Teachers' pay additional grant 2023 to 2024: conditions of grant
Updated 14 March 2024
Applies to England
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1. Introduction
In July 2023 we announced £482.5 million for schools through the teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG) in 2023 to 2024. We are allocating this funding to support schools to meet the costs of the 2023 to 2024 teachers pay award.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) will pay the TPAG funding to local authorities for maintained schools and directly to academies on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education.
For maintained special schools and alternative provision, and for special and alternative provision academies, the ESFA will pay the TPAG funding to local authorities.
Non-maintained special schools (NMSS) will be funded directly by ESFA.
The following terms and conditions apply to TPAG for the financial year 2023 to 2024.
TPAG will continue as a separate grant in 2024 to 2025. From 2025 to 2026, TPAG funding will be incorporated into core budget allocations by being rolled into the schools and high needs national funding formulae (NFFs).
2. Allocation and payment to mainstream schools
Local authorities must pay to each:
- maintained primary and secondary school
- all through maintained school
which they are responsible for maintaining, the allocation amounts shown in the school level allocations.
Local authorities must comply with the condition above irrespective of any deficit relating to the expenditure of the school’s budget share.
Mainstream academies will receive their funding direct from ESFA
In all settings TPAG funding for mainstream schools is not part of schools’ budget shares and is not part of the individual schools’ budget. It is not to be counted for the purpose of calculating the minimum funding guarantee.
3. Allocation and payment to specialist settings
Local authorities must pay TPAG funding to each:
- maintained special school
- special academy and free school
- pupil referral unit (PRU) maintained by a local authority (pre-16 provision only)
- AP academy and free school (pre-16 provision only)
- maintained hospital school and the equivalent academy
which they are responsible for maintaining, they previously maintained but is now an academy and, in the case of a free school, which is located in their area. Local authorities will not receive an allocation for NMSS, who will be funded directly by ESFA.
Local authorities must comply with the following requirements in setting their local methodologies for how they will pass on the additional funding to the eligible school types as listed above.
Local authorities must:
- pass on 100% of the TPAG funding that is published for their respective local authority to the eligible school types as listed above
- ensure that all eligible schools receive a funding allocation through TPAG in the period September 2023 to March 2024
- have transparent criteria to distribute funding to individual schools, treating academies and mainstream schools the same
- consult with eligible schools before deciding their methodology for allocating TPAG funding
Local authorities should seek to swiftly confirm the allocations for eligible schools to provide institutions with the earliest possible certainty over their budgets.
NMSS will receive their funding direct from ESFA.
In all settings TPAG funding is not to be counted for the purpose of calculating the minimum funding guarantee for special schools.
4. Permitted use of TPAG funds
Academies (including eligible specialist settings) and NMSS must only spend TPAG funds in the ways listed below, and local authorities must ensure that their maintained schools (including eligible specialist settings) only spend TPAG funds in the ways listed below:
- for the purposes of the school; or
- for the benefit of pupils registered at other maintained schools or academies, pupil referral units or hospital schools
In all settings TPAG funds do not have to be spent by schools in the financial year beginning April 2023. Schools may carry some or all of the TPAG funds forward to future financial years.
5. Certification
Each local authority will be required to certify to ESFA that they have complied with these terms and conditions.
ESFA will set out the arrangements for certification in the spring.
6. Variation
The basis for allocation of this grant may be varied by the Secretary of State from those set out above.
7. Overpayments
Any overpayment of TPAG funding for schools by ESFA to a local authority, academy or NMSS shall be repaid by the authority, academy’s proprietor or NMSS on such terms and conditions as ESFA or the Secretary of State for Education shall determine.
8. Further information
Books and other documents and records relating to the recipient’s accounts shall be open to inspection by the Secretary of State and by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The Comptroller and Auditor General may, under Section 6 of the National Audit Act 1983, carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which the recipient has used its resources in discharging its grant-aided activities.
Schools (including academies and NMSS) shall provide information as may be required by the Secretary of State to determine whether they have complied with these conditions.