Guidance

Land and buildings collection tool: summary guidance for academies

Updated 26 November 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction to the online form

1.1 What is the land and buildings collection tool?

The land and buildings collection tool (LBCT) collects information about all of the land and buildings used by academy trusts and their academies. It’s a snapshot of your trust’s land and building assets at 31 August 2024.

The LBCT will also ask for information about non-land and building assets that academy trusts and their academies have leased at 31 August 2024.

This year’s LBCT deadline (12 November 2024) has now passed. If your trust has not yet submitted your LBCT, log into your return and complete your return as soon as possible.

You must complete the return if you had at least one open academy on 31 August 2024. Academies that transferred to your trust on or after 1 September 2024 will not be included in the return. Their previous trust will do this.

If you have church-owned land, your nominated diocesan user will need to review your return by the deadline as well. Make contact with your local diocese to discuss your return with them and allow a reasonable amount of time for diocesan review.

1.2 Why do we collect this information?

We need this information as it forms the basis of what we include as recognised assets in the Academies sector annual reports and accounts (SARA). This documentary evidence is reviewed by DfE as part of the SARA preparation and this forms the basis of audit evidence we present to our auditors, the National Audit Office. This is to ensure that values included in the SARA show an accurate consolidated view of the academy sector.

Whilst the academy trusts complete their annual accounts under the Academy Accounts Direction, the DfE consolidates the data within the SARA under different accounting standards. All information we request from trusts allows us to make any necessary adjustments to allow us to comply with these standards.

Other reasons why we collect the land and buildings information for the academy sector includes:

• trusts will be able to make effective decisions regarding resource allocation, asset valuation, and asset utilisation
• it ensures that academy trusts use public resources appropriately and are accountable for their assets management
• improving trusts’ decision-making process in the land and buildings areas
• trust can identify trends, gaps, or areas of improvement in their educational facilities
• they can also allocate resources effectively and adapt them to meet specific needs and challenges

Having access to comprehensive data on land and buildings ownership, condition, and use from academy trusts promotes transparency, accountability, and public trust.

1.3 Roles and responsibilities

There are 2 stages involved in submitting your return:

• the preparer collects all the data required and enters it into the form - they cannot submit it to DfE
• the approver checks the form for accuracy and completeness before submitting it to DfE

The approver can do everything, but from feedback from trusts, we’ve found that it’s best to split the roles.

Role	Action	Add Diocese Checker	Prepare the data	Approve the data	Submit the data
Preparer	Can complete the form	Yes	Yes	No	No
Approver	Can complete, amend and submit the form	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Diocese checker	Can approve only church owned land data	No	No	Yes (only church owned land data)	Yes (must confirm with approver)

The approver must be the trust’s accounting officer or someone they’ve authorised to undertake the role.

2. Updates to the form

When LBCT goes live it’ll be on DfE Sign-in (DSI) and IDAMs will no longer be operational. To find out more about DfE Sign-in click the link below

DfE Sign-in

DSI will ensure that users can access a wide variety of DfE systems using one set of login details. All trust users should have received an email from the DSI team about how to activate their DSI accounts. If you already have a DSI account there will be little to no action for you to complete.

The main updates we have introduced to the form this year are to improve the accuracy of the data we collect:

• we’ve added a new validation to ensure the occupancy agreement dates entered in the form are still valid at the date of the return. This validation will be triggered where the ‘date agreement started’ plus the agreement length suggests that the occupancy agreement might have expired. You will therefore be required to either update your occupancy with new agreements or tell us if you no longer have access to the occupancy or provide further explanation.
• we also ask you to tell us if there has been any recent rent review of your agreement

3. What you need to do

In order to access your trust’s LBCT form, you must activate your DfE Sign-in account and ensure LBCT is on your list of services.

3.1 If your trust completed the LBCT last year

Before you start, log into your DfE Sign-in account to check that you have the appropriate roles and permissions for the LBCT. If you have any queries about this use the customer help portal to get assistance.

