Published: 23/10/2023 · Last Updated: 23/10/2023
Advanced Learner Loan bulletin - October 2023
September performance management review point
If you've been awarded an increase to your loan facility, you'll receive an updated contract. You must digitally sign this and return this to ESFA in order for ESFA to tell us about the increase. If it’s returned by 8 November, you’ll see the increase on the LP Portal on 15 November. If this deadline’s missed, please sign the contract by 5 December.
Further information can be found in the funding rules.
Change of Circumstance notifications
It's important you submit suspensions and withdrawals as soon as the change details are finalised. You must do this in line with the service standards:
- 60% of suspensions and withdrawals submitted within 60 days of notification
- 99% of suspensions and withdrawals submitted within 90 days of notification
This helps us to minimise overpayments, make sure learners enter repayment at the correct time with the correct interest rate, and make sure providers are not in breach of the ESFA funding rules.
Lifelong Learning Entitlement - Office for Students blog
The Office for Students (OfS) has published a blog post exploring the new Lifelong Learning Entitlement and their role in introducing it from academic year 2025/26.
Later this year the OfS will be consulting on proposals for the development of a third category of registration which will set out the benefits of the category, the initial and ongoing conditions of registration and plans for registration arrangements in preparation for the LLE implementation on 1 August 2025. Please keep an eye out for the publication of this consultation as it will provide Advanced Learner Loan providers with important information on next steps.
If you've any questions for the OfS and their work on the LLE, please email lle@officeforstudents.org.uk
One Correspondence Address (OCA) project
As part of ensuring our compliance with GDPR legislation and the Data Protection Act 2018, the OCA project was launched earlier in the year. This means the address your learner uses to apply for an Advanced Learner Loan is the address that will appear on the LP Portal. If a learner then updates their address with us, we’ll hold the most up to date version and use it if we need to contact them.
Please remember the LP Portal will not show any address changes after the application submission so please use your own internal records for the purposes of contacting learners. The ESFA have confirmed if the addresses held on the individual learner record and LP Portal do not match, this will not result in an error. You do not need to do anything if they do not match.