Editorial policy: how we check courses and funding
This page explains how we write and check what’s on Adult Education UK. We want you to be able to trust it, and to see where it comes from.
Our principles
- Accurate. Every funding fact comes from an official source, with a date.
- Independent. No provider, college or awarding body pays us or decides what we publish.
- Honest about “free”. We tell you about the conditions, fees and exceptions, not only the headline.
- Plain English. We write for everyone, using short sentences and everyday words.
- Original. We write our own course summaries. We don’t copy text from providers or awarding bodies.
Where our information comes from
We use official sources first:
- GOV.UK, for funding rules, loans and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement. This includes the Adult Skills Fund funding rules for each academic year.
- The Department for Education’s qualifications website, to check each qualification’s number, level and whether it’s approved for funding, and until when.
- Skills England, for apprenticeship standards and Higher Technical Qualifications.
- GOV.UK’s Learning and Development Support Scheme list, for care training that employers can claim back.
- Awarding body websites, for what each qualification covers.
We use provider websites only to find out who offers a course. We don’t rely on them for funding rules, because they’re often out of date.
Each page lists its sources at the bottom.
How we check a course
Before a course gets a page, we:
- Check the qualification number (QAN) on the Department for Education’s qualifications website.
- Check its funding. We look at which funding routes it’s approved for in the current year, and when that approval ends.
- Find providers that offer it. We look for the course on provider websites and record what each one says about delivery, eligibility and fees, with the date we checked.
If a qualification’s funding has ended, or we can’t confirm it, we say so on the page or don’t publish it.
The “Am I eligible?” check
The check on each course page gives you a guide, not a decision. It uses the main national rules for 2026/27 and the funding routes for that course. It can’t take account of everything a provider checks, such as where you’ve lived for the last 3 years or the qualifications you already have.
The provider always makes the final decision. We say this on every result.
Which providers we show
On each course page, we list providers we’ve found offering that course, after you complete the “Am I eligible?” check. We list them by name only.
- A provider can’t pay to be listed, or to appear higher.
- Being listed isn’t a recommendation. It means we found the course on their website when we checked.
- We don’t send your details to any provider.
When we review pages
Funding rules change every year at the start of the academic year on 1 August. Each August we:
- re-check every funding fact against the new year’s rules
- re-check every qualification’s funding approval
- update earnings limits and other figures
- update the “last reviewed” date on each page we check
We also update pages during the year when the government changes something, such as new courses being added to Free Courses for Jobs.
Every page shows the date it was last reviewed.
Links to other websites
We check every link to another website before we publish it, and regularly after that. If a page has moved or been removed, we replace or remove the link.
Corrections
If you think something on the site is wrong or out of date, please tell us. Include the page address and what you think is wrong.
We’ll check it against the official source. If we got it wrong, we’ll correct it as soon as we can and update the page’s “last reviewed” date. If the mistake was about funding or eligibility, we’ll say on the page what changed.
Reviews and stories
We don’t publish reviews or stories from learners unless they’re real and the person has agreed. We don’t publish made-up examples presented as real people.
About us
Read more about Adult Education UK, including who runs the site and how it’s paid for.
Sources
- Overview - List of Qualifications approved for fundingqualifications.education.gov.uk
- Adult skills fund: funding and performance management rules 2026 to 2027gov.uk
Last reviewed: