Guidance

Authority proforma tool: purpose and process

Published 15 December 2020

This guidance was withdrawn on 20 December 2022

This page has been withdrawn as it is out of date. Please see our latest guidance on the authority proforma tool (APT).

Applies to England

1. Introduction

Each year local authorities are required to detail their schools block funding formulae in accordance with the arrangements set out by the Secretary of State for Education.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has developed the authority proforma tool (APT) to assist local authorities to model and then confirm how they plan to do this for the funding year.

This guidance is designed to be used in tandem with the ‘How to complete the authority proforma tool’ publication, however it is recommended that this publication is reviewed first. The ‘How to complete the authority proforma tool’ publication guides the user on how to complete the APT, whereas this publication contains the theory behind the APT and will therefore aid understanding.

This guidance document covers the APT background and purpose and the APT structure and key components.

The current APT is an updated version of last year’s APT for communicating formulae and schools block funding allocations to ESFA. This publication provides non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education.

2. Background and purpose

The main purpose of the APT is to:

• allow local authorities to model different options for their schools block funding formulae and to act as the proforma, which is submitted to ESFA in January of each year—it is also the mechanism by which ESFA provides the schools block dataset to local authorities
• capture all the data required by ESFA to calculate academy budgets, including information on the number of occupied high needs places at special units and resourced provision in mainstream academies, to determine the place-funding rate
• enable ESFA to check that the formula has been applied reasonably and in compliance with regulations and conditions of grant, and that central budgets are being allocated in line with regulations
• enable ESFA to check that all funding allocated through the schools block element of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) is passed through the funding formula set by the local authority, or allocated to the growth fund or falling rolls fund
• collect data on maintained schools’ schools block budgets for publication
• use the notional allocations for academies for recoupment purposes—recoupment will continue to take place on the basis of the budget, including the minimum funding guarantee (MFG) that the academy would have received as a maintained school
• give ESFA information about which academies and future converters are judged by the local authority as meeting the criteria to qualify for exceptional factors or MFG exclusions, so that these can be taken into account in their funding allocations

The APT is made available to local authorities via the data collection portal, however, it is not held there indefinitely. Further information on this access will be emailed directly to local authorities. This is to ensure that the security of the information contained in the documents is maintained. Any local authorities unable to access their APT should contact ESFA’s APT mailbox via APTsubmissions.QUESTIONS@education.gov.uk.

3. 2021 to 2022 changes

This section addresses any changes to last year’s APT or important factors which need to be considered whilst completing the APT.

A number of changes have been made for the 2021 to 2022 APT. The main points to note are:

• the MFG threshold has been adjusted to only allow entries between 0.5% and 2%
• we have used 2019 data from the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) in place of 2015 data—we have changed the basis on which we assign pupils to the 7 IDACI bands: they are now assigned based on rank rather than score (for example, Band A now consists of pupils in the most deprived 2.5% of lower super output areas (LSOAs), instead of consisting of pupils in LSOAs with an IDACI score greater than 0.5)
• prior years’ adjustments entered on the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet are automatically excluded from the calculation of the minimum per-pupil levels of funding (MPPL)
• the national funding formula (NFF) now includes the teachers’ pay grant (TPG) and teachers’ pension employer contribution grants (TPECG) in the schools block allocations—this funding has been added to the MFG baselines to ensure the funding is passed on to schools
• following the cancellation of 2020 primary school assessments due to coronavirus (Covid-19), for the final December version of the APT the low prior attainment (LPA) ratios for years 1 and 7 for each school will be updated using the corresponding schools ratio for pupils in years 2 or 8 where available or, for new schools, the local authority average for years 2 or 8
• a new worksheet has been added to collect details of infrastructure changes in post-16 establishments

4. Timeline

The December APT is the version that local authorities must complete and submit in the following January, to provide ESFA with their final funding year schools block funding formulae. The APT is populated with schools block data for the current financial year, which is primarily drawn from the October 2020 schools census.

The completed APT must be returned via the data collection portal by 21 January 2021.

5. APT structure and key components

The following sections provide detailed information about the rationale behind the colour coding of worksheets and cells and details about the content or function of each of these worksheets.