Your return will be populated with the data submitted last year. You will need to check this data and update it to reflect your occupancies and assets held at 31 August 2024.

We advise downloading the report of your previous year’s return before starting the actual submission.

If you acquired any academies between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024, these will be flagged as ‘New’ on your dashboard. Their data will already be included if they completed the return last year. If not, you will need to complete a return for them.

3.2 If you are a new academy trust

If your trust opened its first academy after 31 August 2023, you must complete the return for all academies which are active on 31 August 2024.

Before you start, you will need to create an account on DfE Sign-in system.  This is where you manage your account and allocate user roles to complete the LBCT. For further information on this click the link below.

DfE Sign-in

If your academy name contains the word ‘Church’, ‘Anglican, RC, it is possible that you have church owned land. Speak to your local diocese to confirm if this is the case or not.

When you add an occupancy, you need to provide supporting documents and link them to the occupancy as you work through the form.

5 quick steps to complete your return:

1. Enter contact details.
2. Complete the leased asset section and centrally held asset section.
3. Review and update occupancy and asset information for each academy within your trust.
4. If any of your occupancies are on church-owned land, send for diocesan review.
5. Submit data to DfE.

Top tips for your LBCT 2024:

• use the LBCT workbook to familiarise yourself with the form’s sections and questions
• you must complete the section for your trust as well as all your academies
• have your fully signed lease documents ready to help complete the leased assets section. Make sure that the lease documents that you submit are the final document signed by the lessor.
• in the first part of the leased asset section, we only need to know how many lease contracts are held by category.
• note that you will only need to upload lease agreement document for ‘Motor vehicle’ and ‘Other’ categories
• each occupancy  must be linked to at least two documents. Make sure that the lease/licence documents that you submit are the final document signed by the landlord/lessor. If this is not available, explain why and when you expect the final document to be available.
• you must add land as an asset unless you have an exception, for example, a Royal Charter
• don’t forget to add your playing fields, even if they’re at a different location to your main site or where they’re provided by another organisation such as a local authority
• once every academy has a status of ‘Ready to submit to DfE’ press the green ‘Submit to DfE’ button on the dashboard for final submission to DfE

If any of your occupancies are on church-owned land, you will require diocesan review and approval.

You must:

• add or confirm diocese contact details
• ensure that the church-owned occupancies are reviewed by the diocese

If your academy name contains the word ‘Church’, ‘Anglican, RC, it is possible that you have church owned land. Speak to your local diocese to confirm if this is the case or not.

4. LBCT form structure and sections

4.1 Dashboard

The dashboard is your home page. It gives the status of all the returns you need to complete - for the trust and for each individual academy. You access your dashboard via the login page.

If you are a single academy trust (SAT), you must complete the trust section of the return (shown via the Companies House Number) as well as the academy section

As you progress through the return, it will pass through a number of status. You may not see all of these – some will only appear if the form has been ‘rejected’ to the preparer for more work, while others only appear if your trust needs to report on church-owned land.

Status	What it means
Started	A user (preparer or approver) is completing the form
Sent to approver	A preparer has sent the form to an approver for review
Recalled by preparer	A preparer has recalled the form from the approver, before the approver has started their review
Rejected by approver	An approver has rejected the form and sent it back to a preparer to amend
Resent to approver	A preparer has re-sent the form to an approver for review
Sent to diocese	An approver has sent the form for diocesan review
Recalled by approver	An approver has recalled the form from the diocesan user, before the diocesan user has started their review
In progress with diocese	A diocesan user has started to review the form
Rejected by diocese	A diocesan user has rejected the form and sent it back to the preparer and approver to amend
Resent to diocese	An approver has re-sent the form to a diocesan user for review
Ready to submit to DfE	An approver or a diocesan user has approved the form but has not submitted it yet
Submitted to DfE	No further action is required

4.2 Email notifications

If you are a SAT, the preparer or approver will get an email every time the form moves from one status to another – for example, when it’s sent to an approver or to a diocese checker.

