Hi
You do need to read it all, sorry. But this makes me realise that the web page must be ambiguous so I will try and fix it. I'd be grateful if you could go back and have another read of the link Julie provided (because I'm not allowed to link to my own website) and tell me what you think.
There are a number of different categories of 14-16s at college and different ways in which the funding is agreed.
#1 The student is a registered pupil at school but attends one (or more) days a week at college. The fees are paid by the school, which also retains overall responsibility
#2 The student is working above the level which could be provided in a school. (That's the category you have picked out; I don't know of any of these cases so I don't know what the usual arrangements are, but whatever they are, they will continue.)
#3 The student wants to do a college course which is specifically designed for 14-16s which in most cases will be the same as the ones where school children go one day a week but could be a full time course (very probably vocational, maybe generally provided for children with "problems") The fees for this always used to be paid by the local authority via Alternative Provision Funding, but AP funding has now ceased.
#4 The student wants to do a college course where everyone else on the course happens to be over-16 and may in some cases be much older, for example a GCSE re-take course, or a 16+ vocational course (if they can fulfil the eligibility criteria) In the last few years the fees for this did start to be paid by the local authority via Alternative Provision Funding but AP funding doesn't exist any more.
#5 The student wants to go to college for a specially designed new 14-16 programme which has a more academic slant to it than the traditional 14-16 FE provision. This is the new thing which is set to replace Alternative Provision Funding and which fits in with a huge overhaul of funding for all settings from nursery through to higher education.
Effectively what the Education Funding Agency (ie the Department for Education) is saying to colleges is:
"We know most of you aren't ready to go the whole hog with #5 so we'd like to make it clear that you can still get paid for #2 #3 and #4 (bearing in mind that you'll still get paid for #1 anyway)"
There has been an urgent need to spell this out in time for college starting in September 2013 because all the home educators who asked about college places for under-16s were being told that the college wasn't doing the new scheme yet and therefore the college wouldn't be taking ANY under-16s unless they were on the roll of a school.
The driver for the change has been the All Party Parliamentary Group for Home Education which ran an event to raise awareness of this issue at Westminster last month.
I hope that makes a bit more sense?!