Department For Education
Overview
The Department for Education allocates funding each year to help maintain and improve the condition of school buildings and grounds.
In any given financial year, eligible schools can access funding through either:
- school condition allocations (SCA), with funds paid to eligible bodies responsible for maintaining school buildings
- the condition improvement fund (CIF), a bidding round with funds paid directly to single academy trusts, small multi-academy trusts (MATs), small voluntary aided (VA) bodies and sixth-form colleges
In addition, devolved formula capital (DFC) is allocated for individual schools and other eligible institutions to spend on capital projects that meet their own priorities.
Who the funding is for
School condition funding includes capital allocations for:
- local authorities and local-authority-maintained schools, including maintained nursery schools
- local voluntary-aided bodies and voluntary-aided schools
- academies and large multi-academy trusts (MATs)
- sixth-form colleges
- special schools not maintained by the local authority
- special post-16 institutions with eligible students
Eligibility for SCA for the 2023 to 2024 financial year
Schools are either part of bodies eligible forSCAor are eligible forCIFdepending on their size and type.
Local authorities, larger MATs and larger VA school bodies receive direct SCA to invest in priorities across the schools for which they are responsible. Smaller academy trusts, smaller VA bodies and sixth-form colleges are instead able to bid into the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF).
CIF eligible schools have been invited to bid into the fund for 2023 to 2024. If a school has been invited to bid for CIF in the 2023 to 2024 financial year, their responsible body will not receive any SCA funding on their behalf. Schools invited to CIF should therefore apply for funding if they have condition investment requirements.
To receive direct SCA, multi-academy trusts and VA bodies must have met both eligibility criteria:
- the trust or VA body must have had 5 or more open schools at the start of September 2022
- those open schools (or their predecessor schools) must have had at least 3,000 pupils counted in the spring 2022 census or the 2021 to 2022 individualised learner record (ILR)
For special and alternative-provision schools (including pupil referral units), we multiply the pupil count by 4.5 for the purposes of SCA eligibility for the 2023 to 2024 financial year. For example, we would count a MAT with 1,000 pupils in special schools as having 4,500 pupils. This reflects the fact that these schools tend to have lower pupil numbers for their size and more complex facilities.
For eligibility, we count all pupils that are sole, dual-main, or dual-subsidiary enrolled. If pupils are registered at more than one institution, we divide the count by the number of institutions that the pupil is registered at. For example, pupils dual registered at a mainstream school and a pupil referral unit (PRU) would have their count divided by 2 at both institutions.
For nursery schools and sixth forms, we use the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) pupils rather than headcount.
We notify academy trusts andVAschool bodies that are eligible forSCAeach autumn. Eligibility should not be assumed unless it has been confirmed.
All of these institution types are eligible for devolved formula capital.
Funding allocations for the 2023 to 2024 financial year
Capital funding is based on financial years. For the final funding amounts for the financial year 2023 to 2024 see:
How the funding is calculated
See for information on eligibility and how the funding is calculated.
What you can spend it on
See for guidance on the purpose of the funding, what you can spend it on and over what time period.
Additional school capital funding for the 2022 to 2023 financial year
In 2022 to 2023, eligible schools and sixth-form colleges received an allocation from an additional 447 million of capital funding to improve energy efficiency. This is part of an additional 500 million of capital funding for schools and further education institutions in England.
This funding was for institutions that were eligible for devolved formula capital in 2022 to 2023.
See:
Allocations are for individual institutions. Payments may have gone through local authorities, dioceses or multi-academy trusts to pass to their schools.
What you can spend additional school capital funding on
You must spend this funding on capital projects, prioritising projects that improve your school estates energy efficiency. Where you judge this is not appropriate based on local circumstances, you have discretion to spend this on other capital projects.
We expect you to have spent the funding in the financial year 2022 to 2023. However, normal terms of devolved formula capital apply, meaning you have an additional 2 financial years to spend the funding.
If you have doubts about what is capital expenditure, get local