Glossary
Funding audit
An independent examination of whether funding claimed was properly earned and can be evidenced.
In full
A funding audit tests whether the funding a provider claimed was correctly earned under the rules and whether the evidence supports it, usually by sampling records and following them through to source evidence.
It tests what you can show, not what you know. A defensible claim is one where the evidence can be located quickly and was created at the time.
The rules behind this
Evidence is strongest when it is created at the time of the event it describes and is retrievable without reconstruction. Evidence assembled after a query is asked is weaker and takes longer to produce.
Where this comes up
module
Being ready for a funding audit
What an audit tests, how sampling turns a few errors into a large adjustment, and the preparation that actually helps.
scenario
An enrichment session is cancelled in November
A weekly enrichment session counted in planned hours is withdrawn after half term. Nobody thinks of it as a funding decision.
module
Closing the funding year properly
At the final return the year's data is closed: the funding position, the achievement rates and the audit population are all taken from it. Anything you want reflected in that year's data has to be corrected before it.
module
From a learner walking in to funding arriving
The full chain: a learner event, the operational action it triggers, the source data it creates, the ILR fields it populates, validation, funding, reports, evidence, performance and audit.
diagnostic
Planned hours do not match the timetable that is actually delivered
The planned hours recorded for 16 to 19 students do not reconcile to the timetable being delivered, so students may be in the wrong funding band.
diagnostic
Learning support is claimed but the evidence chain is incomplete
A learning support claim has been made, but one of the links in the chain is missing: the assessment of need, the record of support actually delivered, the cost of delivering it, or the recording that triggers the claim.
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.
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