School Condition Allocation (SCA) funding

SCA funding is a vital source of funding for schools and colleges.

It is allocated by central Government in order to help MATs, with more than 5 Academies and 3000 students, maintain their buildings. Other bodies are eligible too.

If you have more than 5 Academies and 3000 students, then yes. If you have less than 3000 students, you may be able to form an “opted-in chain” with other Trusts.

SCA funding is based on the numbers of students in your Trust and is a guaranteed source of income for your MAT every year. It is not dependent on an application process and can be spent on any maintenance issue your Trust faces.

CIF funding must be applied for and is not guaranteed to be awarded. It is project based, so must be spent on specific items.

The SCA funding allocation depends largely on the numbers of students in your Trust, but other factors apply too. At the time of writing (2020) the amount per student is £115.15.

This amount is then revised up or down using a number of modifiers. A summary is below. Full details are available here.

Age / Education Phase:

• Primary:                                               1x initial allocation
• Secondary:                                         1.5 x initial allocation
• Post 16:                                                2 x initial allocation
• Special / PRU / Boarders:              3 x initial allocation

Modernisation factor:

A school is treated as “modern” if:

• It has 80% or more of its total floor area refurbished in the last 10 years
• It has had significant recent investment
• It is a PFI school or part of the Priority School Building Programme

If a school falls into the “modern” category, it will automatically receive 50% of the initial allocation, since it’s assumed it does not need as much maintenance.

Location factor

Depending on the location, the initial allocation may be modified up or down to reflect variations in local costs. The modifier is taken from the BCIS database and raises (or lowers) the amount of funding by up to 20%, depending on the area of the UK.

Voluntary-aided factor

Voluntary aided schools have an 8% uplift in SCA funding, to compensate for their inability to access VAT refund schemes.

SCA funding is issued every May and MATs have 2 years in which to spend it.