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Learning journey · MIS 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.
By the end you will be able to
- Describe what the ILR contains and how its parts relate
- Follow a learner event through to its funding, performance and audit consequence
- Validate a file and work an error report by cause rather than by record
- Run a monthly return routine and explain the funding movement
- Use the error lookup to investigate a problem you have not seen before
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 125 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 The anatomy of the ILRWhat is actually inside the Individualised Learner Record: the entities, how they nest, and which fields carry the funding.13 min
Week 227 minutes
From a learner walking in to funding arrivingThe 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.12 min Getting it right at the front doorMost funding-critical data is captured at enrolment. Front-door quality is the cheapest data quality there is, and the only kind that scales.8 min An adult learner withdraws in week sixA learner on a fully funded adult qualification stops attending six weeks in. Follow it from the tutor noticing to the audit test.7 min
Week 325 minutes
What validation does, and what it does not doValidation 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.10 min FIS and Submit Learner Data: the submission workflowWhen to validate locally, when an actual submission is needed, what each report tells you, and how resubmission works within a collection window.9 min The first return of a new funding year fails badlyThe first validation run of the new funding year produces hundreds of failures. What is the fastest route to a clean file?6 min
Week 426 minutes
Week 517 minutes
Withdrawals, breaks and restartsHow 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.9 min 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 Try the error lookup with a problem you have had (optional)10 min
Week 631 minutes
16 to 19 funding: how the formula worksStudent numbers, band, national rate, retention, programme cost weighting and uplifts. Where each element comes from, and which of them your own data controls.11 min Adult Skills Fund: earning, evidencing and reconcilingAn 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.11 min Closing the funding year properlyAt 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.9 min
Learning record
FEFunding Academy: the ILR and the collection year
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.