If you are a multi-academy trust (MAT) or diocesan user, you will receive one summary email report every day, but only if there has been a status change in any of your academies in the previous day. You will also get an email at the point at which your return is submitted to DfE.

Diocese checkers will get one summary email for each academy trust that they have the diocesan user role for.

To ensure that you receive email notifications, we recommend that you check your inbox settings as some firewalls block auto-generated emails.

4.3 Contact Information

This section should be completed with at least one contact. This will help us if we need to get in touch with the trust.

If you have church owned land, there is a ‘Diocese contact’ section where you should enter the contact information for your diocesan user who will be reviewing and approving your church owned land information.

4.4 Confirm Academy trust leases and centrally held assets

4.4.1 Leased assets section

You need to tell us about any leased tangible assets you have at 31 August 2024 that are not land and buildings at both academy and trust level.

You’ll find more information about what information is needed, asset categories, uploading document agreements, other scenarios and case studies on our Leased assets guidance.

4.4.2 Centrally held assets

This is where you tell us about your centrally held assets. These are any land or buildings which do not form part of an academy and which are used solely by your head office. You may own, lease or rent them, or they may have been donated to the trust. You must complete this section even if you do not have any centrally held assets.

You can see an example case study on centrally held assets in the case studies section.

4.5 Downloading trust report

You can download your trust report as an Excel/pdf file. This file will always reflect the latest version of your return. This means that you can use it to:

• review the data from your 2023 return – providing you haven’t started to make any changes to the 2024 form
• review any data that has been saved in the online form at any stage leading up to completion
• keep a record of your 2024 return

We recommend that you download a copy of your return when you first log in to the form. If you are a MAT, this will include data on any academies which have transferred in.

4.6 Academy listing

This section includes all the academies within your trust.

Any academies which transferred into the trust on or after 1 September 2023 will be flagged as ‘New’.

Click on each academy link to review the academy information. You can amend existing information and add new occupancies, documents and assets.

5. Occupancies

Occupancy means the way each academy occupies the sites it uses. If you have a main academy site and a separate playing field, this counts as 2 occupancies. For each of your occupancies, we need details of:

• what it’s used for
• the occupancy type, for example freehold, leasehold or church-owned land

Each piece of land will have its own Land Registry document, which will set out the occupancy type.

Your school site plan and your Land Registry documents will help you identify how many pieces of land you occupy and how you occupy them.

5.1 Occupancy types

For each piece of land, you need to select an occupancy type from the options below.

Freehold: you own the land and are the landlord – the title deeds will state this.

Leasehold: (including Private Finance Initiatives you have a lease with your landlord and pay them rent for the term of the lease, for example 125 years at £500 per month.

Church-owned land: you occupy land owned by church trustees and you have a church supplemental agreement in place. It will usually have clauses about how you may use the land. If there’s no supplemental agreement, select ‘church lease’.

Church lease: a lease with the local diocese for use of church-owned land, which will also include a restrictive clause about the use of site.

Licence: a legal agreement with the owner to use their land.

Customary occupation: an informal standing arrangement which allows you to occupy the site.

Tenancy at will: a short-term agreement that allows you to use the land before a formal contract has been drawn up.

Development agreement: a contract between a property owner or developer, a local authority and potentially the Secretary of State. This is sometimes also referred to as a ‘Design and Build Contract Development Agreement’.

Other: this covers any type of occupancy not covered above, for example Royal Warrants.

If you’re unsure about what occupancy type to select, contact us via the customer help portal.

