Department For Education
Awarding organisations must follow the step-by-step process in order to get funding approval for a qualification.
If youre an awarding organisation, add the qualification to Ofquals register of regulated qualifications for Ofqual to regulate it and provide a unique qualification number. If youre an access validating agency, submit the qualification to the Quality Assurance Agency for the Quality Assurance Agency to regulate it and provide a unique qualification number.
ESFA adds the qualification to Find a learning aim without funding validity, which can take up to 2 weeks.
DfE downloads data about regulated qualifications from Ofqual and the Quality Assurance Agency on the second to last Tuesday of the month. It can take up to 5 weeks for data to appear in the download after regulation.
If the qualification is affected by the moratorium, go to step 5. If the qualification is not affected by the moratorium, go to step 6.
If the qualification meets the moratorium exemption criteria, go to step 6. If the qualification does not meet the exemption criteria, go to step 7.
If the qualification meets the approval criteria, go to step 8. If the qualification does not meet the approval criteria, go to step 7.
DfE does not approve the qualification for funding. DfE writes to the awarding organisation, mayoral combined authority, or Greater London Authority to explain the reasons.
DfE updates the list of qualifications approved for funding. ESFA updates the qualifications funding validity in Find a learning aim.