Now you can apply to run an LLE module!

Do you want to deliver modular (30 credits) provision via the Department for Education’s shiny new Lifelong Learning Entitlement?

You may be thinking about the bad old days of submitting a detailed expression of interest to join the short courses trial (and, in the most part, recruit nobody at all). Perhaps that memory might make you suspect that DfE has learned from this experience to streamline the process.

You would be wrong.

For January 2027 starts, expressions of interest are due in by 17 October 2025. The government needs the extra time to check whether your modules address priority skills needs and links to the industrial strategy and to do some assurance to make sure you are not actively committing fraud (via assurances and public data from OfS, UKVI, the Charity Commission and others). Stuff that DfE are looking for includes (but “is not limited to”):

• specific conditions of registration applied by OfS
• closed investigations where a regulatory decision has been taken
• OfS additional monitoring relating to F3 notices
• removal of public funding as a result of regulatory non-compliance on quality or fraud measures, such as de-designation for student support
• information about providers at material risk of market exit under condition C4
• information from an awarding organisation where approval to deliver a specific qualification has been withdrawn or sanctioned, or where the provider as a whole has been removed or sanctioned as an authorised centre
• cases where UKVI has removed an education visa sponsor licence due to non-compliance with conditions for sponsorship
• cases where a sanction has been applied due to non-compliance with Charity Commission requirements
• decisions made and published by DfE or its predecessors, such as the Education and Skills Funding Agency

Readers will note that it is possible for a provider to have TEF Bronze and any number of these aspects and still be permitted to run 360 credit degrees. Clearly the LLE requires a better track record.

DfE suggests that for established providers, who have strong existing quality indicators via TEF (Gold or Silver) or Ofsted (Outstanding or Good), the process (which is just the assurance checks, and your verification code – get your accountable officer to check your email) should take “about 5 minutes to complete” and get you a response by the end of November.

This streamlined route covers any possible module your provider may wish to offer, though these will still need to align to priority skills needs and/or the industrial strategy – although it is not clear how DfE will check this, given that it does not ask for any information about the courses you intend to run (how big they are, what they cover, if they link to PSRBs or local skills needs…). We can perhaps expect a further round of checks nearer the time.

The more intensive “alternative entry mechanism” requires a lot more work – statements demonstrating a track record of delivery, quality (outcomes), and employer or skills alignment) for each proposed course. We’re not told how long this will take to complete (it’s quite lengthy, and involves you saying “no” to offering courses in each priority area and upload a supporting document in the form of a largely blank excel spreadsheet template), but you should get a decision by the end of December 2025.

Have fun, everyone.