Hi all

I thought it’d be useful to point you to key information that has been published following the board meeting.

At its meeting on 28 January, the information authority board decided that only the 2011 Census codes are to be used for the 2011/12 ILR. We had previously suggested that the adoption of the new codes would be optional but that was before the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) requested that only the Census codes should be available. The reasons for the request are detailed in the paper which went to the January board meeting. Our recent news item has further information on how ethnicity data is to be collected in 2011/12. If you have any comments or queries about this, please reply below or contact me directly.

The board also agreed to four essential ILR changes for 2011/12. Further details will be in the board minutes which will be available later today and some presentation slides that will be available later this week. The background behind the changes, our consultation and the recommendations are all in the essential late changes paper which also went to the board.

Other news is that we held a meeting in Coventry late last week to talk to software suppliers and learning providers about the technical changes that the Data Service is making to its systems and the development of the single, restructured learner record in XML. The outputs and presentations from that meeting will be published later this week. On Thursday this week we are hosting a meeting for Employer Responsive providers.

Finally, we’re just finalising details with our next hot seat guest on feconnect. The vast majority of discussion in the Data Issues forum just now seems to be on Foundation Learning so we’ve invited a colleague from the Young People’s Learning Agency to be our next hot seat guest to take your questions and comments on Foundation Learning.  More on that in due course.

Paul

Hello colleagues

You will have seen our news item about our new chairman, Geoff Hall.  Many of you will know him from his many years in the further education sector.  We are looking forward to working with him to deliver the best service for you.  As a baptism of fire, one of Geoff’s first actions as chairman will be to chair the board meeting to consider the exceptional 2011/12 ILR change requests put forward by the funding agencies.  We will update you on the board decisions as soon as possible. 

Things are also getting very interesting on the Single Restructured Learner Record in XML project.  We met software suppliers and own software writers on 20 January 2011 to consult with them on developments and timescales.  The presentations and notes of the meeting will be available on our website shortly.  We also ran sessions which were attended by the Data Service, Skills Funding Agency, YPLA and Ofsted to discuss the intricacies and detailed impact of the change.  Their input will ensure that everything works as planned.  As an attendee at all these meetings, I can assure you that they posed questions that taxed our specification team!

We are also starting on the conference circuit soon.  We will be presenting at the Spring College Data Conference on 03 March 2011.   

Lastly, although Get it in! Get in Right! is ‘taking a break’, the usual reminder applies – ULNs are compulsory on the LR02 due on 14 February 2011! Best to warn the partners that Valentines may be late this year….

Selvy

Hi all

John McCabe, a valued contributor to feconnect is our latest ‘hot seat’ guest. John has been CMIS Manager at East Norfolk College for almost twenty years. He is retiring shortly so we wanted to pick his brains one last time. There is still time to add your questions or comments for John in the hot seat forum. John will be responding next week (beginning 13 December).

As ever, it has been a busy week. The vast majority of providers submitted their LR01 submission in good time, but a significant number had weather-related difficulties, so we decided that it made sense to be flexible with providers that had experienced extended periods of closure since 1 December. It gets mentioned in a TES article today.

We’ve also been out and about. We were at a Funding Audit Masterclass earlier this week – Pete Ashton gave a talk there entitled “Don’t believe everything an auditor tells you about ILR rules”. Selvy Kasparis and Richard Cookson have also started a short tour of learning providers to talk about data issues and the way we communicate with providers. As feared in my previous blog the consensus thus far seems to be that we did start to nag about F05!

Other news is that the 2011/12 ILR specification is out today! It comes with some caveats. The information authority board agreed to consider any exceptional changes we receive to support things like the implementation of the Skills Investment Strategy. Obviously we will consult with the sector on any changes we do receive.

We’ve already had quite a few people asking whether we’re publishing desktop calendars again this year. They were very popular but, as with the rest of the public sector, our budget for such things is no longer there. We are putting together electronic calendars though. You’ll be able to import key reminders into online calendars such as Outlook. There will be a link in the next edition of inform and on our website.

Have a good weekend!

Paul

Hi all

There are consultations aplenty going on just now. In addition to the ILR changes already out for consultation, we have just published online surveys for a further eight ILR changes that we would like your views on. We are very keen to get the sector’s views on the ILR change requests and have been really pleased with the response so far. You can feed into the consultation by following the links to the surveys below. Alternatively you can discuss the changes in the public domain by starting a new thread in the 2011/12 ILR discussion area on feconnect.

Change request 4: Collection of National Insurance numbers  

Change request 5: Mandated Jobcentre Plus Action Plan

Change request 14: Extended use of programme aim level

Change request 16: Review Codes in Main Delivery Method field

Change request 23: Review reasons for fee remission

Change request 32: Move to single ILR return

Change request 33: Move ILR to xml format

Change request 35: Review Employment Status definitions and fields

I’m sure feconnect users will also make useful contributions to consultations that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is running. They are consulting on both the future direction of skills policy and simplifying FE and skills funding system and methodology.

