Glossary
Funding year
The year that funding rules, rates and the ILR specification are set for, running from 1 August to 31 July.
In full
The funding year runs from 1 August to 31 July. Rules, rates, the ILR specification and the validation rule set are all published for a single funding year.
Every funding answer belongs to a year. An answer without a year attached is incomplete and is one of the most common ways staff are led astray.
The rules behind this
The further education funding year runs from 1 August to 31 July, and funding rules, rates and the ILR specification are set for that year.
A funding rule is only ever true for a stated funding year. Carrying an answer from one year into another, without checking, is one of the most common causes of an incorrect claim.
Where this comes up
scenario
The first return of a new funding year fails badly
The first validation run of the new funding year produces hundreds of failures. What is the fastest route to a clean file?
scenario
Working in two funding years at the same time
It is September. The new year's first return is due and last year's final return has not closed. Two rulesets, two datasets, one team.
module
Closing the funding year properly
At the final return the funding, the achievement rates and the audit population are all fixed at once. Everything that will be corrected has to be corrected before it.
module
The collection year: what each return is for
Fourteen returns, each restating the whole year. Three of them matter more than the others, and knowing which is most of the job.
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.
module
16 to 19 funding: how the formula actually works
Student numbers, band, national rate, retention, programme cost weighting and uplifts. Where each element comes from, and which of them your own data controls.
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.