26/27 Funding Rule Updates

In this release we have made the following updates for the 26/27 Apprenticeship funding rules:

Substantial Link

We have updated a question on the Initial Assessment Discussion page to strengthen the wording in line with the funding rules.

Old question: Is there a direct link between the applicant's job role and the chosen apprenticeship standard?

New question: Do the provider and employer agree that there is a clear and substantial link between the selected apprenticeship standard and the applicant's primary day-to-day occupational duties and purpose, such that the apprenticeship will lead to full occupational competence relevant to that role?

This question and answer will continue to be displayed on the Training Plan.

Employer Agreement Identifier

As the employer's Agreement Identifier is mandatory in the ILR, we have displayed that on the Employer Details page of the enrolment and the Training Plan. It will continue to automatically populate in the ILR, as long as it has been added to the employer.

EPA Duration

We have updated the Apprenticeship Dates page so that the EPA duration is now optional, for those standards where there is no longer an EPA.

Where it is confirmed that EPA is still required, the EPA duration field will be mandatory to complete.

EPA Costs

We have updated the validation on the EPA cost field so that it is now possible to enter a value of £0 (previously a minimum of £1) for learners moving to a new version of a standard where there is no longer involvement from an assessment organisation.

Training Plan Sign-Off

In the Gateway Review, we have added a question for all three parties (the provider, employer, and learner) to confirm that the content of the Training Plan has been delivered.

We recommend that a Gateway Review is completed for all learners before completion.

We will continue with updates for the funding rules in our next release. For more information on what's coming next, please see this article.

Compliance Updates

As well as changes specific to the 26/27 funding rules, we have made a couple of compliance-related updates:

Visa Requirements

We have strengthened the verification process for learners with a visa.

If a learner has a visa, along with the existing expiry date, there is now a confirmation statement that the visa documentation has been verified and the provider can confirm that there is sufficient time to complete the apprenticeship.

The statement will be displayed on the Application Summary document.

Funding Status

We have updated the wording of answer options for the question "How is this apprenticeship going to be funded?"

The answer options are now:

• Levy (ACT 1)
• Non Levy accessing reserved funds (ACT 1)
• Non Levy accessing Levy Transfer (ACT 1)
• Non Levy - funded through DfE Contract (ACT 2)

The selected answer will be displayed on the Application Summary and Training Plan documents.

This update will help enrolment teams select the correct answer to populate the ILR.

EPA Grades

We have made changes to the End Point Assessment page in Bud. When a result is indicated as a pass and the EPA grade has been selected, that grade will now automatically be presented in the ILR in the Outcome Grade (OutGrade) element in Learning Delivery Entity (ZPROG aims only). The grade will be entered in the ILR as one of the following:

Pass -> PA
Merit -> ME
Distinction -> DS
Fail -> FL

Bud Assist for Providers  

We have updated Bud Assist for training providers' context information to include 26/27 funding rules and the ILR spec, allowing you to ask questions about the current academic year and the upcoming year.

We've also made some enhancements to the feature to improve usability; you will see some changes to the way the chatbot now looks.

Assessments 

Adding from the Library to a Learners Plan

You can now import Assessments created in the Library directly into a Learner's Learning Plan, following the same process already used for importing Activities.

This allows Providers to reuse existing content and ensure assessment accuracy and consistency by sourcing Assessments directly from the Library, rather than recreating them.

Archiving in the Library

You can now archive Assessments within the Library.

Archived Assessments are hidden from use elsewhere in Bud (they can't be selected or attached to anything new), but they're not deleted. Assessments already in use on live learning plans are untouched by archiving; they carry on working as before.

If an Assessment needs to come back, you can unarchive it and it becomes available for selection again.

This gives you a way to retire outdated or unused Assessments from the Library without disrupting anything already running.

Bug Fixes

In this release we have fixed the following bugs:

EPA Audit Logs - We have resolved an issue where a small number of users noticed that the EPA audit logs were not loading for their learners if the learner had to retake their EPA and go through the gateway checks again. Now, when a learner has their EPA Compliance rejected, they will retain their audit history.

OST Programmes (hours) - Fixed an issue where total hours on OST programmes weren't updating when activities with hours were added. Total hours now accurately reflect all activities added to the programme.

Criteria mapping - Mapping now stays in sync when activities are unmapped.

Business Intelligence Release - 22nd July 2026 (3:45pm)

Please note your reports may be blank for a brief time afterwards 

Consolidated Reporting

Consolidated reporting is now available in beta. This new reporting capability gives group organisations a combined view of headline data across multiple training provider tenancies within Bud.

If you would like more information and would be interested in a consolidated view across multiple tenancies in Bud, please contact your Customer Success Manager, or you can learn more here.

Data Warehouse and Reporting Bug Fixes

In this release we have fixed the following bugs:

Qualification Achievement rates - Please note, this release contains the fix for the bugs below; however, QAR will need to be refreshed in order to see the changes. This will happen on the next upload of an ILR file.

• Overdue continuing learners hybrid end year logic - We have resolved an issue whereby the hybrid end year for a small number of overdue continuing learners was calculating incorrectly.
• Qualifying period exclusions - We have removed learners with a restart indicator from this exclusion reason logic, as per the DfE specification.
• QAR Forecast - We have made an adjustment to the forecasting tool in QAR to exclude the small number of overdue continuing learners from the potential achievers pot.

Average Skills Scan Scores - We have resolved a bug whereby average skills scan scores were being presented incorrectly in the Data Warehouse and subsequently in embedded reporting.

Functional skill exemptions - The exemption status for functional skills is now correctly updating in the Data Warehouse and subsequent reports. This follows a short period whereby updates were not pulling through.

New Data Warehouse fields

The following new Data Warehouse fields have been introduced as part of this release to support enhanced reporting and analysis capabilities.