For each occupancy, you will need to confirm:

• the occupancy type
• when you first occupied the land
• whether you have disposed of an individual piece of land in the year
• any change to how you occupy the site

To add a new occupancy:

• use the ‘add another occupancy type’
• upload your supporting documents
• for some existing occupancies, we have added a small number of additional questions this year

Make sure you have the Land Registry title number to hand, as you’ll need to add this to each occupancy. You’ll find this at the top of the Title Deeds form, and it consists of 8 or 9 letters and numbers, for example, AA123456. In cases where you are a leaseholder, the leasehold Land Registry title number is the reference that we require.

5.1.1 How to identify leasehold agreement types

Due to the different accounting standards used between academy trusts and the department, we need to be able to identify how leases have been treated within trusts accounts. This enables us to make the necessary adjustments to allocate them correctly within the SARA under IFRS 16 which superseded IAS 17 as of 1 January 2019.

Below is a brief definition of finance and operating leases as per FRS 102 and further explanation to help you decide what type of lease your agreement is. A finance lease is a lease that lets an entity borrow an asset for a long time. The length of the lease is essentially equal to the life of the asset taken on lease and the company capitalises the leased asset in its accounts. The risks and rewards lie with the lessee.

An operating lease is a lease in which rental payments (usually monthly) are made by the trust to enable use of an asset without acquiring ownership of that asset. It is a type of lease in which the contract period is shorter than the useful economic life of the asset. Costs associated with operating leases are classified as expenses, not assets as are the case with finance leases. The risks and rewards lie with the lessor.

The majority of leaseholds held in the academy sector are 125 year leaseholds with the local authority. In these instances, select ‘finance lease’ and set the discount rate at zero.

Situations that would normally lead to a lease being classified as a finance lease include the following as per IAS 17.10:

• the lease transfers ownership of the asset to the lessee by the end of the lease term
• the lessee has the option to purchase the asset at a price which is expected to be sufficiently lower than fair value at the date the option becomes exercisable that, at the inception of the lease, it is reasonably certain that the option will be exercised
• the lease term is for the major part of the economic life of the asset, even if title is not transferred
• at the inception of the lease, the present value of the minimum lease payments amounts to at least substantially all of the fair value of the leased asset
• the lease assets are of a specialised nature such that only the lessee can use them without major modifications being made

5.1.2 Church-owned land

If your trust has any church-owned land, this information (and any linked documents) will need to be reviewed by a diocesan user.

You’ll need to ensure that:

• you enter the correct details for diocesan users to give them access to the LBCT return
• they can login and see your trust
• you agree timescales and deadlines
• you’re in agreement about whether your trust approver or the diocesan user will submit the return to DfE

The diocesan user will only be able to access and view data and supporting documents about church-owned land.

If the diocesan user is not content with the church owned-land entered in the form, they will reject it back to the academy trust with comments outlining what changes are needed. The preparer can edit the form without the approver rejecting it, the approver must approve the changes before resubmitting it to the diocesan user.

Your diocesan user can submit your return on your behalf, but only if all academies within the trust and the trust itself have the status ‘Ready to submit to DfE’ – not just those with church-owned land.

The approver or diocesan user must submit the return by deadline.

If the diocesan user cannot log into the return, confirm that the email address you have for them is correct – check for spaces, special characters, extra letters or numbers. If this is the case, they’ll need to be set up as a new user. They must contact their church body to do this - this will be the:

• Catholic Education Service (CES)
• Church of England Education Office (CofEEO)

5.2 Creating a site map for your occupancy

A site map needs to:

• show your entire site
• show each occupancy, with boundaries clearly marked
• show (and provide a name and reference number for) each asset

You can work from your academy’s site plan, or from an image generated by Google Maps.

If you use Google Maps, you need to use ‘Satellite view’, as this will show features such as buildings and sports fields more clearly.

