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Learning journey · Auditor, 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.
By the end you will be able to
- Understand how funding is earned and where it can be materially misstated
- Recognise the difference between assurance and reassurance
- Ask questions that produce measures rather than narrative
- Know what a good governance report on funding contains
The plan
Six weeks is a suggestion of pace, not a schedule. Skip anything you already know, and come back to the rest whenever it suits you.
Week 121 minutes
How further education funding actually worksColleges 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.12 min Building a funding map for your collegeA 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.9 min
Week 218 minutes
What good evidence looks likeEvidence is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the demonstration that a funded activity genuinely happened as recorded, and it has three properties.8 min Being ready for a funding auditWhat an audit tests, how sampling turns a few errors into a large adjustment, and the preparation that actually helps.10 min
Week 318 minutes
The routine that prevents most problemsA small number of checks, run every month without exception, prevent the majority of funding, performance and audit problems in further education.8 min How your data becomes your published resultsAchievement rates are calculated from the ILR. Understanding the cohort is what turns an unexplained rate into an explainable one.10 min
Week 414 minutes
Questions to ask, and what a good answer looks likeA 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.8 min A governor asks what the funding risk actually isAt a board meeting, a governor asks what would have to go wrong for the funding position to be materially misstated. What is a good answer?6 min
Week 517 minutes
Week 60 minutes
Learning record
FEFunding Academy: funding assurance and governance
This is an FEFunding Academy learning record. It confirms that the named person completed this Academy learning path. It is not a regulated qualification and does not imply accreditation or endorsement by any government department or awarding organisation.