Percentage of co-investment collected (for all funding years)

Yes and no. If the apprenticeship has fully completed/withdrawn, then probably yes. If they're still on programme, then no. We collect the whole co-investment up front in most cases, so they appear as over 100% right up until the completion payment has been triggered. We double check the refunds required once a quarter, though we do process refunds as and when we withdraw apprentices, or they change employer.

We have a few that sit at 101%/102% because of change of employers and rounding to whole pounds, and that's fine. You don't want to round up your refunds, and end up at 99% contribution and lose your entire completion element for the sake of £1.38.

Hi Ruth

Thanks for your reply. Just want to query what you mean by "If they're still on programme, then no. We collect the whole co-investment up front in most cases, so they appear as over 100% right up until the completion payment has been triggered" 

If you collect the 5% as a whole up front why would it show as over 100 until completion payment is triggered?

Sorry i'm new to co-investment and am still getting to grips with how it all works.

In the co-investment report, column T (% of co-investment collected), is how much you're recorded as PMR overall so far (columns P and R), compared with column Q (co-investment due from previous years) and column S (co-investment due in this year). Column S, the amount due in this year, only considers the money "due" one month at a time, as ESFA pay us the 95%. Look at one student across several reports, and you'll see column S increase each month (whilst they're still on programme).

If a student starts in Sep on a 20 month app that's total £12,500 (£10k on programme payments), our total on programme income each month is £500. That's £475 from ESFA and £25 from the employer. We choose to collect the whole 5% up front, which is £600. 6 months in, column S will show we are only "due" £150 (£25 x 6). £600 is 400% of £150. We've collected 400% of what is due so far. As the amount due goes up, but the amount you collected stays the same, the % slowly comes down each month, until you finally hit 100% once the completion element becomes "due" (the same month ESFA pay us the completion element).

It all makes sense now. Thanks for taking the time to type all of the above out, I really appreciate it.

Samuel Bridge It's a lot to learn! It's always nice when you can benefit from someone else's experience. I was doing this when the changes first came in and we were all finding our way through it. Also, rather sadly, I find this quite interesting...

And I just noticed my numbers above were wrong (5% of £12,500 is £625), but you get the jist!