Bulletin for November 2024

EMA applications for academic year 2024/25

Please remind your learners that they can still apply for their EMA funding for academic year 2024/25.

We’ll backdate payments to the approximate date that we receive their application form.

Download the application form and guidance from nidirect.

EMA Agreement Form Part 2 completion - January bonus confirmation

Please remind your students that they must sign their EMA Learning Agreement Part 2 to be eligible for a bonus payment.

They must complete and sign agreements by 2 December. Students who have not signed their agreement by then will not be eligible for January bonus.

If a student has met their objectives, you should allocate their bonus on the bonus worklist tab of the portal. You may want to arrange a meeting with the student to talk through progress and future goals, but please allocate the bonus as soon as you can.

You should also make a disallowed bonus submission for any students who have not achieved their objectives. You must hold a bonus review meeting with each student to explain why you've not approved their bonus.

You can find more information about bonus allocation in the Bonus Quick Guide on the LC Services website.

Application distribution for academic year 2025/26

We're beginning the ordering process for academic year 2025/26 applications. To do this, we need to make sure we have your correct distribution details.

You can see the details we hold on the maintain profiles tab of the LC Portal. This is also where you can update details if they're incorrect. Please check that your contact details are up to date by 6 December.

EMA removed box

We've recently made an enhancement to the LC Portal based on feedback from last year’s forums.

The 'removed' box on the view application worklist page will now only be available if a student has not signed a Learning Agreement. This will help to administer students who leave or transfer their Learning Centre after signing a Learning Agreement.

The correct way to administer a student who leaves or transfers Learning Centre after signing a Learning Agreement is to stop the agreement. Full guidance on this is on the LC Services website.

Learning Centre Portal opening early

We're opening the LC Portal early for entries for the week ending 20 December. This means you can submit attendances from 16 December. The allocations will then be in place before you break for the winter holidays. Please make sure to mark the following weeks as holidays:

• all weeks your Learning Centre will close for holidays
• all weeks your Learning Centre is only open for one day

This will automatically mark all learners as on holiday, making sure the portal is up to date. You must also administer outstanding student payments in the 'unconfirmed weeks' section of the portal.

EMA support desk

Our support desk team is available to answer any day to day operational questions you have. This includes queries about individual learners, application processing, payments and the LC Portal.

You can reach our support desk on 0300 200 7089 (select option 5) or by emailing emainfo@slc.co.uk.

Please try to use all available resources before you escalate these types of queries to the account management team.