Learner Eligibility, Funding and Fees

Learner Eligibility, Funding and Fees 2025-26

Purpose

This statement explains the eligibility criteria and fee policy for community learning courses from 1^st August 2025 to 31^st July 2026, in line with the DfE Adult Skills Fund funding rules.

Our contracted partners can apply their own Fee Policy if this is in line with the Department for Education funding rules 2025-26.  Partners must make their Fee Policy available to new learners before they enrol on a course.

Eligibility

Staff that deliver learning must check and confirm your identity and eligibility when you enrol on a course.  They will ask to see an identification document e.g. driving licence, passport, biometric residence permit.  They will check your eligibility against the following criteria:

Your availability: Staff will tell you the course dates and the dates of any exams with you before you enrol. You must be able to commit to attending the full course and any exams. If you are in the UK on a visa, the expiry date must not be before the end of the course.

Your age: You must be aged 19 or older on 31^st August 2025, unless you are a parent aged under 19 and enrolling on a Family Learning course.

Your residency: You must be living in a Staffordshire district: East Staffordshire, Cannock, Lichfield, Tamworth, South Staffordshire, Stafford, Newcastle-under-Lyme, or Staffordshire Moorlands.

Other conditions:

• You must be ordinarily resident in the UK on the first day of your course.
• You must not be in the UK without authority or lawful status, or only as a holiday.
• You must not be in the UK on a student or employment-related sponsorship visa, including skilled worker or seasonal worker visas.
• You must not have a biometric residence permit or residence permit that imposes a study prohibition or restriction, or that expires before the end of the course.

If you are an asylum seeker, you are eligible if you:

• have lived in the UK for 6 months or longer while your claim is being considered by the Home Office, and no decision on your claim has been made, or
• are receiving local authority support under section 23C or section 23CA of the Children Act 1989 or the Care Act 2014

Please refer to the DfE Adult Skills Fund funding rules.

Course Fees 

Non-accredited courses

There are no course fees if you meet the eligibility requirements above and are enrolling on a non-accredited course in any of the following curriculum areas:

1. Wellbeing and Independence
2. Community and Family Progression
3. English, Maths and Digital
4. STEM and Vocational

If you do not meet the eligibility requirements above, we charge a fee of £10.00 per learning hour.

Accredited courses

No fees are payable if you meet the eligibility criteria of age, availability and residency, and you can provide evidence that your gross income is less than £25,750 per year (2,145.83 per month).

We will ask you for evidence of your income if you claim your income is less than £25,750 per year. This could be a wage slip or a Universal Credit statement within 3 months of the learning start date, or your current employment contract which states gross monthly/ annual wages.

As part of your enrolment, we will ask you to tell us if you are unemployed and looking for work, and if you are receiving:

• Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
• Employment and Support Allowance (ESA),
• or Universal Credit (UC)

If your gross income is more than £25,750 per year, we will charge you £5.00 per hour of the course, plus exam costs, as long as you meet the eligibility criteria of age, availability and residency. 

If the course is accredited, and you do not meet the eligibility criteria of age, availability and residency listed above, we will charge you a fee of £10.00 per hour of the course, plus exam costs (£21 for Reading, £21 for Writing, £37 for Speaking & listening).  You may have to resit your exam, this will cost ££.

Additional costs

If you request a replacement certificate this will cost £50.

Refunds

Fee refunds are at our discretion.

We will only refund you:

• if we cancel the course, or
• if you are unable to complete the course for an unavoidable reason e.g. severe illness and you have attended less than 50% of the course.

Fees are refunded by BACs within one month of the course cancellation date.

Any queries regarding fees should be emailed to: communitylearning@staffordshire.gov.uk or you can telephone us on 01785 278770