Correspondence

ESFA Update academies: 2 October 2024

Published 2 October 2024

Applies to England

Action: Recording your T Level data accurately  

Making errors in your T Level data recording could have a significant financial impact. It could lead to a larger than expected recovery of funding at the T Level funding reconciliation point in early 2025.  

So that you can review your submitted data and make amendments where needed, we strongly encourage you to submit your:

• autumn school census before Wednesday 6 November 2024

• R04 before Thursday 5 December 2024

You can identify your T Level students, and the funding bands assigned to them using:

• your 16 to 19 funding reports in the funding information system (FIS)

• submit learner data if you complete the individual learner record (ILR)

• collections online - learners, education, children and teachers (COLLECT) if you complete the autumn census   

If some T Level students are not displaying as you expected, you can use the checklist in record your T Level data correctly in academic year 2024 to 2025 to make sure you have recorded all programme elements correctly.

Action: Submit your 16 to 19 tuition fund end of year spend for 2023 to 2024 by Friday 11 October 2024 

You must submit a digital form to tell us your tuition fund spend, if your organisation received 16 to 19 tuition funding for the academic year 2023 to 2024.  

You must submit the form by 5pm on Friday 11 October 2024.  

Failure to submit a report will result in the full recovery of your tuition funding for the 2023 to 2024 academic year.    

Guidance on how to complete the digital form is available in how to complete the 16 to 19 tuition fund: 2023 to 2024 form. 

Information: Core schools budget grant – allocations and conditions of grant for the 2024 to 2025 financial year 

As announced in July 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) is providing almost £1.1 billion through the core schools budget grant (CSBG). This is to support schools with their costs in the 2024 to 2025 financial year, in particular following confirmation of the 2024 teacher pay award.  

ESFA has now published schools’ and local authorities’ CSBG allocations. This includes funding for:

• mainstream schools and academies

• high needs settings

• local authorities employing centrally employed teachers

Alongside this, we have also published the conditions of grant.  

For 5 to 16 mainstream schools and high needs settings, we have taken a similar approach as for previous grants, such as the teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG), to distribute funding.   

The full impact of the teacher pay award will be felt across financial years 2024 to 2025, and 2025 to 2026. The CSBG for 2024 to 2025 covers the financial year 2024 to 2025 (the first seven-twelfths) part of the award. We will consider the impact of the full year’s costs of the teacher pay award on schools when considering 2025 to 2026 budgets (as well as appropriate arrangements for academies in the period April to August 2025).    

We will distribute the funding for early years settings through the early years budget grant (EYBG). We will allocate funding for post-16 schools through the post-16 schools budget grant. 

Information: Pupil premium allocations for 2024 to 2025 financial year – quarter 2 update 

We have published the quarter 2 update for the pupil premium allocations for 2024 to 2025 financial year. Quarter 2 payments will be made to academies on Tuesday 8 October 2024. 

As previously communicated, we are trialling a new approach to the way we provide pupil premium allocations to trusts. We’ve uploaded a statement to each academy trust’s folder on Document exchange showing the unsuppressed pupil premium allocations for the academies in that trust. Statements can be viewed and downloaded from trust folders in the ‘Documents received from ESFA’ section. 

We hope this improvement will provide you with greater clarity and make it easier for you to align pupil premium remittances with your allocations. We would be interested in your feedback. If you would like to help us by sharing your views, email [email protected] by Thursday 10 October 2024. 

Information: Universal infant free school meals allocations for new openers for 2024 to 2025 

We have now published universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) allocations for newly opened schools for the year 2024 to 2025.

These newly opened schools will receive a further final payment later in 2025, alongside those establishments who were paid an initial provisional allocation in June 2024.         

Information: Changes to the administration of the Care to Learn and 16 to 19 Bursary fund (defined vulnerable bursary) schemes from the academic year 2025 to 2026 

From the academic year 2025 to 2026, the Care to Learn (C2L) delivery model will change. There will no longer be an external student bursary support service (SBSS) to process applications and make payments.   

Institutions will be responsible for managing C2L applications from students. You will determine eligibility, and the amount of support required, as you do for other 16 to 19 student support schemes, like the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund. You will also be responsible for making payments to your students’ childcare providers.   

We recognise there are more administration activities for you in managing C2L. We will pay 5% on top of the total amount claimed per student, to contribute to those costs.  

There will also be a new arrangement for handling the bursary for defined vulnerable groups funding claims.   

You will need to request funding from us when you have completed your application assessment for C2L and the bursary for defined vulnerable groups. We will confirm the dates when you need to do this.   

We will provide more information in future ESFA Updates. If you need any support, use our customer help portal.  

Information: Post-16 schools budget grant 

The post-16 schools budget grant allocations and conditions of grant have now been published. 

We expect to pay the grant in:  

• November 2024 for local authorities  

• December 2024 for academies 

 

Webinar: DfE Academies chart of accounts and automation Q&A dial in session

2pm to 2:30pm, Wednesday 9 October 2024. Register online.

 

Webinar: Risk protection arrangement (RPA) members only: contractors workshop

10am to midday, Thursday 17 October 2024. Register online.

Webinar: Academy finance professionals power hour – land and buildings collection tool

   3pm to 4pm, Thursday 17 October 2024 Register on Eventbrite.

Webinar: DfE Academies chart of accounts mapping review workshop

11am to 12:30pm, Wednesday 23 October 2024 Register online.