Bursary 16-19 Policy

Policy Statement

This policy is intended to:

• support CLF Post-16 students in overcoming the specific financial barriers to participation they face to allow them to remain in education.
• provide fair and equitable access to the bursary fund across its Post-16 provisions, within the framework set out by ESFA bursary fund guidance and in compliance with CLF Financial Regulations.

Bursary Criteria

Bursary entitlement is assessed against two main criteria: Student Eligibility and Student Financial Need.

Student Eligibility is defined as:

• A student must be aged 16 or over but under 19 on 31 August 2025 to be eligible for help from the bursary fund in the 2025 to 2026 academic year.
• Students aged 19 or over are only eligible to receive a discretionary bursary if they are continuing on a study programme they began aged 16 to 18 (19+ continuers) or have an Education, Health and Care (ECH) Plan.
• These two groups of aged 19+ students can receive a discretionary bursary while they continue to attend education (in the case of a 19+ continuer, this must be the same programme they started before they turned 19), as long as their eligibility continues and their institution considers they need the support to continue their participation.
• Students aged 19 or over are not eligible for bursaries for vulnerable groups.
• Students must meet the residency criteria in EFSA funding regulations for Post-16 provision in the 2024/2025 academic year. Please see Appendix 1 for ESFA residency criteria.
• Students under 16 – Students are only eligible for bursary funding if they are aged 16 or over. In exceptional circumstances students under 16 on funded 16 to 19 programmes may be eligible i.e where the student is on an accelerated study programme.
• Asylum-seeking children – Accompanied asylum seeking children those under 18 with an adult relative or partner and those aged 18 and above are entitled to education, but not to public funds. As long as an asylum seeker has not had their application for asylum refused, the bursary fund can be used to provide in-kind Student support such as books, equipment, or a travel pass. Under no circumstances should cash be given to an accompanied asylum seeker.
• Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are treated as looked after children and are eligible for a bursary for vulnerable groups (‘in care’ group), where they have a financial need. When they reach 18 their immigration status must be considered. If the asylum claim is decided in their favour, they continue to be eligible for a bursary as a student from a vulnerable group. Where the claim is not decided in their favour, the individual may not be able to legally stay in the UK. In this instance, once the asylum claim has been fully heard/ appeals process exhausted, the individual has no claim to public funds, but will continue to do so until this point is reached.
• Distance Learning – Students accessing CLF Post-16 courses attend site. Where distance-learning arrangements are in place, students are not expected to require help from the bursary fund because they are not subject to the types of costs the bursary is intended to cover (travel, equipment, and uniform for example). Where these students require financial help, support should be provided in-kind i.e. a temporary travel pass for the student to attend exams.
• Distance Learning – in extenuating circumstances, distance learning arrangements may be in place i.e. remote lessons due to staff absence, emergency school closures etc. Where this is the case, costs incurred to enable course participation may be covered i.e. meals for pupils in receipt of FSM.

Student Financial Need is defined as:

• Students individual financial need must be assessed when awarding bursary funding. Blanket and flat / fixed rate payments without an assessment of actual financial need is prohibited across all priority groups.
• Provisions may decide that although a young person may be eligible for a bursary, they do not have any actual financial need. This might be because their financial needs are already met and/or because they have no relevant costs and a . students’ application can be refused on this basis.
• Financial need is determined based on students’ actual course-related costs to enable participation, including:
• meals on the day of study for students eligible for FSM
• books, equipment
• Coursework materials
• Off-site curriculum visits and fieldwork
• uniform/specialist clothing
• transport to education provision
•  transport to industry placements
• University interviews/open days or job interviews
• Exam resits

It should be noted that for items of equipment including books and laptops, students must return them once they have completed their study programme so they can be used again by another student where appropriate. If keeping equipment on site is the best way of ensuring this happens, provisions have the right to set this as a condition.

