Correspondence

ESFA Update academies: 13 March 2024

Published 13 March 2024

Applies to England

Action: Use your National Tutoring Programme funding by 31 August 2024

A common misconception that some schools have about the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), is that their funding allocation must be spent in full. 

You can choose how much of your allocation is spent, depending on your school’s needs and priorities. When planning to deliver tutoring, remember: 

• your NTP grant can be used to subsidise 50% of tutoring costs, with your school contributing the other 50% 
• the total cost of tutoring should not exceed the maximum hourly per-pupil rates set out in the guidance for schools 
• you can use our calculator tool to help plan and track your tutoring 
• you have until Saturday 31 August 2024 to spend your school’s NTP funding allocation – this cannot be rolled over into a future academic year

From the 2024 to 2025 academic year onwards, we encourage schools to continue to deliver tutoring using core budgets, such as pupil premium.

Action: Help shape energy buying solutions in schools

Are you curious about the future of energy procurement in schools?  

We’re keen to hear from you if you are purchasing energy in local authority-maintained schools, single-academy trust schools, and multi-academy trust schools (with 5 or fewer schools).    

Complete our brief 10-minute survey by Wednesday 20 March 2024, about how schools manage gas and electricity. Your response will be anonymous and confidential.

Action: Submit your school resource management self-assessment checklist

This is a reminder that the school resource management self-assessment tool is now open for academy trusts to complete and to return by Friday 15 March 2024. 

All academy trusts with an open academy on 31 December 2023 must submit a checklist. 

We have been made aware that question 19 and 20 are missing a ‘not applicable’ option. If these questions are not applicable to your trust, please answer ‘No’ and provide a comment stating for:  

• Q19: ‘No cumulative surplus has been forecast.’ 
• Q20: ‘No cumulative deficit has been forecast.’

Information: 16 to 19 funding allocation statements for 2024 to 2025

Last week we issued 16 to 19 allocation statements for most school and academy sixth forms, and this week we’ve started to upload them for further education colleges. We expect to issue at least 97% of allocations by the end of March. There may be a very small number of allocations that we will issue in April, and we will contact you by 27 March if this applies to your institution. 

You will receive a notification once your allocation statement is available and you can find it on Document exchange in the ‘documents received from ESFA’ section. We have included a breakdown of our calculation in your statement and have published guidance to help you understand your statement. 

If you have questions after reading our guidance, or if there’s anything else you need help with, you can find more support in our customer help centre.

Information: Additional teachers’ pension funding from April 2024

The Department for Education (DfE) has secured £1.25 billion to support eligible settings with the increased teachers’ pension scheme employer contribution rate in financial year 2024 to 2025.  

This will mean additional funding of: 

• £923.7 million for mainstream schools 
• £136.4 million for high needs 
• £61.2 million for 16 to 19 education 
• £84.8 million for further education 
• £34.7 million for early years 
• £9.3 million to local authorities for centrally employed teachers, including those employed in local authority-based music hubs 

We have published the details of additional funding for mainstream schools, high needs and local authorities with centrally employed teachers.

We will distribute additional funding through existing teachers’ pension employer contribution grants for schools and academies with sixth forms and further education settings. We aim to update our schools and academies with sixth forms information by the end of April 2024. 

Additional funding for early years is already included in published core rates for 2024 to 2025.

Information: The Customer Help Portal is now live

You can now contact DfE and ESFA using the contact form in the Customer Help Centre. 

For more information on the portal, its benefits and how to use it, see our help centre articles: 

• Introducing the Customer Help Portal 
• The Customer Help Portal User Guide

Information: Publication of new governance guides for maintained schools and academy trusts

DfE has published 2 new governance guides, one for academy trusts and another for maintained schools, which replace the governance handbook 2019, but do not introduce any new policies. For academy trusts, the guide aligns closely with the high-quality trust descriptors and the Academy Trust Handbook.

The new guides, which have been developed with sector stakeholders and users, provide clearer and more concise guidance, bringing together essential information about board roles and their legal responsibilities from various sources. The separation of information should also make content easier to find. 

Additionally, each guide now includes statutory policies guidance, which was previously a separate webpage. The policies list has been updated and more emphasis placed on boards delegating responsibilities for creating and reviewing policies. 

We encourage everyone involved in school and trust governance to explore the new governance guides.

Information: Buying for Schools summer webinar schedule now live for registration

The DfE’s Schools Commercial team host free webinars to help those who buy goods and services for schools, save time, buy compliantly, and get great value. The summer term schedule of events is now live and open for booking. View the full schedule and register to attend.

This year, the Schools Commercial team has made it easier for you to benefit from their free webinars. You can now access advice and support without having to be there on the day for the following 2 topics:  

• Get help buying for schools – DfE’s free procurement service for schools and trusts 
• The risk protection arrangement (RPA) – the DfE’s alternative to commercial insurance  

You can find these pre-recorded webinars on the get help buying for schools website.