Testing volunteers needed for the funding consultation

@IFATEched have been helped by a huge number of people and organisations to refine our proposed new model for making funding band recommendations for apprenticeships to the department, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone involved.

The Institute launched this project in response to feedback that the existing system, based around employers gathering quotes for how much training costs and comparisons with existing standards and qualifications, was not transparent enough.

The plan is to move to a model that draws on both typical eligible delivery costs and evidence provided by employers.

We published an update on our website late last year, which set out key themes emerging from our second round of consultation.

We’re planning to publish a full response over the summer. This will be in parallel with the outputs from the testing work and conclusions of the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA) review of which apprenticeship costs are eligible for government funding.

The Institute will also provide information on the impact testing we carried out in late 2020. This looked at how funding band recommendations generated using the planned new model would compare to existing funding levels.

Over 20 organisations voluntarily took part and it has given us a much better understanding of the potential impact of our planned reforms.

We’re planning to run an additional phase of testing between May and August 2021. This will again test how the proposed model would work in practice and we’re looking for organisations that train or employ apprentices to take part.

As a testing volunteer, you’ll have the opportunity to better understand the potential impact of the model on your apprenticeships and take part in discussions with us about the information required to make the system work better.

What does testing involve?

We will provide a briefing for volunteers in early May and ask them to provide data on their apprenticeships by the end of that month. We will then meet with them later in the summer to discuss the outcomes.

How we’ll use the data

We won’t change funding bands based on the data supplied. However, we will publish anonymised outcomes in the autumn.

We are working with the Department for Education in developing the model, so may also share the data in anonymised form with them.

If you’d like to get involved, or if you have any other questions, please contact the project team on [email protected].

Thanks again for your continued participation in this work – it is essential to the success of the new funding model.