There are two styles of site maps shown here as an example:

This is a sample site map to upload to the document store

This shows an alternate site for an academy that has been taken using generic satellite mapping software

According to this map, Coketown has the following occupancies and assets:

Occupancy	Route	Asset
Occupancy 1 - Woodlands	Church owned land	A11 - land
Occupancy 2 - Main site	Freehold	A21 - Land and playing fields, A22 - Main school block, A23 - Sixth form block, A24 - Basketball/netball courts, A25 - Arts and drama block, A26 - Y7 - 9 MUGA
Occupancy 3 - Sixth Form Area	Leasehold	A 31 - Land

6. Uploading documents

You will upload and manage any existing documents while you’re working through the occupancy part of the form. The form will show you documents previously uploaded, you will need to review these to ensure that they are still relevant. Any documents that are no longer applicable can be removed. These will be archived within the DfE document store and you will not see them in your LBCT return next year.

For each occupancy, you will need to link the supporting documents listed in the table below, make sure that they’re the latest versions.

A document can be linked to more than one occupancy - this will often be the case with a site map. An occupancy will always have at least 2 documents linked to it.

The following table shows the required documents that should be linked to each occupancy type. You can use PDF, JPEG, GIF and PNG formats. The documents will need to be smaller than 23mb.

Occupancy	Required documents
Freehold	Site map and Land registry register of title
Leasehold	Site map and Land registry register of title and fully signed lease agreement (i.e. signed by the lessor and the trust).
Church-owned land	Site map and Land registry register of title and fully signed Church Supplemental Agreement.
Church lease	Site map and Land registry register of title and fully signed lease agreement (i.e. signed by the lessor and the trust).
Customary occupation	Site map Land registry register of title and documentation to indicate that customary occupation is consensual
Licence	Site map and Land registry register of title and signed licence agreement
Tenancy at will	Site map and Land registry register of title and signed tenancy at will
Development agreement	Site map and Land registry register of title and Design and build contract

If you have several occupancies on a single site map, you need to upload the site map to every occupancy.

If any of the above documents refer to “plan of the land included”, this needs to be included with the document that is uploaded.

7. Assets

After you have added all occupancy types for your academy and linked all documents, you will be asked to add the assets that sit on each occupancy. These include:

• playing fields
• land for the site or sites
• land for buildings if no other land is recorded on that occupancy
• swimming pools, tennis courts etc.
• buildings, such as classrooms, offices or a caretaker’s house

What’s the difference between an asset and an occupancy?

Assets are the physical properties (land, buildings (offices or classrooms), caretaker’s house, etc.) that have long-term financial value for the owners. Meanwhile, occupancies (leaseholds, church leases, freeholds, licences, etc.) refer to how trusts use those assets for a specific purpose. In occupancy agreements, the trust has the right to use an asset for a defined period of time but does not own it.

How to record assets:

• if the asset has had any capital improvements or is under construction let us know
• if the asset has been sublet provide details
• if the asset has been disposed of state when and how this was done
• state when any buildings were constructed
• if a single building has multiple uses such as offices and classrooms then select ‘mixed use’

If you’re unsure about how to record buildings, use the table below as a guide.

Scenario	Action
If you can walk around the exterior of the building, ignoring perimeter fencing	Enter as a single building
If the building was constructed over 2 or more periods and has no internal passageway between them	Enter as many buildings as per phases of development
If the building has an internal passageway between several buildings which were constructed at significantly different times, for example the 1950s and 1990s	Enter each development period as a separate building
If the building has an internal passageway between several buildings which were built at similar times, for example 2015 and 2020	Enter as a single building

You must add each asset in turn, for each academy in your trust, as well as for the trust itself. Name each asset on the sites you occupy using a brief description that is meaningful to you. You must account for all buildings on the site, even if they are not used for educational purposes. Include temporary assets such as portable temporary structures.

If you have not included any land as an asset on an occupancy, you will need to explain why.

You can see example case studies on temporary assets and how to enter a sublet in the ‘case studies’ section.

8. Completing your return

Before the LBCT return can be submitted to the DfE, it must be approved – but only when every status on your dashboard is marked ‘Ready to submit to DfE’. This can be done by the academy trust approver or the diocesan user where there is church-owned land.

