Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 8 September 2021

Published 8 September 2021

This correspondence was withdrawn on 23 December 2022

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. Read the latest editions of ESFA Update for the latest news and information.

Applies to England

1. Action: call for local authority maintained schools to register multi-use sites

ESFA will cover additional rates costs associated with additional buildings on a school site which are used to deliver education for pupils at the school (for example, a sports hall that is used during school hours and at evenings by the wider community).

We will not cover the additional rates costs associated with buildings which are not used to deliver education for pupils at the school.

For a smooth transition to the new payment system, we’d encourage schools to register buildings which are not used to deliver education for pupils at the school as a separate entity on the Valuation Office Agency’s (VOA) rating list.

This ensures that two individual bills are produced, meaning the bill data uploaded to ESFA by billing authorities will only relate to the parts of a school site used to deliver education and will exclude any other buildings.

This is likely to apply to schools which contain:

• several service providers (for example, a private nursery attached to a primary school)
• other bodies which occupy specific buildings (for example, a caretaker’s house or community swimming pool)

2. Information: change to the payment process for business rates

We’ve published the government response following our consultation on centralising the payment of business rates.

This confirms that, from 1 April 2022, ESFA will pay business rates directly to billing authorities on behalf of schools for 5 to 16-year-olds.

From next year, local authority maintained schools will no longer need to make business rates payments to billing authorities.

The consultation response contains further details on the changes, and how centralisation of payments will be implemented.

3. Information: new date for local authority assurance webinar

The date for our webinar on local authority assurance has been re-arranged from 23 September (2pm until 3pm) to 30 September (2pm until 3pm).

If you’re signed up to this event, your ticket has been transferred to the new date.

You can sign up using the local authority assurance Eventbrite page.

The webinar will be recorded and published on ESFA’s YouTube channel.

4. Information: webinars on approved frameworks

The Department for Education (DfE) is hosting webinars on how using our approved frameworks could help your school get value for money.

If you are responsible for buying goods and services for your schools check out the range of informative webinars that could help you save time and money.

All sessions are free, use these Eventbrite links to join the Schools Commercial Team and take the opportunity to ask providers the questions you may have from buying your electricity to IT leasing, legal services to network connectivity.

The sessions are available on multiple dates. Find out more:

• renewing your gas or electricity contract
• legal services available to schools
• supply teachers and agency workers framework
• network connectivity and telecommunication solutions framework
• IT leasing requirements
• Risk Protection Arrangement (RPA)

5. Information: consultation on prioritising schools for the School Rebuilding Programme

Please pass this information onto your schools.

The Prime Minister announced the School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) in June 2020 to carry out major rebuilding and refurbishment projects at schools and sixth form colleges in England over the next decade. We have previously announced the first 100 schools in the programme. Details of these and the programme are available on GOV.UK.

We are now consulting on the approach to prioritising schools for future places in the programme, to identify schools most in need of major rebuilding or refurbishment. Further information on the consultation process and how you can contribute your views can be found on GOV.UK. The consultation runs until 8 October, and we would welcome your views.

To find out more about why we are consulting, and the approaches under consideration, please join our Teams live event on 14 September by registering online.

6. Information: new funding reports guidance

We have published version 1 of the guidance on the 2021 to 2022 ILR funding reports. These reports are generated when providers submit a file to Submit Learner Data. This guidance for young people and adult programmes covers:

• 16 to 19 (excluding apprenticeships)
• adult education budget (devolved and non-devolved)
• all apprenticeships
• European Social Fund
• advanced learner loans bursary
• community learning

The key changes from last year’s reports are:

• the Cross Year Indicative Payments Report is no longer a BETA report. We issued this at R12 2020 to 2021 and we will issue this again between R01, R02 and R03 in 2021 to 2022 (building towards when we merge payments on your remittance for R02 and R03 with the R13 and R14 from the previous ILR respectively). This helps explain apprenticeship payments during the period of the year where two ILR years are open and being paid for in your remittances
• the 16 to 19 Funding Claim report does not have a filter on it this year. Instead, there two additional columns that reflect the data that the filter previously showed