Got it in!

Hi all

Well, after 18 months or so of planning, the ‘early’ F05 return went very smoothly. There were some anxious faces here last Friday (19 November) when we realised that there were still over 150 providers who had not submitted any F05 data. We think it’s very risky to not submit anything until the last day but, it all turned out well in the end so well done LR providers!

We’ve been talking to colleagues in the Young People’s Learning Agency about a couple of data issues in recent weeks. Hopefully providers are pleased with the pragmatic decision the YPLA made on what to do about some qualification approval dates. The other issue relates to the YPLA asking providers directly for information they needed to prepare contracts for Additional Learning Support. We will work with the YPLA to see how these information needs can be met more easily in future and ensure that existing data is used wherever possible.

Our next hot seat guest on feconnect will be forum veteran John McCabe. John will soon be retiring from his post as CMIS Manager at East Norfolk College. We’re keen to tap into his extensive experience, which stems back to the initial pilot of the ILR data back in 1993. John has been a regular and entertaining contributor to feconnect ever since we launched the site early in 2008.  John’s hot seat forum is now open and he’ll post his responses in the week beginning 13 December.

As all the outputs from the recent advisory group meetings are now complete and published, our focus now is on the project to move to a single restructured learner record in XML. This ties in with the Data Service’s work to re-platform its data collection systems.

Finally, after the constant reminders ahead of W13 and then F05, the ‘Get it in! Get it Right!’ campaign has moved on to ER04 and LR01. If the perception out there is that we’ve gone from reminding learning providers to nagging them, please do let us know!

Paul