An overview of school capital funding, who it’s for, current and past allocations, how it’s calculated and spending guidance.

Overview

Each year, the Department for Education allocates funding to help maintain and improve the condition of school buildings and grounds.

This funding is made up of:

  • school condition allocations (SCA), given to eligible bodies responsible for maintaining school buildings
  • devolved formula capital (DFC), allocated to schools and other eligible institutions

Who the funding is for

School capital funding includes allocations for:

  • local authorities and local-authority-maintained schools, including maintained nursery schools
  • local voluntary-aided bodies and voluntary-aided schools
  • academies and large multi-academy trusts and sponsors
  • sixth-form colleges
  • special schools not maintained by the local authority
  • special post-16 institutions with eligible students

Single academy trusts, small multi-academy trusts (MATs) and sixth-form colleges receive devolved formula capital but apply to the condition improvement fund instead of receiving an SCA.

Funding allocations for 2019 to 2020

Capital funding is based on financial years. For the latest funding amounts see:

The ‘Things you need to know’ tab has important information about how the allocations were calculated.

How the funding is calculated

See Condition funding methodology for 2019 to 2020 (PDF, 526KB, 16 pages) for information on eligibility and how the funding is calculated. It includes minor changes to the methodology for the 2019 to 2020 financial year.

The condition data collection, which is due to be completed in autumn 2019, will provide high-level information on the condition of state-funded schools in England and inform future funding policy.

What you can spend it on

See Condition grants spend guidance (PDF, 388KB, 12 pages) for guidance on the purpose of the fund, what you can spend it on and over what time period.

Previous years’ funding

See the National Archives website for SCA and DFC allocations for previous years.

The healthy pupils capital fund was a one-year fund for 2018 to 2019 only.

In the 2018 budget, the government announced an extra £400 million of capital funding for schools in England for 2018 to 2019. See the additional capital funding page on the National Archives for more information.

Published 4 April 2019 Contents