8.1 Approvers – how to review your return

If you are the approver and all academies and the trust itself have the status ‘Sent to approver’, there are 2 ways you can approve the return:

• link by link – review each academy and your trust, and accept or reject each one individually
• using the ‘Approve all’ button – use this only if you are satisfied that the preparer has input their data correctly

You can then submit the return by pressing the ‘Submit to DfE’ button. You and the preparer will each get an email confirming that we’ve received the return, and that you do not need to do anything else.

Diocesan users have specific guidance on how they should approve returns with church-owned land.

8.2 Approvers - rejecting the return

If you do not think the information entered is correct or complete, you can amend this data or alternatively, click the ‘reject’ button, and add your reasons for rejection. The preparer will get an email but we recommend that you contact them to let them know. They will then have to go back into the form and:

• review the reasons you’ve given
• make any changes they agree with
• re-send the form for you to approve or send back for further changes

9. Reports

You can download last year’s report before you start working on this year’s return. In addition, you can also download a copy of this year’s trust’s data from the dashboard or from each academy’s review page.

10. Case Studies- land and buildings

Quick link
Sublets	Caretaker’s House
Capital improvement	Private finance initiative (PFI)
Temporary assets	Development agreements

10.1 Centrally-held assets

These are any land and buildings owned or occupied by the trust which are not part of an academy, for example a separate headquarters site for a MAT or an investment property.

Example scenario

Coketown MAT is made up of 9 academies located across the UK. The trust has a designated team of staff who look after centralised services such as finance, estates and HR. These staff are based in a rented office space in Coventry. The trust leases this space and pays for it from a central pot of funds. This office is not linked to any of the academies within the trust. The trust also owns a freehold piece of land in Yorkshire where they have built a sports centre which is used by the local community.

How to record on the LBCT

On the trust link for Coketown Multi-academy trust, enter 2 occupancy types.

Occupancy 1:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Office block in Coventry
Type	Leasehold
Used for education purposes	No
Documents to link	Leasehold agreement and site map
Asset 1 description	Central office
Asset 1 type	Building
Asset 1 ‘No land’ comment	The lease is for the office only, not the land

Occupancy 2:

Occupancy 2	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Sports centre in Yorkshire
Type	Freehold
Documents to link	Land registry title and site map
Asset 1 description	Coketown sports centre
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 2 description	Coketown sports centre
Asset 2 type	Building
Used for education purposes	No

10.2 Sublets

Subletting means letting out property (or part of it) to another tenant through a separate lease agreement known as a ‘sub-lease’. This is to record any sublets where the Academy Trust is subletting a property to another tenant

Example scenario

Coketown Primary Academy has a 125-year long leasehold agreement with Coventry City Council. The school has a main school block and a separate building which they have sublet to a dance school for 1 year.

How to record on the LBCT

A sublet asset should only be entered on the LBCT where a formal agreement has been drawn up.

On the academy link for Coketown Primary, enter one occupancy type:

Occupancy 1:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site
Type	Leasehold
Documents to link	Leasehold agreement and site map
Asset 1 name	Main school site
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 2 name	Main school block
Asset 2 type	Building
Asset 3 name	Self-contained building
Asset 3 type	Building

Additional building asset questions

Asset 3 sublet?	Yes
Asset 3 sublet to?	Community dance school
Asset 3 sublet length?	1 year

10.3 Caretaker’s House

This is any building which is solely occupied by the academy caretaker, either rent-free or at a nominal rent. This is usually below market rent.

Example scenario

Coketown Secondary Academy has a 125-year long leasehold agreement with Coventry City Council for the school’s site. There is a main school block building and a residential building which is occupied by the school caretaker as part of their terms of employment.

