Schools - Transactions

Education Maintenance Allowance - new procedure for learning agreements

We have been working hard to process applications over the past month, and we now have almost 300 pupils approved. We will be emailing the award letters and learning agreements this week.

In the current climate we are trying as far as possible to reduce the need for paper forms, therefore the way we deal with learning agreements is changing. Pupils and parents will continue to sign parts 1 and 2 of the agreement, but instead of this being handed into school to sign part 3, the form will instead be sent directly to Transactions. We will ask you to confirm the awarded pupils separately by completing a spreadsheet. This will contain details of awarded pupils and it will be emailed every week. You need to confirm the pupils are undertaking at least 21 hours guided learning and therefore eligible for EMA payments.

Schools will be asked to nominate a designated contact – this can be an individual or a generic mailbox, such as the school’s admin account. However, if designating an individual, arrangements should be made to cover absence and Transactions notified in advance.

The full details of the procedure will be shared with our EMA contacts soon, together with the payment schedule.

P1 and S1 Intake 2021

Development of an online registration form is progressing well and is currently undergoing user testing. Once testing is complete and we are ready to go live we will let you know.

In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, please check your N5 and P7 pupil addresses on SEEMiS are verified with a UPRN (unique property reference number). The UPRN is important as we use this to determine the catchment schools.

You can run the Custom Report 'No UPRN' to view all current pupils in your school who don't have a UPRN. Its good practice to run this regularly.

If you have any, simply go to Records > Edit and in the address tab, click on the 'Verify Address' button and choose the pupil's address. This will populate the UPRN automatically.

We will be issuing letters to parents soon after Tuesday 13 October to confirm their catchment schools for children starting P1 and S1. The catchment schools will be based on the UPRN held on SEEMiS, so the records need to be up to date by then.

Please note:
•    some addresses will have a different format (i.e. 22 (3f1) may appear as 22/7) so you may need to check this with the parent first.
•    if the address does not show when you click on verify address, check you have the right postcode - check it here: www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode
•    properties in new build developments may not yet be uploaded to SEEMiS, in this case you cannot verify the address and the UPRN will remain blank.

Contacting the transactions team

Our contact form on the Orb went live in February 2019 and this is our preferred form of contact for schools, as we prioritise these above existing mail so you get a prompt response.

However, we are still receiving emails to generic mailboxes and officers' individual mailboxes.

All our incoming mail and enquiries are scanned into a document management system and then allocated for processing (normally oldest mail first). This enables us to constantly monitor the volume of enquiries and resource accordingly. 

If enquiries are sent to our generic mailboxes it can often take some time before we can respond due to the volumes received.

When you use the contact form, please keep enquiries to a minimum where possible. Many enquiries are simply asking for progress on a parent's application. If the parent has applied, we will process the application and notify them of the outcome so please advise the parent to wait for us to contact them. In most cases parents should be contacting us directly.

Click here to access our contact form.

Next update

The next update will follow later this month when details of the procedure for P1 and S1 Intake will be shared. This page on the Orb will also be updated around the same time detailing the process.