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

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

It’s been a while since our last blog but we’ve had plenty to be getting on with. We had to review all 60 of the ILR change requests, look at the issues raised for those that went out for consultation and then provide the information authority board with a recommendation for each change. The board met at the end of September to agree what will be in the 2010/11 ILR. We’ve already published a brief overview of the 2010/11 ILR changes and discussed them at our recent advisory group meetings. Colleagues are now working on writing the 2010/11 ILR specification which will be published on 27 November 2009.
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Hi all

We are still working through the 60 change requests for the 2010/11 ILR that we received, and making decisions on which ones we will be rejecting, and which ones need input from the FE system before we write up recommendations for the information authority’s board meeting at the end of September.
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Afternoon all,

The weather is lovely outside, so I’ll try not to keep you glued to your desks for too long while you try and find out what we’ve been up to in the last week.

Things are starting to pick up on the ILR change requests front – we have been in discussion with LSC colleagues about a number of proposals they will be submitting shortly. The details for these changes are still being finalised, so we will have some more information for you in the next couple of weeks.
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Hi

Today is your last chance to contribute to the consultation on bringing forward the return date for F05 to November. A decision on that should be made at the June board meeting.
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Hi

Welcome to the second weekly digest on the 2010/11 ILR Change Process.

Last week, we told you about consultation opening on our first two change requests for the 2010/11 ILR. We have already received a lot of comments on these consultations via our two consultation forums. Thanks very much for your contributions so far.
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Hi,

This is the first in our weekly ‘digest’ blogs that the Community and Stakeholder Team will be doing throughout the 2010/11 ILR change process to help you keep up-to-date with requests as they come in and comments that are made.
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