Bursaries cannot be used for the following:

• Learning support costs i.e. counselling, mentoring, additional tutoring, servicing of laptops/tablets
• Support for extra-curricular activities where not essential to the student’s study programme
• General household income support (rent, bills, wi-fi etc.)
• to incentivise/ reward attendance
• to encourage students to choose CLF over non-CLF Post-16 provisions
• Support the costs of foreign/overseas field trips where the content can be found within England at a much cheaper cost and/or to support the costs of field trips that are not an essential part of the students study programme

Types of Bursary

There are three types of bursary available:

• Vulnerable Groups Bursary (Priority Group 1)
• Discretionary Bursary (Priority Groups 2 – 4)
• Emergency Meal Support (ad-hoc and by exception; see Section 3.3)

Vulnerable Groups Bursary

Discretionary Bursary

Please see Appendix 2 for the calculations used to determine the Priority Group income bandings.

Discretionary bursary funding is limited, as such it should be noted that students who are eligible for support are not automatically entitled to bursaries. The level of support offered may be at variance with the above based on overall cohort need relative to available funding. Where available funding is insufficient to meet the awards for students in Priority Groups 2-4 outlined above, a percentage reduction should be applied across all discretionary groups so that bursary awards match available funding

Emergency Meal support

Where the academy identifies a student that is in real need emergency meal support can be provided on the days a student is in school.  This is a short term arrangement and the following applies:

• A small provision from the academy’s discretionary bursary funding should be retained for emergency meal support for students not in receipt of bursary funding.
• This is ad-hoc support to be provided to students in financial hardship, without checks required to determine student eligibility or student financial need.
• Academy staff should provide a lunch pass to pupils to allow them to claim a free lunch from the academy’s catering facility. This should show the pupil’s name and the date for the pass.
• Academy staff must retain a record of the meals supplied to pupils and provide the information to the academy finance assistant to process  a journal to transfer the cost of the meals provided
• It is expected that this should only apply to a small number of students and is not intended to be a long-term solution. Where a student’s situation of financial hardship is expected to continue, the academy should direct them to the bursary policy and support them in completing an application to access bursary funds.

Evidence requirements

Vulnerable Groups Bursary (Priority Group 1) Evidence

Evidence of students’ eligibility for Vulnerable Groups bursary funding must be submitted each year, even if this means re-submitting the same evidence as the previous year (i.e. to evidence looked-after status). This is in line with requirements for Vulnerable Group funding claims submitted to the Student Bursary Support Service.

Discretionary Bursary (Priority Groups 2 – 4) Evidence

The criteria for Priority Groups 2 – 4 require checks on Parent(s) / Carer(s) (P/C) household income that must be submitted at the beginning of the students’ studies. In subsequent years students must provide conformation on the Applicaa portal that their circumstances have not changed to the extent that their level of bursary entitlement would be affected per the conditions of their Priority Group.

Bursary Applications

Student applications should be submitted and administered via the Applicaa online portal and must be supported with accompanying evidence uploaded to the portal.

Evidence must be reviewed against students’ applications by the academy to ensure that the evidence submitted meets policy requirements and is in alignment with the student’s application.

Paper application forms are  available to students to ensure that all students are able to access the bursary application process. A copy of the paper application form can be found in Appendix 3.  All applications  received on paper application forms are to be reviewed and uploaded by Academy staff to administer the students’ bursary on the online portal with the original paperwork and supporting documents returned to the student.

It is imperative that students are able to access support in applying for and subsequently administering their bursaries. Provisions must therefore clearly publish up-to-date information for a contact within the academy that they are able to liaise with in the event of queries.

Complaints

Where a student has any concerns or queries regarding their bursary application, in the first instance they should e-mail the bursary inbox for the relevant academy. The complaint will then be reviewed by the CLF bursary panel.

The panel will comprise three members of CLF staff, with one finance representative and two Post-16 representatives. The academy receiving the complaint will reach out to colleagues to create the panel reviewing complaints as they are received.

Should a student feel that their concerns remain outstanding, they can then request that the complaint is escalated through the academy formal complaints process

Payment of bursary to Students

Bursary payments will be made to students as 10 monthly payments per the below schedule. The payment timetable is structured to ensure that students are not out of pocket and access to their course is not limited by a shortfall in bursary support;

All students are encouraged to submit their applications by the September deadline. Late applications will be accepted per the deadlines outlined above and will follow the same payment arrangements as other bursary payments

Where possible, support should be provided in-kind rather than as a monetary payment. The below table notes the preferred route through which course-related costs should be met. It is understood that this may sometimes not be practical and so it is expected that provisions exercise reasonable discretion in deviating from these guidelines, ensuring that evidence requirements are met and records are maintained at student level in the Applicaa system in doing so

Payments will be backdated by a maximum of 3 months in line with CLF finance policy, particularly as it is recognised that students can face challenges in securing the evidence required to process their bursary applications

Whilst late applications are accepted, applications will close once the bursary budget has been fully utilised

Payment of bursary will be linked to attendance where possible, to ensure that bursary payments match actual financial need.

