ESFA weekly round-up – Issue 386

Education & Skills Funding Agency’s weekly round-up of business-critical information to ESFA-funded colleges, other training organisations and direct grant employers. (10 Jan 2018). 

Qualification Achievement Rates (QAR) provisional data for 2016 to 2017 released

Providers can now access their provisional QAR data for 2016 to 2017 on the data returns tab of the Hub and through BIRST reports. Guidance on how to use data extracts in the Hub and how to navigate BIRST are now available on GOV.UK.

You have until 5pm Friday, 2 February to inform us of any concerns about how we have implemented our published methodology; you cannot request fixes or adjustments to your 2016 to 2017 ILR data.

If you have any queries, please contact the service desk. If you have a query about specific data, complete the data queries form and email the form to the service desk.

We will publish your final QAR data during March 2018.

Apprenticeship off-the-job training and annual leave

To provide clarification, off-the-job training is an essential part of an apprenticeship and therefore, must take place during employed time. If, by exception, training takes place in an evening, or outside of contracted hours, this should be recognised (for example, through time off in lieu).

Should an apprentice not be able to attend a planned training session (due to leave, sickness, operational pressures) the apprentice should be given the opportunity to catch up on what they missed (e.g. by attending one to one sessions with their provider or using on-line learning materials). As above, this should take place during paid working hours.

The programme is sufficiently flexible to accommodate exceptional periods of leave or sickness.