Period 10, May · 2026–27
R10
The return at which the year's funding outcome becomes clear while there is still time to do something about it. For adult skills, it is commonly the basis of the year-end claim.
Preparation
Preparation for this return normally starts about 20 days out.
Readiness checklist
Generate a checklist scoped to this return, your streams and your role.
Generate itThis date follows the published monthly pattern and is marked provisional in the Academy until it has been reconciled against the official timetable. Confirm it against Data Collection Timetable 2026 to 2027 before planning around it.
What this return drives
- Earnings for May.
- A common reference point for year-end funding claims and for growth or under-delivery conversations.
- The practical point at which the year's funding position becomes predictable.
Why it matters
By the end of May most of the year has been delivered, so the funding position is substantially known. Unlike at year end, there is still time to act on it.
For adult skills, this is commonly the point at which the year-end funding claim is based, which means the data behind it is the data the college will be paid on.
It is also the last realistic point at which an under-delivery position can be addressed through management action rather than simply reported.
For providers who are over-delivering, this is when the evidence for a growth conversation has to be credible.
What changes after it
- The window for influencing this year's delivery closes: what has not been delivered by now largely will not be.
- Attention shifts from earning funding to evidencing and correctly recording what has already been delivered.
- The remaining returns are about accuracy and completeness rather than volume.
What each role should do
MIS or ILR officer
Before
- Produce the cleanest possible position: no unexplained learners in learning, no ended aims without outcomes, no unresolved validation errors.
- Reconcile earnings to date against the allocation and explain the gap.
After
- Support the claim with a reconciliation that the signatory can follow line by line.
Finance director or finance manager
Before
- Forecast the final year-end position and decide what management action is needed.
- Understand the reconciliation arrangements for each stream, including any tolerance.
After
- Take the forecast to the point of a decision rather than a note.
Senior leader, principal or COO
Before
- Ask whether the college is on track to earn its allocation and what is being done if not.
After
- Agree the management response where delivery is off track.
Funding or compliance officer
Before
- Confirm evidence is in place for the claims being made, particularly learning support and eligibility.
After
- Close out any evidence gap before the year ends rather than after it.
Checks before you submit
- Earnings reconcile to the allocation and the gap is understood.
- Evidence is in place for learning support and eligibility claims.
- No learner is recorded as in learning without a credible reason.
- Aims that have ended carry outcomes.
- Validation is clean or every remaining error is understood.
Sign-off
- Finance confirms the year-end forecast and the claim position.
- MIS confirms the data position and any known limitations.
- A senior leader accepts the claim.
Who signs off
- Finance, for the claim and the year-end forecast.
- MIS, for the data position and any known limitations in it.
- Compliance, for the evidence behind the claims being made.
- A senior leader, accepting the claim on behalf of the college.
Reports to review
- The funding reports for the period, reconciled against the allocation.
- Your own reconciliation of earnings to date against allocation and forecast.
- Learning support claims with their assessment, provision and cost records.
- Eligibility evidence for a sample of adult learners.
After submission
- Keep the reconciliation behind the claim as evidence.
- Agree and diarise the actions needed before the final return.
What commonly goes wrong
- A year-end claim built on a funding report nobody reconciled.
- Under-delivery identified too late for any management action to affect it.
- Evidence gaps noted but not closed before the year ends.
Each of these has a full diagnostic in the error and assurance lookup, with the causes, the investigation, the fix and the control that prevents it.
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.
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