An aim has ended but no outcome has been recorded
This is wrong and needs correcting. It is not a judgement call.
In plain English
The aim has an actual end date, so the system knows it finished, but nothing records whether the learner achieved it. The achievement rate calculation treats an aim with no achievement recorded as a non-achievement.
Why it matters
This is the quietest and most damaging data-quality problem in further education. It produces no validation error, costs no money immediately, and permanently depresses the published achievement rate. Once the year closes it cannot be corrected.
Funding
For streams with a completion element, such as apprenticeships, a missing completion record withholds the completion payment. For formula-funded provision the funding effect is usually indirect, through retention and achievement measures.
Performance
Direct and permanent. An aim with no achievement recorded counts as a non-achievement in the qualification achievement rate for that year and cannot be corrected once the year closes.
Audit
A pattern of missing outcomes is treated as a data-quality control weakness and invites wider testing of the return.
Most likely causes
Ranked, because in practice a few causes explain most cases.
- commonResults were known to teaching staff but never passed to the team that records themParticularly common for results that arrive late in the summer, after staff have left for the holidays.
- commonResults were received but entered as a batch that was never completedCheck for a partially processed results file before assuming the results never arrived.
- occasionalThe awarding organisation result had not arrived by the time the year closedLegitimate, but it needs managing rather than accepting: chase the result and record it before the final return, not after.
- occasionalThe aim ended in withdrawal, so no achievement was possibleWhere the learner withdrew, the completion status carries that. Confirm the record is consistent rather than simply empty.
Check these first
- Check whether the aim ended in completion or in withdrawal, because they need different records.
- Check whether the awarding organisation result has actually been received.
- Check whether the whole cohort is missing outcomes, which points at a results-processing gap rather than individual omissions.
- Check how close the year end is, because this becomes uncorrectable at the final return.
OutcomeOutcome dateAchievement dateCompletion status
How to investigate
- Produce the list of ended aims with no outcome and sort it by curriculum area and awarding organisation.
- For each group, establish whether the result exists and simply has not been recorded, or has genuinely not been received.
- Where the result has not been received, chase it directly and set a date, because the year end is a hard deadline.
- Model the effect on the achievement rate so the scale of the issue is understood by people who can resource the fix.
In your system
These steps are system-neutral: they describe what has to be true in the data, which is the same whatever software your college runs. We do not publish supplier screen paths we have not verified, because menu locations differ by version and by local configuration, and a confidently wrong instruction is worse than none.
System-neutral
- Run the report of aims with an actual end date and no outcome recorded.
- Group them by curriculum area and by awarding organisation to find the pattern.
- Obtain the results for each group from the awarding organisation or the curriculum area.
- Record the outcome and outcome date against each aim in the student record system.
- Regenerate and revalidate the ILR before the next return.
Building your own map of where each of these lives in your system is the most useful induction document an MIS team can have. How to build one.
How to fix it
- Record the outcome and the outcome date in the student record system.
- Where the aim ended in withdrawal, confirm the completion status and withdrawal reason are correct rather than adding an outcome.
- Regenerate the ILR and confirm the aims no longer appear on the report.
- Do this before the final return of the year. After it, the record cannot be changed.
Stop this happening again
Fixing the record clears this case. A control is what stops the next one, so each of these names what to do, who owns it and how often.
A monthly report of aims that have ended with no outcome, worked to zero, starting well before year end.
An agreed results-handover process with each curriculum area, with a named person and a deadline per results window.
A year-end results reconciliation against awarding organisation certification data, completed before the final return.
The rules behind this
Completion status records whether a learner is continuing, has completed, has withdrawn or has temporarily withdrawn. Outcome records what the learner achieved. They answer different questions and both are needed.
Qualification achievement rates are calculated from submitted ILR data. Data-quality problems in the return become published performance problems.
Sources
These are the official documents this page rests on. Where a figure, a deadline or an exact rule matters, the document is the authority and this page is the explanation.
Content reused from GOV.UK is Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence. FEFunding is not endorsed by the Department for Education.