Friday the 13th. Lucky for Some?

The deadline for schools and eligible Multi Academy Trusts (MAT) to submit applications for the Department for Education’s Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) was rather auspicious this year - Friday the 13th.

This date will be ‘lucky for some’ as they bid for part of an investment pot to improve the condition of their buildings and facilities. The priority of CIF is to ‘address significant condition needs, keeping education provider buildings safe and in good working order’. This includes funding projects to address health and safety issues, building compliance and poor building condition or quite simply to keep those who attend or work in schools, ‘Safe, Dry & Warm’.

Getting an allocation from CIF can make a massive difference to schools as they balance increasingly tight budgets against curriculum needs and the upkeep of their estate With the size of the investment pot stagnating, competition to be allocated a slice of CIF is getting tougher each year. The funding pot hasn’t increased in line with the trend of new schools converting to Academy status so, over the past four years as the level of funding has remained constant, the chances of success fell to around 30% in 2019/20 nationally.

At RLB we work with schools and small MAT’s across the UK, helping them to prepare the robust applications that are now essential to make the best possible case for funding. In one of our regions alone – Yorkshire and Humber – we have seen an increase of almost 30% in submitted applications this year. This equates to applications totalling in excess of ￡10m in funding within one region. As Government funding is becoming tighter, the threshold for applications becomes more and more rigorous and it is vital for schools and trusts to submit a bid that is forensic in how it looks at the criteria. 

We also have a key understanding of the overall state of school buildings and insight into where available funding should be focused, as a result of having successfully completed over 5,000 Condition Data Collection Surveys on behalf of the Department for Education.

Those schools who make the best cases to receive funding from 2019’s CIF, will find out in the Spring if they have been successful.  With the result of the General Election now known, it will be interesting to see how the newly formed Conservative Government will stand by their pre-election pledges for additional school funding in both the immediate and long term and whether this will have a positive impact on this year’s funding cycle.