The bursary fund, without the paper.
Students apply from their phone with evidence attached. Your criteria assess eligibility. Approvals happen in one workflow. And every decision is logged for the day the auditors call.
Emma: 12 applications waiting on evidence. Discreet reminders drafted for your OK - I never touch payments or records.
A student needs bus fare this week. The decision takes three.
Paper applications, photocopied bank statements in a drawer, committee-cycle decisions, and an audit trail that lives in somebody's memory. The student waits while the paperwork moves.
“I need a bus pass to get in on Monday.”
YEAR 12 STUDENT · ASKS ON A THURSDAY
Taken home for a parent signature and payslips.
Photocopied, filed in a drawer, chased twice.
The committee meets fortnightly.
Three weeks after the week they needed it.
Meanwhile the student misses lessons, and nothing about the decision is written down.
Essential support for your students. And a compliance job for you.
The fund helps students facing barriers to participation with the cost of travel, meals and equipment. Since 2021 the rules on how you manage it have been tighter.
The ESFA changed the rules in 2021
How schools and colleges must manage the fund was tightened, and the expectations have not loosened since.
You must keep an audit trail for every payment
Every receipt and invoice has to be stored securely, and produced when asked.
No proof means paying it back
If you cannot show how the funding was spent, you risk being required to return it.
Bursary16+ is a secure, efficient system that makes allocating the fund easier for staff and students - while keeping a clear audit trail for the DfE.
See what it costs youApplied from home · no payslips over a desk
Privately, from any device, in minutes.
Students and families apply from home with evidence uploaded securely, seen only by the staff who must see it. Nobody hands payslips over a desk.
Online forms that work on any device, so no student is shut out
Automated reminders, so a deadline is never the reason a student misses out
Multilingual support, for complete inclusivity
A quick annual renewal - last year’s answers pre-filled, not retyped
Decided fairly. Evidenced for the auditors.
Complete applications surface for decision, assessed against the criteria you set. Approvals take a click, students are told instantly, and every decision is logged for the day ESFA asks.
TIME TO DECISION
2 days
WAS THREE WEEKS
[STAT TO VERIFY]
DECISIONS LOGGED
214
FULL TRAIL EACH
EXPORT FOR ESFA
Every application, decision and change logged. The audit that took a fortnight takes an afternoon. [Verify audit scope]
From application to payment, and the audit after it.
Every stage a bursary passes through, on one student profile - so nothing lives in a drawer or a separate spreadsheet.
Simple online applications
Students and parents complete the application themselves, taking the paperwork off your desk.
Eligibility verification
Application details managed and verified against the criteria you set, so awards go to students who qualify.
Document management
Proof of income and other evidence collected and stored securely against the student record.
Approve requests
Students submit requests from their own profile for staff to approve or decline, every one tracked automatically.
Payment authorisation
Your finance team gets direct access to student requests, so payments are not held up by a handover.
Compliance and reporting
Built-in audit checks, plus reports on allocations and expenditure when the DfE or your auditors ask.
THE PAYOFFCustomisable forms with conditional questions and digital signatures
Live tracking of every application’s progress
Individual and bulk emails, logged with open and read statuses
Meet Emma
Help with the most sensitive fund you run.
Emma reopens the fund’s forms, chases missing evidence, and answers students’ eligibility questions privately - with sources.
Watch Emma run a bursary round
VIDEO PLACEHOLDER · DROP THE DEMO CLIP HERE
LIVE
"Reopen the bursary form for January starters"
This year's fund form and evidence questions, updated by asking. Every change shown before it saves. Forms are platform-wide; verify for the bursary module.
LIVE · NEW FOR FAMILIES
"Can I apply if..." answered privately, at 10pm
The eligibility question a student is embarrassed to ask, answered from your published criteria - without asking a member of staff face to face. Missing-evidence chases drafted for your OK.
COMING SOON
"How many applications are waiting on a decision?"
Plain-English questions about the fund. No spreadsheet. Verify before build.
You can spend up to 5% of your allocation on running the fund.
Which means, for most schools and colleges, Bursary16+ pays for itself out of the administration allowance you already have.
Based on the ESFA vulnerable student bursary of up to £1,200 per student per year. Your actual fund depends on your mix of vulnerable and discretionary awards. Licence fee shown is indicative - [PRICE TO VERIFY]
£10,050
What is left of your admin allowance after Bursary16+ - toward the staff time and running costs of managing the fund.
Comfortably within your 5% admin allowance - so Bursary16+ pays for itself out of funding you already hold.
Talk it throughWhat the DfE expects you to evidence.
The DfE checklist for the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund, in short. Bursary16+ is built around it, so the evidence is there before anyone asks.
Student meets the age criteria.
Eligible education provision.
Student meets the residency criteria for post-16 provision.
Evidence of eligibility has been retained.
Student falls within a defined vulnerable group - for example receiving specified benefits in their own right, or in care or a care leaver.
A financial needs assessment confirms actual need and the amount of support required. No student should automatically receive £1,200.
Appropriate evidence seen and copies retained.
Support awarded in kind wherever possible - bus pass, meal vouchers, books or equipment - with receipts retained.
An award letter or written agreement issued to the student.
Evidence the student meets your own criteria, including household income and a statement of actual participation costs.
Evidence of income and overall eligibility retained.
An assessment of actual financial need. Block, blanket or flat-rate payments are not permitted - the award should reflect real costs.
Support awarded in kind wherever possible, with receipts retained.
An award letter or written agreement issued to the student.
Decisions and records, clean in your MIS.
Award decisions and records sync to SIMS, Arbor, Bromcom or iSAMS, and export for ESFA and internal audit. Nobody re-keys the fund.
Teams that stopped chasing paper.
It’s taken the pressure off staff and students. It’s making the process a lot more seamless - and the evidence is there so it makes the auditing side a lot more straightforward.
FBFrankie Bryan
Alderbrook School
Everything is in one place... it’s easier for the students to apply but also easier for them to make requests. It’s just made that whole process much easier.
CDChristopher Dakin
The City of London College
There used to be too many pieces of paper but Bursary16+ has revolutionised all of that. We don’t have to chase documents anymore... and it makes life so much easier with ESFA audits.
SDSarah Dawson
Activate Learning Education Trust
Instead of us having to collate the information and manually check it... we can see the information directly on the screen against the parameters we’ve already set. This means we’re ready to make an offer as soon as the application is complete.
NNNigel Newman
Wrotham School
Ready to run the fund without the filing cabinet?
Book a meeting and we will walk the fund's year, application to audit.