We’ve had quite a few phone calls and emails in recent weeks to ask when appendix H of the 2010/11 ILR will be published and also why the information authority has not published a form for providers to collect ILR data for Learner Responsive returns (particularly Foundation Learning provision). Appendix H should be published later today but we will not be publishing an LR ILR form. The reason is that it is up to providers to capture the data needed to make an LR ILR return in the most appropriate way to support their own business processes. Not all ILR fields need to be captured on paper as providers are likely to store much of this data in their MIS systems. There is further information about capturing ILR data on pages 9 and 10 of the LR Provider Support Manual.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that the 2009/10 Learner Responsive Qualification Success Rate methodology was published last month. It has been published far earlier than last year, mainly thanks to the Data Harmonisation Group whose work is overseen by the information authority board.  

Paul

Hi all

Although the name is quite a mouthful, it was essentially a meeting with change requesters, data users, provider representative organisations and the Data Service to work through the ILR change requests for 2011/12. The main objectives were to generate questions and issues to consult with the further education system as well as identify conflicts with existing data use. We found it extremely useful as it meant we could combine policy, information purpose, process issues and potential data burden aspects of each of the change requests going forward.  We also think it has helped us scope the change requests going forward and that the consultation process will be more focused – of course you will be the judge of that…

Those who attended the meeting also seemed to find it useful in understanding the different perspectives of those present.  They recommended that we permanently adopt this meeting into the change request process.

The consultation process with learning providers and software houses will start with the ILR Change Request Stakeholder event on 15 July 2010.  The consultation on feconnect will commence shortly after so please contribute as and when these come up.

Selvy

Hello all

It’s that time of year again …ILR change requests seem to be occupying most of our time at the moment.  On 7 July 2010, we are facilitating our first ILR Change Request Review Group meeting which will review the change requests for 2011/12. We hope that this group will help us ensure joint departmental and agency scrutiny of the change requests as well as refine the issues for consultation with yourselves.

On 15 July 2010 we will be meeting with a cross-section of colleagues in the further education system to consult on the change requests.  We will also be consulting with all of you on feconnect through July/August.  So please keep an eye out.

You may have noticed that we have launched a campaign to inform all training providers that the F05 must be returned by the due date.  The ‘Get it in! Get it right!’ campaign is to ensure that all returns are sent by 22 November 2010.

Colleagues in the Learning Records Service (formerly MIAP) have also asked us to inform you of the following:

• standard privacy notices are available for incorporation into college application forms for the new academic year.  There is a short text version for learner facing application forms and an extended version for cascading to learners as additional information
• their revised Code of Practice is available in the publications library of their website
• they have recommended that you update your materials to reflect their name change from MIAP to Learning Records Service by 30 September 2010.

 Selvy

Hello colleagues

We are back in action now the election blackout is lifted and we’ve got a lot to tell you about activities happening during June and July. At present, there are no changes for the information authority and our parent department remains the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and our Secretary of State is now Vince Cable.  Some of the more curious among you would have noticed that the DCSF website has disappeared and searching for it now leads to the new Department for Education website.

Firstly, we must apologise for postponing the Learner Responsive Group meeting scheduled for 14 May 2010.  The new date will be announced shortly.  The Software Supplier Group and the Employer Responsive Group will be as advertised on 3 June and 8 July respectively.  The agenda for these meetings will be published a week before.

As the deadline for 2011/12 ILR change requests looms (18 June), we are having meetings with various policy colleagues – one such recent meeting was about the inclusion of a field for carers. We are also identifying fields which are no longer used (e.g. A02), so if you are aware of any that may be of low value or out of date, please let us know.  A number of you will be attending our ILR consultation event on 15 July 2010. This meeting is now fully subscribed, but even if you didn’t get a place there are still plenty of other opportunities to make your views known via feconnect and other channels.

You will hopefully be aware that we are facilitating a meeting on 28 May 2010 between training providers, the Connexions service and other agencies (including the YPLA and the Data Service) to standardise a dataset.  We hope the result will significantly reduce the data burden on training providers.

Finally, we are jointly sponsoring the AoC Information, Data and Technology Conference (formerly known as the AoC Nilta conference) on 24 June 2010.  More information will be available on the AoC website in due course. We are also holding a policy conference aimed at principals and senior managers on 06 July 2010. This is still in early planning stages and we will publicise the event on the information authority website shortly.

Selvy

I had a really useful meeting with Connexions colleagues last week. Originally the purpose was to discuss the standardised Connexions dataset that went to our board in December 2009. However, the data needs of Connexions have recently changed. For instance, the January Guarantee and raising the participation age will have a big impact on what data Connexions services need. There is a paper going to the information authority board meeting tomorrow which recommends that we carry out further work on all of this. Ideally, I’d like to bring the various stakeholder groups together to work out how the data needs of Connexions services can be met whilst reducing the burden on learning providers.  I think it’d also be useful to look at the various Common Application Processes because they seem to be generating burden for learning providers.

Conference season will soon be upon us. We’re planning to run a couple of events ourselves in 2010 and will certainly have a presence at the AoC Nilta conference again this year. We’ve also started to receive requests to speak at other events. If you’re running an event and would like a speaker from the information authority, please email details to cst@theia.org.uk

The 2011/12 ILR change process is underway. There has already been a meeting to discuss possible future data requirements.  For the 2009/10 ILR we received 73 change requests, this dropped to 60 for the 2010/11 ILR. I wonder if we’ll see a similar drop this year?

Finally, the outputs from the recent ASL Group and the Data Users Group meetings have just been published. The next advisory group meeting is the Employer Responsive group on 19 March. There are just a few places left at that meeting. If you’d like further details, please email cst@theia.org.uk