GovWire

While funding approval cycles for newly approved qualifications, moratorium exception applications and other funding approval applications are moving to a termly process, we will continue to manage the offers monthly.

This will enable us to reflect any changes to currently funded qualifications as quickly as possible.

We will assume that you no longer want funding approval for a qualification, if you make any of the following changes to data fields for that qualification in Ofquals Register of Regulated Qualifications:

• offered in England from Yes (ticked) to No (unticked)
• age group from Yes (ticked) to No (unticked), where No makes the qualification out of scope for the relevant qualification offer
• qualification level from its current value to a value that is out of scope for the relevant qualification offer

We will change the qualifications funding approval end date and last date for new starts (LDNS) to be the next date of publication of the ESFA list of qualifications approved for funding and the Find a learning aim.

We will continue monitoring for changes in these data fields during the funding approval moratorium.

If you change any of these fields from No (unticked) to Yes (ticked) for a particular qualification, we will not automatically approve it for funding. From 1 September 2020, you can only ask us to review a qualification again if it is not affected by the funding approval moratorium.

If we find evidence that a qualification no longer meets our approval principles, then we will change its funding approval end date and LDNS to be the next date of publication of the ESFA list of qualifications approved for funding and the Find a learning aim.

We will tell you why we are withdrawing our approval. You can ask us to review our decision again.

This process does not apply to qualifications that we will remove funding approval from, as part of the qualifications reviews.

You can find a list of planned updates to Find a learning aim in the data collection maintenance schedule.

We monitor Ofquals Register of Regulated Qualifications for any changes you may make to the operational end dates for qualifications we have approved for funding. We do this so we can tell ESFA funded providers about changes to the approval and last date for new starts (LDNS).

To make sure students are not disadvantaged, you should change operational and certification end dates in Ofquals Register of Regulated Qualifications far enough in advance to give students and providers plenty of notice. You should also avoid setting and then changing operational end dates. Where we find you are setting or changing operational end dates on a frequent basis for a qualification or suite of qualifications, we may contact you to understand why you are doing this before we make any changes to our systems.

If you change the operational end date to happen before 31 July 2024, we will amend the qualifications funding approval end date and LDNS to be the same as its new operational end date. This will happen monthly for the ESFA list of qualifications approved for funding, and every 2 weeks (as appropriate) for Find a learning aim.

It is a regulatory requirement that you inform Ofqual about any proposed withdrawal and replacement of qualification before you inform centres. You must ensure you tell your centres when you are withdrawing a qualification and give them details of any qualification that may replace it.

If you set the operational end date for a qualification to be in the past, we will change its funding approval end date and LDNS to be the publication date of the list of qualifications approved for funding and Find a learning aim.

If a qualification has not been rolled over into the 2023 to 2024 offer because, on 21 February 2023 it had an operational end date before 1 August 2023, and you subsequently change that operational date, we will

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