Correspondence

ESFA Update academies: 20 September 2023

Published 20 September 2023

Applies to England

1. Action: final week to submit your 2022 to 2023 year-end statement for the National Tutoring Programme (NTP)

Thank you to those who have completed their year-end statement.

Schools and local authorities (including virtual school heads) that received the 2022 to 2023 NTP grant have until 2pm on Friday 29 September to submit the year-end statement.

You must report all tutoring delivered in the 2022 to 2023 academic year (from 1 September 2022 to 31 August 2023). Failure to submit the form will result in your full funding allocation being recovered by the ESFA.

We’ve published guidance on how to submit your year-end statement, which includes a short video for schools.

short video for schools

If you experience any technical issues with the form, contact the ESFA Help Centre.

For any other tutoring queries, contact the NTP support desk.

2. Reminder: use the online form for any changes to payment details or bank account details

Please remember to use the online form to notify us of any changes to your academy’s payment details or bank account details, including a change to the remittance address or company address.

If you have any queries about this form, please contact the DfE standing data team directly by emailing dfe.standingdata@education.gov.uk.

3. Reminder: related party transaction (RPT) reporting requirements have changed

For RPTs starting on or after 1 September 2023:

• The approval threshold for RPTs increased to £40,000 per transaction. The cumulative total for multiple transactions with the same supplier is removed.
• RPTs with:
  1. schools/colleges/universities that are the trust sponsor, or
  2. with state-funded schools/colleges, no longer require ESFA approval, but must be declared in advance via the online form.
• There is no change to the requirement for trusts to declare transactions with their religious authority for services fundamental to the trust’s religious character and ethos using the online form and these transactions do not require ESFA approval.

RPTs must be declared in advance of the contract starting, using the online form.

Visit GOV.UK for further guidance.

4. Information: early years supplementary grant (EYSG) funding allocations for local authorities for 2023 to 2024

In July we published information about the £204 million additional early years funding for 2023 to 2024 for local authorities through the early years supplementary grant (EYSG). The grant is to enable local authorities to uplift the funding rates for their childcare providers from September 2023 to March 2024 period for delivering the existing early years entitlements.

We have already published the methodology guidance, conditions of grant and the EYSG hourly funding rate increases to individual local authorities.

On 19 S eptember, we published the initial EYSG allocations for each local authority for 2023 to 2024 financial year.

5. Information: Academy Finance Professionals October Power Hour

Would you like to know more about the Land and Building Collections Tool (LBCT) online form?

Join the next Power Hour on 5 October, 11am to 12pm.

This session will be led by the Financial Control, Assurance and Data team and will include the following:

• what is LBCT about
• why is the data collected
• how the collected data is processed
• a demo of the online form with step-by-step instructions
• feedback from last year’s LBCT return

There will be an opportunity to ask questions and the team will answer as many as possible during the event.

Register now to guarantee your place.

6. Information: updated good practice guide for streamlined energy and carbon reporting (SECR) in academy trusts

We have updated our good practice guide for streamlined energy and carbon reporting (SECR) to reflect the latest emissions conversion factors. The guide will help chief financial officers, accounting officers and trustees of academy trusts to comply with their legal obligations to report energy consumption in their 2022 to 2023 accounts.

The updated guide can be found in the full list of available good practice guides. These guides support trustees, accounting officers, principals and chief financial officers to develop good practice in their trust.

7. Information: recording your T Level data accurately

We calculate T Levels under- and over-delivery against your estimated numbers by reviewing, in year, your student numbers submitted in your autumn census or R04. It is important your autumn census or R04 data is recorded correctly as we will not accept business cases to change these numbers.

We have updated the record your T Level data correctly guidance. This includes additional examples of how T Level programme elements and scenarios should be recorded in your data returns.

We strongly encourage you to submit your autumn school census or R04 before the return deadlines (1 November 2023 for the autumn census and 6 December 2023 for the R04) so you can review your data submitted and make amendments where needed. You can review your 16 to 19 funding reports in the funding information system (FIS), submit learner data and COLLECT as these will identify your T Level students and the funding bands assigned to them.

If some T Level students are not displaying as you expected, you can use the checklist provided at the bottom of the record your T Level data correctly guidance to ensure you have recorded all programme elements correctly.

8. Information: join these webinars on approved frameworks and see how you could save money for your school

Are you a school business professional who buys goods and services for your school?

The Schools Commercial team host regular webinars on how using DfE approved frameworks could help your school get value for money. Click on the links to find out more and book your place:

• Buying catering services for your school
• Buying energy efficiency measures for your school through ESPO
• Buying cleaning services for your school
• Buying synthetic sports facilities for your school

You can find the full programme of webinars for the autumn term on the Autumn 2023 webinar page. Visit the page to find out more and book your place.

9. Information: how Get help buying for schools helped me get the best cleaning services for my school

In our latest Buying for Schools blog post Zoe Allcott, a Business Manager at Thrive Education Partnership in the West Midlands, shares her experience of using Get help buying for schools to buy cleaning services for a school in the trust:

The fact that it exists, is free to use and helps us all to achieve our main objective - to ensure we have the best outcomes for our children – is brilliant. I would highly recommend it.

You can read Zoe’s blog post in full on GOV.UK.

10. Your feedback: can you help provide feedback on the school resource self-assessment checklist (SRMSAC)?

Earlier this year we invited you to tell us how the SRMSAC could better meet your needs.

We now need SRMSAC users to test the improvements we’re developing for 2023-24 by taking part in a short usability testing session with a researcher, and to determine future need and use from 2024-25 onwards.  Sessions are confidential and your comments will be anonymised in any reports.

To find out more, read the Participant Information Sheet.

To sign up, read the Participant Information Sheet and complete the Consent Form.  A user researcher will then contact you to book a convenient session.  Sessions last no longer than an hour and are running throughout September and October.

Getting involved will help us understand your needs and improve our services to you.

If you have any questions, please contact us.