Please note, in each worksheet there are a number of comments embedded into various cells. These comments provide hints and tips to the user and reminders of what should and shouldn’t be entered into that cell or column.

Comments are indicated by the small red triangle at the top right-hand corner of a cell and can be seen by hovering the mouse cursor over the cell.

5.1 Colour coding of worksheets

The colour coding of the worksheets which is also reflected in the cells of the worksheets themselves, denote the following:

Yellow—prepopulated (non-editable) data

There are 4 prepopulated worksheets in the APT. These worksheets will also have yellow cells, this is to denote that they are prepopulated and non-editable.

Please note, these yellow (non-editable) cells can appear in other worksheets as well, depending on the purpose of that worksheet.

Please do not attempt to unlock and amend the yellow prepopulated cells. If you submit your APT with any of the protections removed, ESFA will request that you resubmit with the protections restored.

Blue—requires user input

There are 10 worksheets in the APT that may require a degree of user input. These worksheets will also have blue cells— this denotes that they are user editable.

These worksheets together contain the data required for the APT to be able to automatically calculate school-level budgets for you.

Please note, these blue (editable) cells can appear in other worksheets as well, depending on the purpose of that worksheet.

Purple—automated calculation/output

There are 4 worksheets in the APT that are populated automatically using cell formulae, derived from the data contained in the prepopulated and user-input worksheets.

These worksheets contain a degree of automatic calculation, which form the outputs of the APT. These worksheets will also have purple cells to denote that they are calculation cells (non-editable). Although the cell formulae cannot be edited, the user can left click on any of these cells to view the formula used to populate it.

Please note, these purple (non-editable calculation) cells can appear in other worksheets as well, depending on the purpose of that worksheet. Automatic calculation has been used wherever possible throughout the APT, to avoid local authorities having to do unnecessary additional calculations and to prevent the risk of using the same piece of data in more than one place, in one or more worksheets.

For example, the ‘New ISB’ (individual schools budget) worksheet calculates the funding allocated to each school under each factor, based on the data contained in the prepopulated worksheets, the user input worksheets and the funding formula factors, as specified in the ‘Proforma’ worksheet. This negates the need for the local authorities to carry out the same calculation and then enter the results themselves.

Please do not attempt to unlock and amend the purple automatic calculation cells. If you submit your APT with any of the protections removed, ESFA will request that you resubmit with the protections restored.

5.2 APT worksheets

The following gives a brief description of the content and purpose of the worksheets which make up the APT.

Cover

This worksheet gives information about the APT, with the main table listing each of the other worksheets and providing a brief explanation of them.

Throughout the APT, some of the automatic calculations (purple cells) use Microsoft Excel ‘named ranges’ to help simplify the formulae—the ‘Cover’ worksheet contains a table showing these cells and the named ranges these relate to.

There is also a table at the top of the worksheet which must be completed before the APT is submitted to ESFA. See the guidance on How to complete the authority proforma tool.

Users are also required to confirm that political ratification has been received. Political ratification is the approval needed under the local authority’s internal scheme of delegation, required for the local authority to be able to issue budgets to maintained schools before 28 February.

It may be given by the local authority’s cabinet, cabinet member, mayor, or Director of Children’s Services (DCS) but not the schools forum, because that only has a consultative role for the formula.

The date must be on or before 28 February 2020, although ESFA would expect a date substantially earlier than this to enable the local authority to meet the requirement to issue budgets to maintained schools before the end of February.

A validation error will occur where users do not check the box, or they have entered an invalid date.

Schools Block Data

This worksheet contains the school-level pupil numbers and indicators, for the most part based on autumn (October) school census returns. The table below summarises the source data for each indicator/factor.

A detailed description of all the data items can be found in the schools block dataset technical specification which has been published alongside this guidance.

