Glossary
Eligibility
Whether a learner may be funded at all, given their age, residency, circumstances and prior learning.
In full
Eligibility is the first question in any funding decision. It depends on the learner's age at the start of the aim, their residency and immigration status, their circumstances and, for some entitlements, their prior attainment.
Eligibility must be established and evidenced before funding is claimed, not established later when the claim is queried.
The rules behind this
Adult Skills Fund eligibility depends on the learner's age, residency and circumstances, and the provider must hold evidence of eligibility before funding is claimed.
Where this comes up
diagnostic
A funded learner has no eligibility evidence on file
Funding has been claimed for the learner, but the college cannot produce the evidence that they were eligible for it. The claim may be entirely correct and still fail, because at audit the evidence is the claim.
scenario
Eligibility was checked but nothing was kept
A sample of adult enrolments shows that eligibility was genuinely established at enrolment and the evidence was handed back.
module
Adult Skills Fund: earning, evidencing and reconciling
An allocation you have to earn, with eligibility that must be evidenced before you claim, and a reconciliation at the end that can reduce what you keep.
scenario
The only person who knows where the evidence is has left
Eligibility evidence for a cohort was filed by a member of staff who has since left. Nobody can find it.
scenario
A learner's age puts them in the wrong stream
A learner's age at the start of their aim determines which stream can fund them. A date of birth error moves them.
diagnostic
An adult learner appears to be funded by the wrong authority
The learner's recorded source of funding does not match what their home postcode implies, so the aim may be claimed from the wrong funder, under the wrong rules.
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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