CLF Bursary Funding

Funding for Vulnerable Groups (Priority 1): Draw-down

Funding claims for vulnerable groups will be centrally manged and claimed.

Funding should be drawn down from the Student Bursary Support Service (SBSS) on an ad-hoc basis throughout the year, as soon as is practicable once new Students have been identified and verified.

Funding can be drawn down by completing and submitting a bursary for vulnerable groups funding claim via the SBSS online portal by 31st July of the relevant academic year. Any submissions made after this date will not be paid.

Only the amount of funding needed should be drawn down based on the student’s financial need – the full £1,200 should not be drawn down if not required.

The SBSS portal doesn’t function as a filing system, and so a copy of funding claims submitted must be retained, along with records of funding paid to them through the claims process.

Where unused bursaries for vulnerable groups accrue (i.e. where there is a difference between predicted and actual financial need, a student leaves etc), this funding should be recycled to offset funding claims for other eligible students until 30 April. Where there remains unused funding after this, P16 provisions can add this to their discretionary bursary allocation from 1 May.

Where incorrect submissions have been made, the respective funding should be recycled on subsequent Vulnerable Group funding claims. If there are no others students eligible for vulnerable group funding however, this allocation cannot be added to the discretionary bursary (as it has been claimed in error), and the central team must contact SBSS to return the funds

Funding for Priority Groups 2 -4: Discretionary Bursary Allocation

The ESFA makes a lump-sum discretionary bursary allocation for provisions to distribute to individual Students based on 2 elements; 1) financial disadvantage; 2) student costs to support travel and industry placements. Please see Appendix 5 for more information on the calculation.

Where a Post-16 provision operates through subcontracts or from more than one location across England, the allocation is made to the lead institution. The lead institution is responsible for ensuring the bursary fund is administered appropriately at each site, and that students are able to access support.

Allocations are paid by the ESFA to the Academy in 2 payments :  2/3 in September and 1/3 in April

Use of Bursary

Up to 5% of the bursary allocation may be used for administrative costs relating to the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund per the ESFA guidance.

The Trust will use the allocation to fund the costs of the online bursary management software and to support central staffing costs incurred in administering the bursary process.

Any remaining allocation can be applied for by academies to support costs directly relating to the administration of bursaries. Requests should be submitted to the Deputy Finance Director.

Unspent Bursary

Unspent bursary funds may be carried over to the bursary fund for the next academic year. The funds are ringfenced for this purpose and cannot support the academy budget.

Provisions must be able to confirm the amount of unspent funds carried forward from the previous year, and they must ensure that they fully use unspent funds before using the new academic year allocation.

Unspent funds of more than a year must be returned and reported by 31 March.

The central CLF Treasury Team will maintain a reconciliation of the bursary by Academy to track bursary spend and balances.

Audit & Assurance

Bursary awards are made based on hardship. This must be substantiated by evidence at the point of application, which will be securely retained for 6 years per ESFA guidance.

16 to 19 Bursary Funds are subject to audit and all  bursary applications and supporting information are must be maintained at student level.

4.3          The CLF operates a bursary application and administration process through an online bursary management platform that supports and satisfies audit requirements.   Academy staff retain a role in ensuring and demonstrating that the guidelines per this policy document are observed.

Equality and Diversity

The implementation of this policy and its processes will not discriminate against students on the basis of any protected characteristics as set out in equalities legislation

Policy Monitoring

This policy will be reviewed annually in line with the annual ESFA 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guidance

This review will be completed each year to support the new round of applications for the subsequent academic year.

Maters beyond policy scope

Any circumstances or situations not covered by this policy must be resolved with reference to the ESFA 16 to 19 Bursary Fund Guide for the 2025-26 Academic Year, with central finance guidance and approval sought as appropriate.