Changes to actual end date or planned end date after R14 of previous year

This report lists learning aims where an end date has changed since last year's final return. Once a funding year has closed, the dates in it are fixed. If something needs to change, DfE's answer is almost never to edit the old date. It is to put the old date back and record the new situation as new learning.

Two dates are in scope. The learning planned end date must not change between funding years, and DfE says you can only amend it in the first ILR year, to correct an administrative error. It states directly that you must not change it to reflect slow progress, illness or similar circumstances. The learning actual end date is stricter still: if it was recorded in the previous year's R14 file and the aim continues to be returned this year, it must not be changed. For apprenticeship standards on a programme aim, the actual end date must not be changed once the end point assessment period is complete, and the date the assessment completed goes in the achievement date field whatever the outcome was.

DfE's instruction begins by reinstating what R14 said: put back the actual end date, the planned end date, or both, as they were recorded in the previous year's R14 return. What happens next depends on which date moved and why. Where the actual end date was changed, there are three named routes: a learner who completed but failed the assessment gets a new learning aim for any new learning being delivered towards the qualification; a learner returning from a break in learning gets a new aim with the restart indicator recorded as a Learning Delivery Funding and Monitoring type of RES; and an end date reported in error for a learner who is still in learning is handled by changing the completion status to code 6, reporting a new instance of the aim and recording the restart indicator. Where the planned end date was changed, learning continues this year, and the planned end date is now identified as significantly incorrect, DfE sets out a six step pattern that closes the old aim and opens a new one on consecutive days.

A closed funding year is the basis on which funding was paid and reconciled. If dates inside it can move afterwards, the closed position stops being a position. This report is how DfE sees dates moving across the boundary.

Learning aims whose actual end date, planned end date, or both, differ from what was recorded in the previous year's R14 return.

Usually yes, in the narrow sense that the date should not have moved. But the underlying situation is frequently legitimate: the learner really did come back, or really did fail an assessment and is doing more learning. What is wrong is the method, not the circumstance. The fix is to record the real situation the way DfE prescribes rather than to defend the changed date.

• The learner genuinely returned from a break in learning, which DfE handles with a new aim and the restart indicator rather than by reopening the old one.
• The learner completed the learning but failed the assessment and is now doing further learning towards the qualification, which DfE handles as a new aim.
• An end date was reported in error last year for a learner who never actually stopped, which DfE handles through completion status code 6 and a new instance of the aim.
• The planned end date was genuinely and significantly wrong, which DfE handles through the transfer pattern rather than by amending the date.

• A source system that lets a tutor or administrator edit a date on an existing record without any barrier at the year boundary.
• A learner returning after a break being reinstated on the original aim because that is the obvious thing to do in the system.
• A withdrawal entered last year that was wrong, corrected the natural way by removing the date rather than the prescribed way.
• A planned end date treated as a live estimate of when the learner will finish, rather than as a fixed record of what was planned.

• Compare the aim against the previous year's R14 return and identify exactly which date moved and to what.
• Establish which of DfE's four situations this is, because the correction is different in each and they are not interchangeable.

• Retrieve the previous year's R14 record for the aim and note the actual end date and the planned end date as they stood at hard close.
• Compare with what is being returned now, and identify precisely which of the two dates changed.
• Establish what actually happened to the learner, in the real world, independently of what the record says.
• Decide which of DfE's situations applies: completed but failed assessment, returned from a break in learning, an end date reported in error with learning continuing, or a planned end date now known to be significantly incorrect.
• For an apprenticeship standard, check whether the end point assessment period has completed, because after that the actual end date is fixed and the achievement date is where the assessment completion is recorded.
• Reinstate the date or dates as they were in the previous year's R14 return, which is DfE's first instruction and comes before anything else.
• Apply the correction route for the situation you identified, rather than the one that is easiest in the system.
• Establish how the change was made, because a system that permitted it once will permit it again.