How to record on the LBCT

A caretaker’s house should always be entered as an asset. Where it is occupied by the school caretaker as part of their terms of employment and the rent is free or below market value, the asset should not be marked as a ‘sublet’ – you should only record it as a sublet if the caretaker’s rent is at or close to the market rate.

On the academy link for Coketown Secondary, enter one occupancy type:

Occupancy 1:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site
Type	Leasehold
Documents to link	Leasehold agreement and site map
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 1 name	Main school site
Asset 2 name	Main school block
Asset 2 type	Building
Asset 3 name	Caretaker’s house
Asset 3 type	Building
Sublet	no

10.4 Capital improvement

This refers to any works that increase an asset’s value, prolong its useful life or adapt it to new uses. This excludes repairs or maintenance such as paint touch-ups, minor fixes or elevator maintenance. For the LBCT we only need to know about capital work that increases the number of pupils that can attend your academy. We do not need to know about any major refurbishment that prolong the useful life of your buildings.

Example scenario

Coketown Secondary Academy has a 125-year long leasehold agreement with Coventry City Council. On this site, they have an admin office block and the main school block. The main school block is currently undergoing a major structural change which will increase the number of classrooms.

How to record on the LBCT

All building assets should be entered on the LBCT. For the ‘Main School Block’ asset, answer ‘Yes’ for capital improvements in-year.

On the academy link for Coketown Secondary, enter one occupancy type:

Occupancy 1.

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site
Type	Leasehold
Documents to link	Leasehold agreement and site map
Add asset to Leasehold
Asset 1 name	Main school site
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 2 name	Admin office
Asset 2 type	Building
Asset 3 name	Main school block
Asset 3 type	Building
Capital improvements in-year?	Yes

10.5 Private finance initiative (PFI)

In a PFI contract, a private consortium will undertake to finance, design, deliver and maintain a project such as a school. The local authority will then make regular payments to the consortium. The trust is not a signatory to the PFI arrangement: its relationship is solely with the local authority. Any payments it makes to the local authority are lease payments on the academy site.

If a PFI arrangement exists, the LBCT form is not interested in the PFI contract for the design and build of the school, but only in the arrangement for the occupancy of the academy site.

Example scenario

Coketown Junior Academy joined the Coketown MAT in September last year. Prior to that, it was a local authority maintained school: the local authority entered into a contract with a private construction company to finance and build a new school block on the existing academy site. When the academy joined Coketown MAT, it had already entered into a 125-year lease agreement with the authority for the occupancy of the academy site. The lease agreement started in September 2018 and agreed monthly lease payments were £2,000.

How to record on the LBCT

The LBCT looks at the occupancy of the school site, not the PFI agreement. In many cases where a school was built with a PFI, the land is leased to the school on a 125-year sublease from the authority. The academy trust is not part of the PFI arrangement so payments are to the authority.

The lease length is whatever is recorded in the lease agreement with the authority– not the length of the PFI agreement.

On the academy link for Coketown Junior, enter one occupancy type:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site and playing field
Type	Leasehold
Landlord name	Coventry City Council
Leasehold monthly payment	£2,000
Date lease started	September 2018
Leasehold length	125 years

Asset 1 name	Main school site and playing fields
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 2 name	Main school block
Asset 2 type	Building

10.6 Temporary assets

These are assets that are identified within an occupancy type which are not permanent in nature, such as lower quality portable temporary structures.

Example scenario

Coketown Secondary School owns 2 pieces of land a few miles down the road from the main school site. One of these is used as a playing field and the other has been unused since it was acquired. The only thing on it is an electricity substation that belongs to the National Grid.

On the main school site, they have one school block which has classrooms and the school hall. There is a swimming pool and 2 portable temporary structures that were hired by the school and used temporarily as changing rooms when the changing area in the swimming pool was being refurbished. The portable temporary structures were last used as changing rooms last December. The school has 4 more portable temporary structures that are used as classrooms, with no plans to replace them.

