ILR Tools

About the ILR

The ILR is the main learner-level data return for further education and skills providers in England. It exists so publicly funded learning can be recorded consistently, checked for quality, used to calculate funding, and reported in statistics.

What do ISR and ILR mean?

ISR

Individual Student Record. The earlier student-level data return used by further education colleges before the ILR. It recorded individual enrolments and student characteristics for funding, planning, and statistical purposes.

ILR

Individualised Learner Record. The successor learner-level return for the wider further education and skills sector. It records learners, aims, funding, outcomes, destinations, and monitoring information for each academic year.

From ISR to ILR XML

The data collection moved from a student record to a learner record, and then from fixed-width flat files to XML returns.

  1. 1992 to 1994

    ISR

    The ISR was the FEFC-era student-level return for incorporated further education colleges, supporting funding, audit, and national analysis after the 1992 further education reforms.

  2. 2002 to 2012

    ILR Flat File

    The ILR replaced the ISR as the Learning and Skills Council brought FE and work-based learning data into a single individualised learner return. These ILR submissions used fixed-width flat files.

  3. 2012 onwards

    ILR XML

    The ILR moved to XML, allowing the file structure to represent nested learners, learning deliveries, employment status records, and related monitoring fields more clearly than the flat-file format.

Who is ILR data returned to?

The organisation receiving or managing the return has changed as the English further education funding system has been reorganised.

  1. 6 May 1992 to 31 March 2001

    FEFC

    The Further Education Funding Council for England funded further education colleges and collected the ISR.

  2. 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2010

    LSC

    The Learning and Skills Council replaced the FEFC and Training and Enterprise Councils, taking responsibility for planning and funding post-16 learning outside higher education.

  3. 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2012

    SFA + YPLA

    The LSC was replaced by the Skills Funding Agency for adult skills and apprenticeships, while young people's funding moved to Young People's Learning Agency from 1 April 2012.

  4. 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2017

    SFA + EFA

    The YPLA was replaced by the Education Funding Agency from 1 April 2012.

  5. 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2025

    ESFA

    The Education and Skills Funding Agency was formed by merging the SFA and EFA, bringing education, apprenticeships, and skills funding into one executive agency.

  6. From 1 April 2025

    DfE

    ESFA functions transferred into the core Department for Education, so ILR collection and related services now sit under DfE.