Data	Breakdown	Data source
School Iist	LAEstab, URN, local authority, phase, primary year groups, secondary year groups.	Mainstream schools on autumn 2020 census. URN is matched from get information about schools (GIAS).
Academy type	Recoupment Academy or 0 (0 is a maintained school).	Taken from the department’s records—showing status as at 31 October 2020.
London fringe	Not London fringe - 1, London fringe - 1.0156360164. Alternative London fringe values based on the ACA factor in the NFF calculations: Buckinghamshire 1.0176, Essex 1.0339, Hertfordshire 1.0306, Kent 1.0368, West Sussex 1.0569.	District as mapped from the school postcode in the autumn 2020 census. The alternative values have been recalculated using the ACA multipliers in the latest NFF model.
Year groups	Primary and secondary for middle schools. Primary and secondary for all schools. Key stage 3 and key stage 4 for secondary schools.	Autumn 2020 census.
Number on roll (NOR)	Primary, secondary, reception, years 1 to 6, key stage 3, key stage 4, year 7, year 8, year 9, year 10, year 11.	Autumn 2020 census.
Reception difference	Difference between on roll in year R, autumn 2019 and spring 2020.	Autumn 2019 and spring 2020 census.
Free school meals (FSM)	Separate primary/secondary.	Autumn 2020 census.
FSM6	Separate primary/secondary.	2020 to 2021 FSM6 data mapped to the spring 2020 census. Where FSM6 ratio is lower than the FSM ratio it will be increased to the same value.
IDACI	IDACI scores taken from the 2019 index of multiple deprivation (IMD) data split into 6 different bands, separate primary/secondary.	Pupil postcodes mapped from autumn 2020 census.
English as an additional language (EAL)	First, first to second, first to third year in system; separate primary/secondary.	Autumn 2020 census for language group, plus autumn 2017, 2018 and 2019 censuses. Mapping on UPN for on-roll records.
Looked-after children (LAC)	Aggregated information indicating looked-after children (at 31 March 2020).	SSDA903 March 2020 data mapped onto the spring 2020 census via the national pupil database (NPD).
Primary phase low prior attainment (LPA)	Year 1 to year 6 who did not achieve a good level of development.	Early years foundation stage profile (EYFSP) total score mapped to the autumn 2020 census. Mapping on UPN only. As there were no EYFSP tests this year the year 1 ratio will use the year 2 ratio or the local authority year 2 average.
Secondary Phase LPA	Year 7, year 8, year 9, year 10 and year 11 who did not achieve the expected level of attainment.	KS2 attainment data mapped to the autumn 2020 census. Mapping on UPN only. As there were no KS2 tests this year the year 7 ratio will use the year 8 ratio or the local authority year 8 average.
Mobility	Primary or secondary. Pupil appears in census data at the same school as in the October 2020 census for the first time in a January or May census in 2018 or later.	Autumn 2020 census.
Sparsity	Primary, secondary, middle, all through.	Autumn 2020 census, GIAS.

Note that for the sparsity factor, all middle and all-through schools’ sparsity distances are given under the ‘secondary sparsity av. distance to 2nd school’ column in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet. This is a presentational issue only and the rules for pupil numbers and distances are different for middle, all through and secondary schools.

Please also note that this is a locked worksheet and you cannot make any amendments to it. If you wish to update any of the data shown in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet, you need to update the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet.

20-21 submitted baselines

This worksheet contains the 2020 to 2021 school-level baselines submitted by local authorities to ESFA, covering the maintained schools and academies. This data is used to populate the ‘20-21 final baselines’ worksheet which then calculates the 2020 to 2021 MFG per-pupil school’s budget share (SBS).

The baselines now include an adjustment to add in the TPG and TPECG in line with the Schools block national funding formula: technical note.

Please also note that this is a locked worksheet and you cannot make any amendments to it. If you wish to update any of the data shown in the ‘20-21 submitted baselines’ worksheet, you need to update the ‘20-21 final baselines’ worksheet.

20-21 HN places

This worksheet contains the latest information held by ESFA on the number of pre-16 high needs places in each mainstream school and academy with a special unit or resourced provision in the local authority. The information for academies relates to 2020 to 2021, as collected via the high needs templates submitted by local authorities to ESFA. The information for maintained schools has not been collected by this means for several years, so could be out of date now.

This worksheet is included for information purposes only and does not feed into any of the APT calculations.

