Updates to school capital funding information

The latest updates to the DfE’s school capital funding information

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 where funds are 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 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) and sponsors;
• sixth-form colleges;
• special schools not maintained by the local authority;
• special post-16 institutions with eligible students.

Eligibility for SCA for the 2023-24 financial year

Schools are either part of bodies eligible for SCA or are eligible for CIF, depending 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-eligible schools have been invited to bid into the fund for 2023-24. If a school has been invited to bid for CIF in the 2023-24 financial year, their responsible body will not receive any SCA funding on their behalf. Schools invited to apply to CIF should, therefore, apply for funding if they have condition investment requirements.

To receive direct SCA, multi-academy trusts and VA bodies must meet both eligibility criteria. These are:

• the trust or VA body must have had five 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 2021-22 individualised learner record (ILR).

For special and alternative-provision schools (including pupil referral units) the DfE multiply the pupil count by 4.5 for the purposes of SCA eligibility for the 2023-24 financial year; for example, the DfE 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.

To establish eligibility, the DfE counts all pupils that are sole, dual-main, or dual-subsidiary enrolled. If pupils are registered at more than one institution, the DfE divides the count by the number of institutions the pupil is registered at – for example, pupils dual registered at a mainstream school and a pupil referral unit would have their count divided by two at both institutions. For nursery schools and sixth forms, the DfE uses the number of full-time equivalent pupils, rather than headcount.

The DfE notifies academy trusts and VA school bodies that are eligible for SCA each 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 2022-23 financial year

Capital funding is based on financial years. For the latest funding amounts see:

• School capital funding allocations for 2022-23 (ODS, 2.23 MB).
• School capital funding allocations for 2022-23 (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 2.08 MB).

How the funding is calculated

See condition funding methodology for 2022-23 (PDF, 347 KB, 15 pages) for information on eligibility and how the funding is calculated.