An apprentice is on the ILR but is not generating any payments
This has been flagged because it is worth checking. It may be entirely correct. Investigate before assuming anything is wrong.
In plain English
The apprentice is not funding: they exist on the ILR and look correct, but no earnings are being generated for them. For apprenticeships starting from 1 August 2026 the provider enters the details once, on the ILR, and no payment is made until the employer approves them in their apprenticeship service account. For apprenticeships that started earlier, the ILR and the apprenticeship service must still match, so a difference between them stops payment.
Why it matters
The training is being delivered and not funded. Left unresolved, the gap grows every month, and some causes become harder to correct the longer they run.
Funding
No earnings are generated while the mismatch persists. Depending on the cause, some of the lost period may not be recoverable once corrected.
Performance
The apprentice still counts for achievement purposes, so an unfunded apprentice can still damage the achievement rate if the underlying delivery also suffers.
Audit
Records that do not reconcile between the ILR and the service are a standard test, in both directions.
Most likely causes
Ranked, because in practice a few causes explain most cases.
- commonThe employer has not yet approved the apprentice's details in the apprenticeship servicePayments are withheld until the employer reviews and approves the details the provider sent through the ILR (apprenticeship funding rules 2026 to 2027, paragraph 195).
- commonA change on the ILR is waiting for the employer's approvalA price change needs the employer's approval only when the total price goes up (paragraph 211.3). For new starts the rule that the price on the ILR and in the service must be identical has been removed.
- commonFor an apprentice who started before 1 August 2026, a detail differs between the ILR and the apprenticeship serviceEarlier starts keep their original rules: the ULN, start date, standard and price must match, or payments are withheld (apprenticeship funding rules 2025 to 2026, paragraphs 169 and 179.3).
- occasionalThe employer has insufficient funds and the arrangement has not been set up for co-investmentCheck the funding route as well as the record itself.
- occasionalThe apprenticeship financial record is missing or incomplete on the ILRWithout the price recorded, there is nothing to calculate earnings from.
- occasionalThe apprentice is a very recent start and the first monthly payment has not been generated yetCheck the timing before treating it as an error. Payments are not held back during the 42-day qualifying period, but they are recovered if the apprentice leaves before it ends (paragraphs 221 to 223).
Check these first
- Check the start date: from 1 August 2026, check the employer has approved the details; before then, compare the ULN, start date, standard and price between the ILR and the service.
- Check whether the employer has approved the apprentice's details in the apprenticeship service.
- Check whether a recent change to the ILR, such as a price increase, is waiting for the employer's approval.
- Check the apprenticeship financial record is present and complete on the ILR.
- Check whether the employer is levy paying or co-investing, and that the arrangement matches.
ULNLearning start dateStandard codeApprenticeship financial recordFunding modelEmployer identifier
How to investigate
- Start with approval: has the employer reviewed and approved the details sent through the ILR? Then check whether anything has changed since they approved it.
- Use the signed agreement with the employer to settle any disagreement about the details.
- Check whether other apprentices with the same employer have the same problem, which points at the employer account rather than the record.
- Quantify the unfunded delivery so the urgency is visible.
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
- Open the apprentice's record in the student record system and note the ULN, start date, standard and negotiated price.
- Ask the employer to check the apprentice in their apprenticeship service account and approve the details, or tell you what is wrong.
- Where the details are wrong, establish what is correct from the signed agreement with the employer rather than assuming.
- Make any correction in the student record system, because the ILR is now where the details are entered.
- Regenerate the ILR and check the next funding report.
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
- Where the ILR is wrong, correct it in the student record system and regenerate, then ask the employer to approve the corrected details.
- Withheld payments are paid once the data is approved, but only if this happens within the same funding year, by the final ILR return (paragraph 195.1). Allow time for the employer to act.
- Confirm earnings appear in the following period's funding report rather than assuming the fix worked.
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 list of apprentices whose details the employer has not yet approved, chased to zero.
Agreement at the point of start on who in the employer's organisation approves records in the apprenticeship service, and how quickly.
A single owner for the employer relationship who is accountable for the account being set up correctly.
The rules behind this
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.