You may wish to refer to this prepopulated worksheet when providing the required data in the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet. With respect of high needs, local authorities should use the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet to provide details about:

• special units or resourced provision at each school, that are designated as such by the local authority for making the special provision for pupils with statements of special educational needs (SEN) or education, health and care (EHC) plans
• the numbers of primary, key stage 3 (KS3) and key stage 4 (KS4) pupils who are registered at the school (main registrations only) and are occupying places in the unit—the numbers must exclude pupils in those places who are not registered at the school or are in a nursery class (see the section about the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet for more information)

Please note that this is a locked worksheet and you cannot make any amendments to it.

Proposed free schools

This worksheet contains details of free schools not included on the previous October census and proposed to open before the end of 2021 to 2022.

The worksheet is included for information purposes only and does not feed into any of the APT calculations.

Local authorities should use the information held on this worksheet to enter the school’s details on the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet and, where the school is not open for the whole year, the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet.

The worksheet includes ratios for each of the factors included in the schools block, taken from the local authority averages and, where applicable, the proportion of the year for which the school will be open. The data does not contain a full breakdown of the pupil numbers. To enable the inputting of this information, the expected minimum and maximum pupil numbers are included.

Please note that this is a locked worksheet and you cannot make any amendments to it.

Inputs & Adjustments

Entries made in this worksheet will, in many cases, change the order of the schools on the subsequent worksheets of the APT. It is therefore important that this is completed in full before making any other changes.

This worksheet allows users to make adjustments to the data for maintained schools and academies, displayed in the prepopulated ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet, where the schools or pupil details do not reflect the schools the local authority expects to fund during 2021 to 2022 or their current situation. Recording changes in this way aims to make it easier for local authorities and ESFA to identify any amendments made.

Please note, adjustments made to records in this worksheet will not be reflected in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet, as this is locked and cannot be changed.

Any changes (such as new schools, closed schools, mergers) recorded in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet, will be reflected in the list of schools displayed in the following worksheets:

• Local Factors
• Adjusted Factors
• 20-21 final baselines
• De Delegation
• New ISB
• Recoupment

It is therefore vitally important that having recorded adjustments in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet, the user then reviews the school list shown in the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet. The user should ensure that it reflects the maintained schools and academies expected to be funded in 2021 to 2022, before continuing to enter data into that worksheet (the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet).

Users should use this worksheet to record:

• where schools listed in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet have closed, or will close before the end of the financial year
• new maintained schools which have opened or are expected to open before the end of the financial year
• new maintained schools which are expected to open after the end of the financial year
• academies which have amalgamated since the October census, or are expected to amalgamate before the end of the financial year
• changes required to the existing school data listed in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet, pertaining to numbers on roll or proportions of pupils eligible for each pupil-led factor—this is where the October data does not reflect the current position
• where maintained schools have converted to academy status before 4 January 2021
• new academies and free schools

If any changes are to be made to the NOR of a year group, entries must then be made into the remainder of the NOR categories, even if these figures have not changed or are zero values.

For all other values, such as the proportions of pupils eligible for each pupil-led factor, entries only need to be made when the figure is different from what is shown in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet. Any changes made will be reflected in the data shown in the ‘Adjusted Factors’ worksheet.

The data shown in the ‘Adjusted Factors’ worksheet for the above will automatically convert to a pupil number basis, once inputted.

Local factors

In this worksheet you will need to enter the local data relevant to the individual schools.

The school details listed in columns ‘L’, ‘M’ and ‘N’ are populated automatically based on the schools in the ‘Schools Block Data’ worksheet, plus any adjustments the user has recorded in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet. Entries made in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet will, in many cases, change the order of the schools on the subsequent worksheets of the APT (including the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet). It is therefore important that this is completed in full before making any other changes.

It is also important to check that the automatically listed school data is correct for the maintained schools and academies expected to be funded in the 2021 to 2022 financial year before entering any data against the schools.

Do not attempt to add any schools to this worksheet. Any changes to the automatically populated school list need to be recorded using the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet, as instructed above.

