Glossary
ILR
Individualised Learner Record
The data return in which a provider records every funded learner and every learning aim they deliver, and the basis on which funding is calculated and performance measured.
In full
The Individualised Learner Record is the return that carries one record per learner and, within it, one record per learning aim. It is generated from the provider's own student record system and submitted for each collection period of the funding year.
Almost everything downstream reads the ILR: the funding calculation, the funding reports, the published achievement rates and the population an auditor samples from. That is why ILR quality is a funding and reputational matter, not only an administrative one.
The rules behind this
The Individualised Learner Record is the data return through which providers record the learners they enrol and the learning they deliver, and it is the basis on which funding is calculated and performance is measured.
In further education, funding is not paid simply because a college says it taught someone. It is earned by recording what was delivered in the Individualised Learner Record, and that record is what the funding calculation, the performance measures and any audit all read from.
Where this comes up
module
The anatomy of the ILR
What is actually inside the Individualised Learner Record: the entities, how they nest, and which fields carry the funding.
diagnostic
A learner left weeks ago but is still showing as continuing
The learner has stopped attending, but the ILR still shows their aim as open with no actual end date, so the system believes they are still in learning and keeps generating funding for them.
diagnostic
An aim is on the ILR but generates no funding
The aim validates and appears on the ILR, but generates no earnings. Validation and funding are different tests: a record can be perfectly valid and still not qualify for funding.
diagnostic
An apprentice is on the ILR but is not generating any payments
The apprentice exists on the ILR and looks correct, but no earnings are being generated for them. Apprenticeship funding depends on the ILR and the apprenticeship service agreeing, so a record that is perfect in one and absent or different in the other produces nothing.
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
An aim has ended but no outcome has been recorded
The aim has an actual end date, so the system knows it finished, but nothing records whether the learner achieved it. The achievement rate calculation treats an aim with no achievement recorded as a non-achievement.
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.