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August 2022

Product Team
Updated

Release 4.40

 

Changes in Funding rules

Many of the updates in the August release are in response to the recently-published changes in the funding rules. To view our summary of the changes to the funding rules, see: Preparing for August 2022.

 

ILR Updates

  • Schema Migration to 22/23 ILR: Administrators will be able to export an ILR in the schema for 22-23
  • Funding model 37 (Bootcamps) has been added to the list of funding models.
  • Two new Programme types have been added:
    • Programme type 32 – Skills Bootcamps
    • Programme type 33 – Combined Authorities
  • Employment Status Monitoring Types
    • OET 1 - Learner has been made redundant
      • Dependant on Funding model 36 and Employment Status 11 or 12
    • OET 2 - Small or Medium Employer
      • Dependent on Funding model 37 and Employment Status 10
  • HE Data
    • Mode of study 99 - Not in Early Statistics/HESES population has been flagged as valid to 31/07/2022
    • The Student instance identifier does not appear for starts from 01/08/2022.
    • Completion of year of instance and Level Applicable to Funding Council HESES, are no longer mandatory.
    • Domicile code SZ is correctly labelled Eswatini.
  • Update to LDM codes, they now display in numerical order and have valid from and to dates
  • Update to DAM codes, they now display in numerical order and have valid from and to dates
  • Restricted Use Indicator and Preferred Method of Contact fields now show valid to 31/07/2022
  • Exemption reason on Functional skills now references UK ENIC instead of NARIC.

 

Minimum Off the Job Hours Calculation

Further to the publication of the new Funding rules for the year 22/23, the Minimum Off the Job Hours calculation has been changed throughout the system. This new minimum will apply to apprentices who start their programme from 01/08/2022.
  • This is populated from the ILR except for Programme Details.
  • In Programme details section, the OTJ hours figure is an estimate using the programme details and the most recent employment record in the ILR.

The calculation wording has been updated in the following templates:

  • ESFA - Training Plan v1.0

  • UVAC Training Plan Summary v2.0

  • UVAC Components Plan v2.0 

The calculation uses the the earlier of the Learning Start Date or the Original Learning Start Date from the ILR of the latest programme aim, to determine which calculation to use. It is this date that will be used to determine which calculation should be used. For more information, see: In what cases do apprenticeships use the new OTJ calculation definition?

 

Enable the new documents for relevant tenants automatically

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, a data migration has been put in place so that when the new compliance documents go live, all clients have them enabled on the Account Programme, and the new Training Plan / Apprenticeship agreement documents will be generated and displayed. They will only be enabled if the previous version of the document was enabled on the account programme.

For example, for a tenant that has ESFA-CommitmentStatement-2020 document enabled on the account programme, administrators will see a new option entitled 'ESFA - Training Plan v1' when creating or editing a programme. For a tenant that has ESFA-CommitmentStatement-2020 document disabled on the account programme, administrators will not see a new option entitled 'ESFA - Training Plan v1'.
Similarly, tenants who have the following enabled will see new versions of compliance documents available:
  • UVAC-Commitment-Statement-2020-Components-Plan document
  • UVAC-Commitment-Statement-2020-Summary-Plan document
  • Apprenticeship Agreement document

 

Restricted Learning Plan until New Apprenticeship Agreement/ Training Plan have been signed

Learner's access to their learning plan will be restricted until the new compliance documents (ESFA Training Plan v1.0 and Apprenticeship Agreement v2.0) have been signed by the learner. If the new documents have not been signed, the learner will see the existing holding page UI.
 

New Apprenticeship Agreement - Compliance Document

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, a new 'Apprenticeship Agreement v2' Compliance Document has been created. This is available within the existing 'Apprenticeship Agreement' section within Programme Builder - compliance document token. The phrase 'Training Plan' replaces the phrase 'Commitment Statement' throughout the document. This change is relevant to any learner on a programme with these compliance documents enabled – to comply with the funding rules 22/23, new programmes with the new documents should be created in Aptem for Learners with start dates of August 1st 2022.

For guidance on how to update to use the 2022 Training Plan and New Apprenticeship Agreement please see: Updating to use the 2022 Training Plan and New Apprenticeship Agreement.

 

New UVAC Summary Plan Document - Compliance Document

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, a new 'UVAC - Training Plan Summary v1' Compliance Document has been created. This is available within the new 'Training Plan' section. The phrase 'Training Plan' replaces the phrase 'Commitment Statement' throughout the document. References to the 20% off the job hours have also been replaced with the average of 6 hours per week throughout this document.

This change is relevant to any learner on a programme with these compliance documents enabled – to comply with the funding rules 22/23, new programmes with the new documents should be created in Aptem for Learners with start dates of August 1st 2022.

The new UVAC Training Plan templates include the key funding rule changes released by the ESFA at the end of July. The changes in the revised UVAC templates issued in the first week of August will be included in a later release, as soon as possible.

 

New UVAC Components Plan Document - Compliance Document

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, a new 'UVAC - Components Plan v2' Compliance Document has been created. This is available within the new 'Training Plan' section. The phrase 'Training Plan' replaces the phrase 'Commitment Statement' throughout the document. References to the 20% off the job hours have also been replaced with the average of 6 hours per week throughout this document.

This change is relevant to any learner on a programme with these compliance documents enabled – to comply with the funding rules 22/23, new programmes with the new documents should be created in Aptem for Learners with start dates of August 1st 2022.

The new UVAC Training Plan templates include the key funding rule changes released by the ESFA at the end of July. The changes in the revised UVAC templates issued in the first week of August will be included in a later release, as soon as possible.

