Learn
Journeys, or straight to the topic
11 role-based journeys and 26 topic modules. Every module is written at three depths from the same canonical content, so you can move between Simple, Working knowledge and Technical without losing your place.
Learning journeys
Six weeks, two to four short items a week. A suggestion of pace rather than a schedule: do the lot in an afternoon if that suits you better.
Finance director or finance manager
Finance director, new to further education
Six weeks to understand how the college is funded, what puts the income at risk, and which questions to ask MIS. No ILR technical detail beyond what a finance leader actually needs.
15 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planSenior leader, principal or COO
Senior leader, new to further education
Six weeks to understand the funding landscape, why data quality is a leadership matter, and what good assurance looks like.
13 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planMIS or ILR officer
New MIS or ILR officer
Six weeks from no ILR knowledge to running a return confidently: the record, the lifecycle, validation, submission, the calendar and the diagnostics.
16 itemsAbout 3 hours in total
See the planHead or director of MIS
MIS officer moving into ILR work
An accelerated path for somebody who knows the college and its systems but has not owned the ILR. Skips the introduction and starts with the record.
15 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planApprenticeship manager or coordinator
Apprenticeship MIS and compliance
Six weeks focused on apprenticeship funding: price and band, the apprenticeship service, breaks and changes, evidence and the reports that expose problems.
12 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planCurriculum manager or head of department
Curriculum manager
Six short weeks on what curriculum decisions do to funding and results, and what MIS needs from you and when.
12 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planData, BI or performance analyst
Data, BI or performance analyst
The schema, the snapshots, the funding reports, the achievement rate calculation and the reconciliation work that analysts are usually asked to do first.
12 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planFunding or compliance officer
Funding or compliance officer
Eligibility, evidence, assurance reports and audit readiness across every stream, with the sampling routines that find problems before an auditor does.
12 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planEnrolment, admissions or registry staff
Enrolment, admissions and registry
Short and practical. What you capture at the front door decides most of the college's funding, and this path shows exactly which fields and why.
11 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planAuditor, governor or assurance
Governor, auditor or assurance
What to look for, what to ask, and what a useful assurance report contains. Written for people who hold the college to account without operating it.
10 itemsAbout 1 hours in total
See the planSomething else
FE funding foundations
A general route into how further education funding works, for anybody whose work touches it without owning it.
10 itemsAbout 2 hours in total
See the planFE foundations
How further education is funded, who sets the rules and how the parts fit together.
How further education funding actually works
Colleges are not paid a block grant for teaching. They are funded through several separate streams, each with its own rules, and each earned by recording delivery in the ILR.
7 minBuilding a funding map for your college
A funding map sets out every stream a college receives, how each is earned, when it reconciles and what data drives it. It is the fastest way for a finance or leadership newcomer to become useful.
4 minWhat curriculum decisions do to funding
Curriculum teams make funding decisions every week without calling them that. This module connects each decision to the data it creates and the money it moves.
4 minFrom 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.
5 minReading an allocation statement
What an allocation is, which elements are formula-driven, which are lagged, and what to reconcile it against.
3 minILR fundamentals
What the Individualised Learner Record is, what it contains and how it behaves.
The anatomy of the ILR
What is actually inside the Individualised Learner Record: the entities, how they nest, and which fields carry the funding.
5 minFrom 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.
5 minWithdrawals, breaks and restarts
How leaving is recorded, why the date matters as much as the fact, and where the line falls between a break in learning and a withdrawal.
3 minILR specification
Fields, collection requirements, valid values and the relationships between them.
The anatomy of the ILR
What is actually inside the Individualised Learner Record: the entities, how they nest, and which fields carry the funding.
5 minWhat validation does, and what it does not do
Validation checks that the data is internally consistent and conforms to the specification. It does not check that the data is true, that the learner was eligible, or that the funding is correct.
3 minReturns and the collection year
R01 to R14, what each return drives and how to prepare for it.
FIS and Submit Learner Data: the submission workflow
When to validate locally, when an actual submission is needed, what each report tells you, and how resubmission works within a collection window.
3 minThe 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.
3 minClosing 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.
3 minFIS and Submit Learner Data
Local validation, upload, reports, error files and resubmission.
Errors and assurance
Validation rules, funding monitoring reports, data-quality exceptions and how to work them.
What validation does, and what it does not do
Validation checks that the data is internally consistent and conforms to the specification. It does not check that the data is true, that the learner was eligible, or that the funding is correct.
3 minWorking data quality and funding monitoring reports
Reports that flag records for investigation are the most useful assurance tool available, and the most commonly misread. A flag is a question, not a finding.
3 minFunding streams
How each stream is funded, recorded, evidenced and assured.
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.
4 minPlanned hours: what counts and how to evidence it
Planned hours set the funding band and therefore the rate for the whole year. What may be counted, what must be evidenced, and how to reconcile hours to a timetable.
4 minAdult 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.
3 minDevolved adult funding: whose rules apply
The learner's home postcode decides which authority funds their adult skills learning, and therefore which rules, rates and reporting apply.
4 minApprenticeship funding: price, band, service and evidence
A price negotiated with each employer, capped by the band maximum, paid monthly with a completion element, and dependent on the ILR and the apprenticeship service agreeing.
4 minLearning support
Need, provision, cost, claim and evidence across every stream.
Performance and QAR
How delivery and data quality turn into published performance measures.
Audit and evidence
What good evidence looks like and how to be ready before anyone asks.
What good evidence looks like
Evidence is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the demonstration that a funded activity genuinely happened as recorded, and it has three properties.
3 minBeing 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.
3 minWorking data quality and funding monitoring reports
Reports that flag records for investigation are the most useful assurance tool available, and the most commonly misread. A flag is a question, not a finding.
3 minMIS systems
Where Academy concepts usually appear in the systems colleges actually run.
Data quality
Monthly, return and year-end control routines that stop errors recurring.
What curriculum decisions do to funding
Curriculum teams make funding decisions every week without calling them that. This module connects each decision to the data it creates and the money it moves.
4 minPlanned hours: what counts and how to evidence it
Planned hours set the funding band and therefore the rate for the whole year. What may be counted, what must be evidenced, and how to reconcile hours to a timetable.
4 minWithdrawals, breaks and restarts
How leaving is recorded, why the date matters as much as the fact, and where the line falls between a break in learning and a withdrawal.
3 minThe data quality routine that prevents most problems
A small number of checks, run every month without exception, prevent the majority of funding, performance and audit problems in further education.
3 minClosing 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.
3 minReconciling funding month by month
How to compare what the return earned against what you expected, explain the movement, and stop year-end surprises before they form.
3 minGetting it right at the front door
Most funding-critical data is captured at enrolment. Front-door quality is the cheapest data quality there is, and the only kind that scales.
3 minLeadership and governance
Funding for people who are accountable for it rather than operating it.
Building a funding map for your college
A funding map sets out every stream a college receives, how each is earned, when it reconciles and what data drives it. It is the fastest way for a finance or leadership newcomer to become useful.
4 minQuestions to ask MIS, and what a good answer looks like
A set of questions that a finance or senior leader can ask without being an ILR technician, each with the answer that should reassure you and the answer that should not.
4 minReconciling funding month by month
How to compare what the return earned against what you expected, explain the movement, and stop year-end surprises before they form.
3 minReading an allocation statement
What an allocation is, which elements are formula-driven, which are lagged, and what to reconcile it against.
3 min