• LearningDelivery.LearnActEndDate
• LearningDelivery.LearnPlanEndDate
• LearningDelivery.CompStatus
• LearningDelivery.WithdrawReason
• LearningDelivery.AchDate
• LearningDelivery.LearnAimRef
• LearningDelivery.LearnStartDate
• LearningDeliveryFAM.LearnDelFAMType

• CompStatus_06
• WithdrawReason_04
• AchDate_08

• A-506
• A-504
• A-507
• A-509

• R14

DfE states that it will recover any funding overclaim for errors that remain in your R14 data return. That wording matters twice over: the exposure attaches to what is still wrong at R14, and R14 is also where the previous year's dates were fixed in the first place.

This is a report about records changing after the year they belong to closed, which is the pattern an auditor looks for. For each aim you need to be able to say what the date was, what it is now, why it moved, who moved it and on what evidence. Where the change was legitimate, the evidence of the break, the assessment result or the error is what settles it.

Completion and end dates are what achievement rates are built from, so moving them changes more than the funding. Where the correction opens a new aim rather than extending an old one, that is the treatment the measure is expecting.

• The previous year's R14 return, as the authoritative record of what the dates were.
• The evidence that the learner stopped, or did not stop, on the date originally recorded.
• For a break in learning, the record of the break being agreed and the learner returning.
• For a failed assessment, the assessment result and the plan for the further learning being delivered.
• The audit trail in the source system showing who changed the date and when.

• Reinstate the actual end date, the planned end date, or both, as recorded in the previous year's R14 return. DfE puts this first and the rest follows from it.
• Where the learner completed learning but failed the assessment, record a new learning aim for any new learning being delivered to achieve the qualification.
• Where the learner returned from a break in learning, record a new aim and record the restart indicator as a Learning Delivery Funding and Monitoring type of RES.
• Where the end date was reported in error and the learner is continuing, change the completion status to code 6, report a new instance of the aim and record the restart indicator.
• Where the planned end date was changed, learning continues this year and the planned end date is now significantly incorrect, follow DfE's pattern in full: completion status code 3 withdrawn, withdrawal reason code 40 for a transfer to a new learning aim with the same provider, a learning actual end date of 1 August of the current year, a new learning aim with the same learning aim reference and a learning start date of 2 August of the current year, the correct planned end date and restart indicator on the new aim, and the funding adjustment for prior learning field completed where it applies.
• For an apprenticeship standard where the end point assessment period has completed, leave the actual end date alone and record the date the assessment completed in the achievement date field, whatever the outcome.
• Where you have reported a planned or actual end date in error, DfE directs you to the Provider Support Manual section on making changes and correcting errors for how to record it.
• Make every one of these changes in the system that owns the data and regenerate the return, rather than editing the file.

• If the dates genuinely match the previous year's R14 return, establish why the aim appeared, because that points at the comparison rather than the record.
• Keep the evidence for the situation that led to the new aim, whether that is a break in learning, a failed assessment or an error being corrected.

• Make dates in a closed year read only in the source system, so a correction has to be a deliberate act rather than an ordinary edit.
• Train the people who maintain learner records on the four situations DfE names, because the wrong route produces this report again next year.
• Check the aims that carry an end date in the previous R14 before the first return of the new year, rather than after.

• Which date changed on each of these aims, and who changed it?
• Can somebody edit a date belonging to a closed year in our system without anything stopping them?
• For each aim, which of DfE's four situations is it, and have we used that route rather than the convenient one?
• Are returning learners being put back on their original aim rather than given a new one with the restart indicator?

• What is the funding still attached to the aims that are wrong, given that recovery attaches to what remains wrong at R14?
• Is this a handful of records or a control weakness that will produce the same report every year?

• A good answer names the date that moved, the situation behind it, the DfE route used to correct it, and what has changed so it cannot happen the same way again.
• A weak answer is that the new date is the accurate one, which may be true and is not what DfE asked for.

• withdrawals-and-breaks
• year-end-close
• ilr-lifecycle