 

New Training Plan compliance document - Training Plan/ '6 hours per week off-the-job training'

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, a new 'ESFA - Training Plan v1' Compliance Document has been created. The phrase 'Training Plan' replaces the phrase 'Commitment Statement' throughout the document. References to the 20% off the job hours have also been replaced with the average of 6 hours per week throughout this document.

This change is relevant to any learner on a programme with these compliance documents enabled – to comply with the funding rules 22/23, new programmes with the new documents should be created in Aptem for Learners with start dates of August 1st 2022.

For guidance on how to update to use the 2022 Training Plan and New Apprenticeship Agreement please see: Updating to use the 2022 Training Plan and New Apprenticeship Agreement.

 

Ordering of signed compliance documents with new processor "Training plan"

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, the New Training Plan now appears before the Commitment Statement, and the new Apprenticeship Agreement appears before the previous Apprenticeship Agreement at the end of the onboarding wizard.

Learners finishing the onboarding wizard are required to sign the compliance documents in this order (if all were added to one programme):
  • ESFA - Training Plan v1.0
  • Old Commitment Statement 
  • Apprenticeship Agreement v2(New)
  • Apprenticeship Agreement (old)

 

Trackers to Repopulate the correct Compliance Documents

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, trackers will re-populate the correct compliance documents based upon which documents are associated with the learner's programme.
  • In case of the Change Of Name / Change Of Working Conditions / Change of Employer trackers, the following documents are re-populated: Apprenticeship agreements, Commitment statements, Written agreement and Training plan documents.
  • In case of the Return To Learning tracker, the Apprenticeship agreements are re-populated.
When an administrator creates a tracker for a learner whose programme is utilising the new Compliance Documents , then the tracker repopulates the compliance documents.
When an administrator creates a tracker for a learner whose programme is utilising the existing Compliance Documents, then the tracker does NOT re-populate the compliance documents, and the existing documents will be available. 
 

Delivery via Employer Option for Activities

To ensure compliance with the 22/23 funding rules, we have added the ability for tutors/administrators to indicate which Learning Plan Activities will be delivered by the Employer. This option has been added in the following places:

  • Activities - Programme Template (Learning Plan token of Delivery programmes/sub-programmes)
  • Activities - Console
  • Activities - Classic

A 'Delivery via Employer' visual indicator has also been added to the Learning Plan.

A new Quick Filter to filter the activities that are marked for 'Delivery via Employer' has been added to the Learning Plan grid for Tutors and Administrators.

The Learning Plan activities that are marked to be delivered by the Employer are also reportable via OData - using the 'Delivery via Employer' label in the Learning Plan Activities entity.

When the Delivery via Employer checkbox is ticked, this will also be populated in the ESFA Training Plan v1.0. This will be shown via the 'Delivery Lead' Column as 'Employer' in the Learning Plan section of the document.

When the Delivery via Employer checkbox is ticked, this will also be populated in the UVAC Components Plan v2.0. This will be shown via Section A 'Delivery Organisation' as - Employer. Note that this is not required on the UVAC Summary Plan v2.0.

 

New Activity Types

Two new activity types have been introduced: "Mentoring" and "Shadowing". You can now add these activity types at the programme level, or as individual activities in Classic and Console.

The ability to filter learning plan activities by type has been enhanced to include these new activity types. 

 

Update to 'OTJ Hours' edit option for Reviews, FS Initial Assessments/Diagnostics

In-line with the funding rules on the Mark Evidence screen, you no longer have the ability to record/edit OTJ Hours for the Review, FS Initial Assessment, and FS Diagnostic/Revision activity types.

When uploading a file or adding a note to Reviews, FS Initial Assessment, or FS Diagnostic/Revision activity types, you will no longer be able to record/edit OTJ Hours.

 

Employer Groups Filters

Administrators can now filter the Learner's grid using the Employer Groups structure. A multi-select field with hierarchy, and with search functionality has been added for Employer Groups. The list is limited to those Employer Groups that are linked with the learners that the Administrator has access/permission to see. By default, all Employer Groups in the list are selected. 

 

Reportable via OData

OData API users will now be able to report on the reasons and frequency of changes made to learning plan activity deadlines. The following fields have been added to OData:
  • Date of "Complete by" change: Timestamp of when change was saved
  • Changed from - Original calculated due date
  • Changed to - New calculated due date
  • Reason for change - String
  • Other reason for change - String
  • Changed by id - Administrator id
  • Changed by name - Administrator name

 

Review Token Visibility Default Updates

The default behaviour for Review Types and Sections has been updated to be 'Visible'. This enables all user types to see learner progress, and have the ability to sign a document. This change only affects new reviews. It does not update previously created reviews. Also, this does not affect the Signatures defaults in the review token.
 
  • If the Review Type visibility is Visible, then Review Section Visibility is set to 'Can View' ('Visible'). In this case, the Review Section is unlocked, so it can be amended per section. Each section can be set to be 'Not Visible' or 'Can Edit'.
  • If the Review Type visibility is 'Not Visible', then the Review Section Visibility is updated to 'Not Visible' and Locked.

 

Updates to the Job Finder Grid

The salary column has been updated and will show:

  • Unspecified
  • National Minimum Wage
  • National Minimum Wage for Apprentice
  • Fixed wages will display as a salary bracket

 

Minor Updates

  • An 'updated date' has been added to the Assessments collection in the 'AwardingBodyQualifications' OData table. This means that any individual assessment that has recently changed can be readily identified.
  • Accessibility fixes and improvements have been made to the Aptem console UI to improve compatibility with screen reader software.
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