If after having entered data in the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet, you then record further adjustments in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet, the order of the local factors school list may have changed. The data you have entered into the blue cells will stay in the same place. As such, some or all of that data may now appear against the wrong school or academy.

Adjusted factors

This worksheet calculates the adjusted pupil numbers to be used in the final school budgets calculations, outputted automatically to the ‘New ISB’ worksheet. This draws data from the ‘Schools Block Data’, ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ and the ‘Local Factors’ worksheets.

The worksheet is initially populated by the same list of schools as found in the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet. It then calculates the adjusted NOR and pupil numbers for all factors by multiplying the proportion of the year the school will be open for, by the relevant figure from either the ‘Schools Block Data’ or the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheets (dependant on whether there is an update or not).

The high needs places recorded in the ‘Local Factors’ worksheet are also subtracted from the adjusted numbers and then the reception uplift is added (if the relevant option has been selected in the ‘Proforma’ worksheet).

Please note that the worksheet is entirely populated using spreadsheet formulae. This cannot be deleted or edited; however, the user can left click on any cell to view the formula used.

20-21 final baselines

In this worksheet, the user is required to provide the 2020 to 2021 schools’ baseline information, where this data is missing from the 2020 to 2021 submitted baselines worksheet. In addition, the 2020 to 2021 MFG exclusions and adjustments need to be input as these feed into the MFG calculations in the ‘New ISB’ worksheet.

The schools list in columns ‘G’, ‘H’ and ‘I’ are populated automatically, based on the information previously provided in the ‘Inputs & Adjustments’ worksheet.

The 2020 to 2021 baseline information in columns ‘J’ to ‘O’ are also populated automatically from the ‘20-21 submitted baselines’ worksheet, with the relevant data as submitted by local authorities to ESFA. In particular, these columns include:

• ‘20-21 MFG NOR’ (column ‘J’)—this is the 2020 to 2021 NOR, excluding the reception uplift (if applicable) adjusted for the proportion of the year the school was open for
• ’20-21 Rates’ (column ‘K’)—this is the 2020 to 2021 rates, which feeds into the ‘New ISB’ worksheet
• ’20-21 Post-MFG Budget’ (column ‘L’)—this is the school’s post-MFG budget, which feeds into the ‘New ISB’ worksheet
• ’20-21 Opening/Closing’ (column ‘M’)—this is the proportion of funding year 2020 to 2021 that the school was open for, which feeds into the ‘Adjusted Factors’ worksheet
• ‘Additional lump sum for schools…’ (column ‘N’)—this is the additional lump sum given in 2020 to 2021 for schools that amalgamated during 2019 to 2020
• ‘Total protected grants funding’ (Column ‘O’)—this is the total TPG and TPCEG funding taken from the 2021 to 2022 NFF allocations, which is added to the 2020 to 2021 post MFG budget

The ‘20-21 MFG SBS Total’ and ‘20-21 MFG SBS per pupil’ (columns ‘AH’ and ‘AI’ respectively) are calculated and used in the MFG calculations that feed into the ‘New ISB’ worksheet.

For any MFG exclusions and adjustments, the user must ensure that the full details, preferably formulaically, are entered into the relevant sections of the ‘Commentary’ worksheet.

Please note that if a narrative is not provided, a ‘fail’ indication will be present in the ‘Validation’ worksheet.

Commentary

If any of the factors listed in Annex B of the How to complete the authority proforma tool guidance have been used in any other worksheet in the APT, or if the user is applying any of these funding elements outside the APT, then full details of the methodology used and (where appropriate) examples, must be provided.

Please note if growth, additional funding from the high needs budget or falling rolls funding is identified, criteria need to be supplied and these amounts should be included in the S251 budget statement in the appropriate lines (1.4.10 Pupil growth, 1.4.5 Falling Rolls Fund or 1.2.4 Additional high needs targeted funding for mainstream schools and academies).

Embedded documents may also be included, if this would be deemed helpful and column ‘F’ has been added to the worksheet for this purpose.

Please note that if the sum of one or more factors or exclusions included in this worksheet is different from ‘nil’ and no commentary has been provided, there will be a ‘fail’ indication in the ‘Validation’ worksheet.

