Guidance

National funding formula notional allocations: supplementary guidance

Updated 24 August 2022

Applies to England

Introduction

This guidance can help schools and local authorities access and understand the notional allocations under the schools national funding formula (NFF).

How schools can access their national funding formula notional allocations on COLLECT

COLLECT reports

Reports on COLLECT explain the calculations used to determine your school’s:

• notional allocations
• funding baselines

Report A details all the data we have published.

Report C has step-by-step information about the notional amounts of funding you will receive.

If you previously accessed the 2022 to 2023 reports, you will automatically be able to access the latest reports.

Access to the 2022 to 2023 NFF figures will remain available for a few months so please ensure you are accessing the reports for the appropriate NFF year.

Access your DfE Sign-in account

To access your school’s data through COLLECT, you will need an active DfE Sign-in account with the NFF option enabled.

Add NFF access to your account

Each school has a designated DfE Sign-in approver who is responsible for administering user accounts within the school.

If you do not have an account or need to enable the NFF option, contact your approver. They should complete the following steps to add NFF access to your account:

• select ‘COLLECT’ when viewing the user account
• select the checkbox for the ‘National Funding Formula’ in the list of available roles
• select ‘Save’

Access COLLECT data in DfE Sign-in

Once the NFF option has been successfully added to your DfE Sign-in account, you can access the data in COLLECT by completing the following actions:

• sign in to DfE Sign-in and select ‘COLLECT’
• select ‘Schools Block NFF 2023-24 – notional outcomes and impacts’, then ‘Select data collection’:
  • if this data collection is not listed, check with your approver to confirm that NFF has been correctly added to the COLLECT service on your account
  • if your school has been issued with a new LAEstab number recently, contact us by selecting `Need help using this service?’ in DfE Sign-in, as the NFF data will need to be made visible under your new number
• select ‘Launch Reports’ and select the report you wish to run from the drop-down list

If you are still unable to access the NFF reports, select ‘Need help using this service?’ in DfE Sign-in and submit a service request. It may take up to 7 working days for us to process a service request.

DfE will not grant NFF access to individual user accounts. It is the responsibility of a school’s approver to perform all user administration activities for their school.

Multi-academy trusts

We are unable to provide multi-academy trusts (MAT) with direct access to the NFF reports for all of their schools.

MAT staff members may already have a DfE Sign-in account for each of their schools and be able to access them individually. Alternatively, each school should be able to access these reports.

To access a MAT’s individual school data in COLLECT, the user will need the DfE Sign-in approver for each school to create an account with the appropriate COLLECT access. The approver should follow the instructions to add NFF access to your account.

Alternatively, a MAT member can submit a request for a copy of the COLLECT data for all schools in the MAT direct to DfE. Please request a confidentiality declaration using the ESFA enquiry form. You will need to explain what data you require and why. However, accessing the data via COLLECT is usually the quickest and easiest option.

Accessing data about pupil characteristics

Individual schools and local authorities can see a more detailed breakdown of the formula calculation and underpinning characteristics data via COLLECT.

We have not published pupil characteristics data and the underlying NFF calculations for individual schools due to data confidentiality restrictions.

Subject to approval, school-level NFF notional funding calculations and the aggregate data underpinning them are available for those who are carrying out any of the following, to promote the education or wellbeing of children in England:

• conducting research or analysis
• producing statistics
• providing information or guidance

To request access to this data, please contact us to request an electronic confidentiality declaration. On the declaration form you will be asked to explain the purpose for the information, and agree that you and your organisation:

• intend to use the data only for the specified purpose in your request
• will keep the data only as long as it is needed for this purpose
• will not share the data without our prior written approval

We will inform you of all decisions relating to the release of the data, and ask you to provide more information if required. We will also give feedback explaining reasons why we have rejected a request.