The Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Education (DfE), and exists to fund education and skills training for children, young people and adults in England.

The further education (FE) and skills sector comprises around 1,500 colleges and training organisations ("providers"), employers and around 1,000 organisations with which colleges and training organisations subcontract.

Providers that receive funding directly from the ESFA need to return data relating to their learners and learning programmes in the form of Individualised Learner Records (ILRs). The ESFA uses this data for a number of purposes, including:
• calculating the funding earned by providers,
• comparing actual volumes and costs against contracted levels,
• providing management information, including performance indicators, which are used to manage the current programmes and also to assist with the development of future programmes,
• providing information about the effectiveness of the learning programmes in terms of who they reach, what learning they receive and what outcomes are subsequently achieved,
• ensuring that the public money distributed through the ESFA is being spent in line with government targets for quality and value for money, for planning, and to make the case for the sector in seeking further funding.

The Provider Data Self-Assessment Toolkit (PDSAT) is a tool for analysing learner and learning delivery data. It interrogates ILR data and produces reports on this data, so that providers can identify and investigate potential anomalies in their ILR data and correct the data where necessary. This reduces the risk of returning inaccurate ILR data to the ESFA.
The ESFA is looking to procure the ongoing development, technical maintenance and support of the (PDSAT) suite of interrogative reports and assurance sampling software. The successful contractor will be awarded a contract for a two-year period for the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 funding years. There will also be the option for extend for a further two years on to be reviewed an annual basis for the funding years 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 funding years.