Proforma

The ‘Proforma’ worksheet is designed for the user to enter the unit values for the local authority’s funding allocation.

In this worksheet, the relevant blue cells (dependant on the factors used) need to be completed and as with all the other worksheets of the APT, the purple cells are calculation cells and cannot be edited.

The relevant pupil units for all the pupil-led factors are populated automatically in columns ‘G’ and ‘H’, which is fed by the data from the ‘Adjusted Factors’ worksheet.

Once the relevant data has been entered, the sub-total and total funding amounts (as well as the proportion of total funding) are calculated in the columns ‘I’, ‘J’ and ‘K’ respectively. With any optional factors not used in the local authority’s formula, simply leave the blue cells blank.

Block transfers

This worksheet compares the funding allocated through the APT against the schools block funding allocated in the DSG.

The worksheet allows users to enter details of any funding transferred out of the schools block to any of the other DSG blocks, and also details of any funding transferred into the schools block. If the net funding allocated through the APT is lower than the DSG schools block allocation, then details must be provided of either:

• the schools forum approval (for transfers up to 0.5%, excluding funding added to the schools block this year from the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer contribution grant – for further information please refer to the Schools operational guide: 2021 to 2022)
• the reference of the disapplication approving the transfer (where the transfer exceeds 0.5% or forum approval has not been received)

De Delegation

This worksheet should be used to detail any de-delegation values. This is where an agreement exists for specific budgets to be handed back to the local authority, by maintained schools, to be funded centrally.

For the purposes of de-delegation please note that:

• middle-deemed secondary and all-through schools have a de-delegation calculation based on both their primary and secondary pupil numbers
• academies are not included and will have a de-delegation value of ‘£0.00’

Education functions

Local authorities are able to fund specific services relating to maintained schools only from maintained school budget shares. This is with the agreement of maintained school members of the schools forum.

The ‘Education Functions’ worksheet collects this information. The amount entered will be a single per-pupil rate for pupils aged 5 to 16 years old, for all mainstream maintained schools.

New ISB

This is an output worksheet displaying the new individual school budgets (ISB) for all of the local authority’s’ schools, derived from the original school level data and any adjustments to the data recorded by the user in the editable worksheets.

The per-pupil amounts that have been entered in the proforma (the factor proportions and unit rates) have been combined with NOR to display a breakdown of the different elements contributing to each final ISB.

Please note that the worksheet is entirely populated using spreadsheet formulae. This cannot be deleted or edited; however, the user can left click on any cell to view the formula used.

School level SB

In this worksheet, the user simply selects (or manually enters) the LAEstab of a school in their local authority. The tables contained in the ‘School level SB’ worksheet (such as the proforma and de-delegation tables) will then be populated with the factors and unit values already populated/selected in the respective worksheets, along with the school’s details.

This worksheet allows the user to display the funding that the selected school will receive, under the formula entered into the APT.

The purple cells are automatically populated using formulae and therefore, the content of these cell cannot be edited. Otherwise, this worksheet is not locked, so the user will have considerable scope to adjust and tailor it to the local authority’s needs.

For example, you can:

• add rows
• delete rows (that do not contain purple cells)
• adjust row heights
• add columns
• delete columns (that do not contain purple cells)
• adjust column widths
• overtype any text (not contained in purple cells)

The print range is pre-set to print both tables shown on this sheet, but the user can also adjust this if required.

In addition, there is also space for the local authority to include their logo or crest on this page. As such, the user may find the worksheet helpful for generating a summary of the 2021 to 2022 funding, which can then be published on the local authority/school intranet, or to send to schools in the local authority.

Recoupment

This worksheet estimates the amount to be recouped required for all academies that are open prior to 4 January 2021. This cut-off date is set to make sure that only known conversions are recorded and also to ensure consistency across local authorities. Columns ‘D’ to ‘G’ are automatically populated with the list of academies and their post-MFG budgets, calculated in the ‘New ISB’ worksheet.

