DfE Funding Assurance Review Guide

About DfE funding assurance reviews

The Department for Education carries out funding assurance reviews of institutions that receive 16–19 Bursary Fund allocations. These reviews check whether your administration of the bursary fund complies with the DfE’s published guidance for the relevant academic year. Non-compliance can result in funding recovery.

The process is managed by DfE, which may appoint an external audit firm to conduct the fieldwork. Institutions typically receive notification of a review between two and four weeks before it begins. (Funding assurance review: step-by-step process)

The most common findings in assurance reviews relate to insufficient eligibility evidence, awards made without a documented decision, payments not supported by attendance records, and records that cannot be located. You can read DfE’s published summary of common findings at Common findings from funding assurance work. myBursary is designed to address each of these systematically.

What reviewers check

Review requests typically include some or all of the following. The scope is set out in a confirmation letter sent to the institution before fieldwork begins.

• Your published bursary policy for the relevant academic year
• A list of all students who received a bursary award
• Application forms and supporting eligibility evidence for a sample of students
• Evidence of the decision-making process (panel minutes or equivalent)
• Payment records showing when and how much was paid to each student
• Attendance records for the bursary period
• Records of any clawback or repayment
• Evidence that defined vulnerable group bursaries were within the limits set out in the guidance for the relevant year
• For expense-based bursaries: receipts and records of what was purchased

Reviewers also check that the institution’s actual practice matches its published policy, and that eligibility decisions were made consistently and on the basis of the evidence held.

Your bursary policy

Every institution must publish a bursary policy that sets out its approach to assessing eligibility, award amounts, and payment arrangements. The policy must reflect the DfE’s guidance for the relevant year and must be publicly accessible (for example, on the institution’s website).

myBursary stores your cohort configuration including eligibility criteria, award categories, and award amounts. This provides useful context when a reviewer asks how you made a particular decision. However, your written bursary policy document (as published on your website) must be retained separately for each academic year in scope.

Student application records

myBursary holds a complete record of every student application, including the information the student submitted, the household circumstances they declared, the evidence they uploaded, and the status of their application at each stage.

You can export application data for any cohort in CSV format from the Reports section. Exports include student name, application status, award category, award amount, and decision date.

For reviews, be ready to pull up individual student records in the platform and navigate to the attached evidence. Reviewers typically want to see a sample of complete application files rather than summary exports alone.

Eligibility evidence

All supporting documents uploaded by students (benefit letters, payslips, P60s, care leaver documentation, free school meals confirmation) are stored securely in myBursary and linked to the relevant application.

The DfE’s guidance states that institutions must retain hard or scanned copies of documentation to support eligibility and the funding claimed for 6 years (records can be kept electronically). (16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide: 2025 to 2026) myBursary retains all uploaded evidence for this period. You do not need to maintain a separate filing system, but we recommend verifying that evidence files are attached before closing a cohort at year end.

A key review finding is that evidence does not match the award category. If a student received a defined vulnerable group bursary based on receipt of ESA, the ESA award letter must be on file. If they received a discretionary award on household income grounds, income evidence must be present.

Award decisions

myBursary records every approval or rejection decision, including who made it, when, and at which workflow stage. For institutions using the approval workflow, each stage review is timestamped and attributed to the authorised reviewer.

Where your institution holds panel review meetings for discretionary awards, retain a record of panel minutes separately. myBursary records the outcome and reviewer but does not replace a formal panel record if your policy requires one.

Payment records

myBursary records award amounts, payment dates, and payment schedules. For expense-based bursaries, the expense request and associated receipts are attached to the student record.

Payment records can be exported from the Reports section. For assurance purposes, the export should reconcile with your institution’s finance system. We recommend running a reconciliation at the end of each payment cycle.

myBursary records what was approved for payment and on what date. Your finance team’s records (bank transfers or BACS runs) are the authoritative evidence that payment was actually made. Both sets of records are typically requested in a review.

Attendance records

DfE guidance requires institutions to link bursary payments to satisfactory attendance. myBursary supports attendance recording directly in the platform, or via MIS integration where your school information system is connected.

Attendance records are stored per student, per term, and linked to bursary periods. If your institution does not use myBursary for attendance recording, you must be able to produce attendance records from your MIS that correspond to the period covered by each bursary payment.

Record retention

The DfE requires institutions to retain all bursary records for a minimum of 6 years from the end of the relevant academic year. This covers applications, evidence, decisions, payment records, and attendance records. (16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide: 2025 to 2026)

myBursary retains all data held on the platform for at least six years from the end of the relevant cohort year. Records are not deleted at the end of a subscription unless the institution specifically requests deletion and we confirm in writing that the retention window has elapsed.

If your institution leaves myBursary, we will provide a full data export before deletion. We retain records until the six-year window has passed unless you have made alternative arrangements.

How myBursary helps

Pre-review checklist

If you receive notification of a funding assurance review, work through the following before the reviewer visits.

Your bursary policy

• Locate the published bursary policy for each academic year in scope
• Confirm the policy was accessible on your website during that year
• Check that the awards made in myBursary align with the criteria in your policy

Student records

• Run a full cohort export from myBursary Reports for each year in scope
• For the reviewer’s sample: open each student record and confirm that evidence documents are attached
• Confirm that the eligibility evidence category matches the award category for each student
• Check that every approved application has a decision recorded by an authorised reviewer

Payments

• Export the payment records from myBursary and reconcile against your finance system
• Gather BACS or bank transfer records confirming that each payment was made
• For expense-based payments: confirm that receipts are attached to each expense request

Attendance

• Confirm attendance records are available for each term during which bursary payments were made
• If attendance was recorded in your MIS rather than in myBursary, export the relevant records from your MIS

Defined vulnerable group students

• For students who received a defined vulnerable group bursary (care leavers, UC/IS/ESA/PIP recipients in their own right): confirm that the specific evidence for their eligibility category is on file
• Confirm that award amounts are within the limits set out in the DfE guidance for the relevant year

Sources and DfE guidance

All claims in this guide are based on the following published DfE documents.

• 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guide: 2025 to 2026 (DfE, GOV.UK) – the primary guidance document for the current academic year, covering eligibility, evidence requirements, payment rules, and record retention
• 16 to 19 Bursary Fund guidance collection (DfE, GOV.UK) – all years of guidance, including previous academic years in scope for a review
• Funding assurance review: step-by-step process (DfE, GOV.UK) – the official description of how a review is conducted, including notification timelines, fieldwork, and reporting
• Common findings from funding assurance work on post-16 providers (DfE, GOV.UK) – DfE’s published summary of the most frequent compliance issues identified in reviews; essential reading before a review
• Financial assurance: monitoring post-16 funding (DfE, GOV.UK) – DfE’s financial monitoring framework for post-16 providers
• DfE Post-16 Funding Assurance Review Guidance (June 2025) (PDF, DfE) – the full assurance review methodology document

The DfE updates its guidance annually. Always refer to the guidance for the specific academic year in scope when preparing for a review. Historic guidance versions are available in the guidance collection.

Getting support

If you have received notice of a funding assurance review and need help pulling records from myBursary, contact our support team. We can help you identify the right exports, confirm that evidence files are complete, and answer questions about how the platform records decisions.

myBursary Support
Email: [email protected]