, Programme Delivery
Document owner: Lubomira Chirmiciu, Skills Funding Policy Manager, Funding Policy and Systems
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