Growth funding adjustments and the narrative to support these (including calculations) are recorded by the user in this worksheet (column ‘J’, if applicable). ESFA will only be able to exclude this figure from the total recoupment amount if they are satisfied that the growth fund payments are appropriate and consistent with the narrative agreed in the local authorities 2020 to 2021 APT.

Where a local authority makes a growth fund payment to an academy from September 2020, the local authority should continue this payment until the end of August 2021 as that is when the academy receives its revised funding allocation. To enable local authorities to continue these payments for the period April 2021 to August 2021, ESFA will make an appropriate recoupment adjustment. This adjustment can only be made if it is supported by sufficient evidence, as provided in the required narrative.

Growth fund recoupment adjustments will not be made for ‘diseconomies of scale’ or ‘start-up’ funding. This funding will continue to be met from the local authority’s growth fund for the year in which the growth fund is paid.

Growth fund recoupment adjustments can only be made in respect of the period April to August 2021 to cover payments made to academies for increased pupil numbers from September 2020. This is because these pupils will be included in the October 2020 census data, which is used to calculate DSG payments and subsequently, the ISB for academies which ESFA will then recoup. A recoupment adjustment is appropriate in these circumstances because ESFA will have already recouped DSG funding in respect of the additional pupils, but the academies will not receive this funding until September 2021.

Please note that the recoupment figures calculated in this sheet are provisional and are subject to change. ESFA will write to each local authority by the end of April 2021 to provide the final recoupment amounts, with respect to all academies that will have opened by 31 March 2021.

After initial recoupment calculations, ESFA will then update at points throughout the year, to reflect schools converting/opening.

Post-16 infrastructure changes

This worksheet has been included for local authorities to tell us about any infrastructure changes happening in maintained schools so that we can calculate 16 to 19 revenue funding allocations for academic year 2021 to 2022.

Infrastructure changes often require us to adjust individual school allocations. We need to know about these now so that we can calculate and deliver accurate 16 to 19 revenue funding allocations by March 2021 and avoid late notification to schools of budget changes.

Any changes in academy sixth forms that you are aware of should also be entered here. We will use your information to confirm these with the regional school commissioner responsible for approving significant changes with academies.

Validation

This worksheet contains important information, influenced solely by the user input throughout the APT. The worksheet is designed to help the local authority, should they wish to undertake any modelling and it should be used as the final review point, prior to the submission of the proforma to ESFA.

Throughout the APT there are a number of in-cell validation checks in place which are there to help prevent invalid data being entered (for example, short LAEstab numbers). In addition to these checks, the ‘Validation’ worksheet provides further automated checks to help minimise the entry of data which would result in an incorrect or unallowable allocation being calculated.

The worksheet displays a variety of pass/fail checks at differing levels. From the high-level analysis of values in the ‘Proforma’ worksheet (for example, checking the lump sums allocated do not exceed £175,000) to a lower level, such as ensuring that the NOR figures provided for the primary year groups at a specific school are equal to the same school’s total primary NOR.

At the very top of the worksheet there is the cumulative check. If the result is a pass, it indicates that all other checks have been passed.

Please note, passing all of these checks does not necessarily mean the APT will be approved by ESFA. For example, even if the result is a pass at the check relevant to the ‘Commentary’ worksheet, ESFA will still have to confirm that the narratives provided by the user comply with the regulations, or that MFG exclusions have been approved.

ESFA has not been able to build in checks to cover all possible scenarios but when creating the APT, ESFA has tried to cover the majority of issues which have resulted in the need to resubmit APTs in the past.

The table of checks at school level, also has a cumulative check at the top of each column. If:

• the check is a pass—this indicates that all schools listed in the table below have passed that check
• the check is a fail—this indicates that at least one of the schools listed in the table below will be flagged as failing the check and the user should scroll down the list to identify where the problem presents itself

The ‘Validation’ worksheet is there to help the local authority ensure that the data has been entered correctly. Failed checks will not prevent submission of the APT, however, an APT submitted with failed checks is likely to require re-submission.

6. Contact information

Any questions or queries about the APT and how it works, or requests for the password to open your APT file should be made to APTsubmissions.QUESTIONS@education.gov.uk.