Post 16 funding arrangements published for 2019 to 2020

Post-16 funding letter for the 2019 to 2020 academic year published

We have published our first combined post-16 funding letter, for the 2019 to 2020 academic year.

The letter brings together the 16 to 19 and 19+ funding in a single letter, rather than them being sent separately at different points of the year. This has been enabled by bringing together 16 to 19 and 19+ allocations, funding and contracting teams into a new post-16 funding centre to improve our service offer to customers.

Last academic year, we allocated at total of £8.6 billion to around 4000 institutions, which enabled 4.6 million students to participate in further education.

Building on this significant investment, in the 2019 to 2020 academic year, we have protected the national base rates for 16-19 learners at £4000 per full time student aged 16 to 17 and £3,300 per student for 18 year olds.

The government continues to investment in further education so that more people have a wide choice of high quality education and training.

This includes:

• up to £20 million to March 2020 to help providers prepare for the delivery of new, gold-standard T Levels. This includes through the Taking Teaching Further programme and T Level Continued Professional Development Offer – to plan for September 2020 provision, we will provide funding information before the summer break in 2019 and will make firm allocations by the end of March 2020, in line with the usual 16 to 19 funding timetable
• up to £74 million in 2019 to 2020 financial year to build capacity to deliver industry placements for 16 to 19 students
• £50 million to improve post-16 basic maths through new Centres for Excellence programme and a basic maths premium pilot
• £16 million for an Advanced Maths Support Programme to raise the quality and take-up of Level 3 maths
• £38 million in capital funding for the first providers of T Levels to fund equipment and facilities, to be allocated in 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021
• funding of £170 million to support new Institutes of Technology from academic year 2019 to 2020 to deliver higher-level technical skills
• the £15 million Strategic College Improvement Fund to help weaker colleges improve
• access to the one-off funding from the Restructuring Facility until end-March 2019 (for those who submitted an application prior the deadline of 28 September 2018) to enable colleges to make the structural changes required to put them on a sustainable financial footing

The letter also sets out information on how we funded AEB allocations will change as a result of devolution from 2019 to 2020. AEB providers will be given more information about this through illustrative allocation letters being released this month.

The letter also outlines our continued work to increase scrutiny to protect learners and public funds and how it is supporting colleges ahead of the launch of the new insolvency regime, early next year.