Details

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) closed on 31 March 2025. All activity has moved to the Department for Education (DfE). You should continue to follow this guidance.

PDSAT is a tool for analysing learner and learning delivery data. It interrogates individual learner record (ILR) data and produces reports on this data, so that providers can identify and investigate potential anomalies in the ILR data.

We have developed PDSAT:

• to include new functionality for the 2023 to 2024 funding year
• maintain existing functionality applicable from the 2021 to 2022 funding year onwards

PDSAT will process ILR data for all funding years from 2021 to 2022.

It is providers’ responsibility to implement processes to ensure that they return timely and accurate data in their ILRs.

We encourage providers to use PDSAT to regularly check ILR data reducing the risk of:

• overclaiming funds from ESFA
• repayment of funds

Reviewing PDSAT reports: user guide

The user guide is for providers who are required to maintain ILR data and ensure it is complete and accurate. This includes:

• colleges
• independent training providers
• employer-providers
• other organisations

The guide is also used to deliver funding audits and other reviews by

• the ESFA and accountancy firms
• external and internal auditors

This guide does not explain how to use the PDSAT software. You can access the ‘PDSAT User Guide’ in the documentation section of the tool, within the ‘settings’ tab.

Registering your organisation for PDSAT

If you have not yet registered to use PDSAT, you must request the creation of a new organisation.

Older versions of PDSAT

A desktop version of PDSAT is available for funding years from 2016 to 20217 through to 2021 to 2022.

Further support

If you have any problems running PDSAT, or have any queries please contact the PDSAT helpdesk.