Audio lesson · 9 minutes
Building a funding map
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.
The audio for this lesson has not been rendered yet. The approved script and the full transcript are below, and they are the content: the audio is a derived format. We publish the words rather than a player that does not work.
Chapters
- What a funding map contains
- The timing question
Transcript
The complete text of the lesson. It is indexable, searchable and readable on its own, so nobody has to listen to get the content.
Introduction
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.
What a funding map contains
The value of the map is in the fourth and fifth questions. Knowing that adult skills is reconciled, and roughly when the practical point of no return falls, is what turns a monthly report into a decision. The fifth question is the one most colleges cannot answer. Naming an owner outside MIS for each funding-critical data item is usually the single most valuable output of the exercise.
The timing question, which is where leaders get caught
16 to 19 income for a year is built from data returned in an earlier year, so the December return is effectively the moment next year's income is set. Nothing you do in the spring changes it. Adult skills income is earned in year against an allocation and reconciled. Under-delivery identified in June can sometimes still be addressed; under-delivery identified in September cannot. Apprenticeship income depends on employer agreements and on the ILR matching the apprenticeship service, so a reconciliation problem is a cash problem immediately, not at year end.
Naming an owner for every funding-critical data item
Planned hours are owned by curriculum, because curriculum decides and timetables them. Home addresses are owned by registry, because registry captures them. Leaving dates are owned by the course team, because they are the only people who know when a learner actually stopped coming. Results are owned by curriculum and quality. MIS owns the generation, the validation and the submission. It does not own the facts, and asking it to be accountable for their accuracy is asking it to be accountable for other people's processes. Naming the owner changes the conversation. A data quality report addressed to MIS produces effort. The same report addressed to the named owner of each item produces change. This is usually the single most useful output of building a funding map, and it costs nothing but a conversation.
Read it instead
Building a funding map for your collegeThe written module carries the same content at three depths, with the worked examples, the pitfalls and the sources.
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.