The annual distribution of fees from the Further Education sector will be distributed slightly differently this year.

The reason for this is that CLA has undertaken a review of the Further Education licence rate card to ensure that it correctly reflects the student profile across this diverse sector. Currently CLA deploys a single tariff for the FE licence across all student types, including 16-19 year olds studying A-levels. However, it has been argued that if these students were studying at a school then the rate payable would be lower than that paid as students of FE colleges. As part of the review it has now been agreed that the current FE licence will be extended at the current rate until March 2012, at which point a new FE licence (currently under negotiation) will be issued, subject to agreement.

This means that in 2012, rather than receiving the usual 12 months’ fees in February, you will receive 7 months of fees based on the current rate. We then plan to distribute the remaining 5 months’ fees (to cover the full 2011/2012 academic year) in April 2012 at a revised post-review rate.

We will confirm the new rate as soon as an agreement is reached. 2013 will then see a single FE distribution in February as in previous years.

The February 2012 Further Education distribution also includes the allocation of £100k in fees from Independent Further Education colleges that had been held back from the February 2011 distribution pending further analysis of the survey data that accompanied the payment. Now that the data has been checked and fully validated by the CLA the fees have been cleared for distribution.

Also included in February is a distribution of foreign non-title specific fees. This constitutes fees from overseas reproduction rights organisations that do not provide title level data. The fees are allocated by PLS as a lump sum on a pro-rata basis based on your last 3-years’ title-specific allocations. 

Details of title level allocations will be available to view in PLSe w/c 6th February. You can find this in the Allocation Summary report within the Royalties section of your PLSe account. Publishers that have been allocated fees in this distribution and receive payment by BACS can expect to receive their payment w/c 6th February.

A full Distribution Timetable for 2012 is available here.