How to record on the LBCT

On the academy link for Coketown secondary, enter three occupancy types:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Playing fields
Type	Freehold
Asset 1 name	Playing fields
Asset 1 type	Land

Occupancy 2	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Unused piece of land
Type	Freehold
Asset 1 name	Unused land
Asset 1 type	Land
Is the asset unused?	Yes
Unused from date	September 2001

There is no need to enter substation as an asset.

Occupancy 3	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site
Type	Freehold
Asset 1 name	Main school site land
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 2 name	School Block - classrooms and school hall
Asset 2 type	Building
Asset 2 primary use	Mixed use
No. of classrooms	30
Asset 3 name	Portable temporary structures
Asset 3 type	Building
Asset 3 temporary or permanent?	Temporary
Is the asset unused?	Yes
Unused from date	December 2018
Has the occupancy ceased in year?	Yes
Date occupancy ceased	December 2018
Reason occupancy ended	Other
Comment	Used as temporary changing rooms during pool refurbishment; to be returned to hirer
Asset 4 name	Portable temporary structures- classrooms
Asset 4 type	Building
Asset 4 temporary or permanent?	Temporary
Is the asset unused?	No
Has the occupancy ceased in year?	No

10.7 Development agreements

Example scenario

Coventry City Council commissions a firm to design and build a new school on 1 December 2021. The council sets up a development agreement with Coketown Academy Trust, which will open an academy on the new site on 1 September 2022. They will be granted a 125 year lease by the council, which starts once the design and build project is complete - usually close to the date that the academy opens. Until the lease is signed and the academy can start using the site, the relationship between the council and the trust is contained in the development agreement.

How to record on the LBCT

The lease will start only once the project is completed, so until this happens and the lease is signed, the occupancy should be recorded as a development agreement.

Occupancy 1:

Occupancy 1	Enter into LBCT form
Description	Main school site
Type	Development agreement
Documents to link	Development agreement
Asset 1 type	Land
Asset 1 name	Main school site
Asset 2 type	Building
Asset 2 name	Main school block

11. Glossary of terms

Phrase	Explanation
Asset	Property or land for example playing fields, buildings and the land they stand on
Capital improvements	Capital work that increases the number of pupils that can attend your academy
Centrally-held assets	Any land and buildings which are not part of an academy school, for example a separate administrative site
Finance lease	A lease that lets an entity borrow an asset for a long time. The length of the lease is essentially equal to the life of the asset taken on lease and the company capitalises the leased asset in its accounts
DFE Sign-in system (DSI)	New registration portal for setting up and updating user role
Lease: under IFRS 16	A lease is defined as a contract that gives to a lessee the right to use an identified asset for a period of time in return for consideration
Lessee	Whoever holds the lease for a property
Lessor	The person who leases or lets a property
Mixed use	Where a building is used for multiple purposes, for example as classrooms and also as a sports hall
Occupancy type	The way the academy occupies the land it uses
Operating lease	An arrangement where the risk and rewards of owning the assets lies with the lessor company. The lessee only pays a rental sum for the use of the asset and returns it at the end of its lease term
Peppercorn rent	A token rent below £100 a year, fixed for the whole term of the lease
Sitemap	This will include land boundaries for each occupancy, asset names, annotations and colour coding
Sublease	A lease of a property by a tenant to a subtenant
Temporary asset	Any building with a lifespan of 5 years or less, or any buildings about to be demolished excluding storage sheds or electric substations

12. Privacy notices 

This section explains how the Department for Education (DfE) uses personal information in academy trust data collections. This includes information you give to us, or information that we may collect about you. 

We receive your personal data from the online forms you complete. This is part of the information telling us how your trust budgets and spends its money. 

The aim for this project is to provide an online service for trusts to send their financial data to the department. 

This is a requirement from the HM Treasury to account for the spending of public funds. 

You can find out more about how we use your data in:  

Privacy information: education providers’ workforce, including teachers 

Privacy information: stakeholders