Funding announcement - Post-16 Level 3 and below qualifications with low and no enrolments

As a result of the first stage of the DfE’s review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below in England, the ESFA have announced the qualifications with low or no publicly-funded enrolments that will have post-16 funding removed after 31 July 2021.

This removal will affect 16-18 year old students on study programmes and 19+ students under the Adult Education Budget, including those entitled to legal entitlement and those requiring Advanced Learner Loans.

The DfE refers to this removal of funding as ‘securing early progress’ towards a simpler post-16 vocational system before the next stage of the review is released this year. In the next stage, the DfE will say more about the criteria that will be used to manage the funding approval of all post-16 level 3 and below qualifications in the future. We expect the changes to the funding approval of qualifications to take place from September 2023 onwards, in line with the rollout of T Levels.

The ESFA announcement applies to funded provision in England only. We will inform you if we plan to withdraw any provision in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Which qualifications are affected? 

Qualifications identified with no publicly funded enrolments

Five qualifications will have funding approval removed from the end of July 2021. These qualifications have had no publicly funded enrolments since 2015/16.

In accordance with the criteria set out in the ESFA process for retaining funding, we will not be able to submit a request to retain public funding for these qualifications:

Centres are still able to register students on the above qualifications for the 2020/21 academic year.

UAL Awarding Body will notify centres about the future of these qualifications, and whether they will still be available through private funding from 2021 onwards.

Qualifications identified with low publicly funded enrolments 

ESFA has currently suspended the process for qualifications with low publicly funded enrolments, therefore the following qualifications with low enrolments will retain funding approval for 2021/22 academic year:

For qualifications with low enrolments, the ESFA have set up a process for awarding bodies to make a request to retain public funding where removal would have an adverse impact on specific individuals or schools, or on specific occupational or geographical areas.

For the vast majority of qualifications above, UAL Awarding Body will be looking to retain public funding. However, we will be in contact with centres once ESFA restarts the process in Autumn, to confirm our plans for the above qualifications.

Centres are still able to register students on the above qualifications for the 2020/21 academic year.

However in the meantime, if you’d like to talk to us about any of the qualifications affected, please contact qualdev.awarding@arts.ac.uk.