Trust Capacity Fund Information for applicants

September 2019

2

Contents 1. Summary 3

1.1. About this guidance 3

1.2. About the Trust Capacity Fund 3

1.3. Grant thresholds 4

1.4. Activities not eligible for this fund 4

1.5. Key dates and deadlines 5

2. Who can apply for TCaF? 7

2.1. Eligibility 7

2.2.1. Eligibility for Strands A1 and A2 7

2.2.2. Eligibility for Strand B 8

2.2.3. Eligibility for Strand C 8

2. Application process 9

2.1. The Application Form 9

2.2. Submitting your application 10

2.3. Receipt of applications 10

2.4. Questions and clarifications 11

3. Assessment 12

3.1. Stage 1: Initial eligibility 12

3.2. Stage 2: Assessment Criteria 12

4. Next steps 15

4.1. What happens if your application is successful? 15

4.2. Terms and conditions of grant funding 15

Annex A: Application checklist 16

3

1. Summary

1.1. About this guidance This is guidance from the Department for Education. This guidance is for academy trusts wishing to apply for the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF). It explains what TCaF is, who is eligible to apply for funding and the criteria against which applications will be assessed.

If you wish to apply for funding, you should first familiarise yourself with the information in this document.

Throughout this document, the “DfE” and “the Authority” refer to the Secretary of State for Education.

1.2. About the Trust Capacity Fund In July 2019, the Department for Education (DfE) announced TCaF to provide additional funding to support the growth and development of academy trusts.

TCaF will award up to £17 million of funds across four strands, each with their own eligibility criteria:

• A1: Support strong trusts to grow and innovate in areas of long-standing need • A2: Encourage strong trusts to grow by converting and improving weaker

maintained schools or adding vulnerable academies to their trust and improving them

• B: Accelerate the development of mid-sized trusts with the potential to be strong • C: Create new strong trusts either by single academy trusts joining larger trusts or

by supporting the growth of existing trusts via mergers or priority projects identified by Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs).

4

1.3. Grant thresholds We have set out below the maximum grant that is available for the four different strands of TCaF.

Table 1: TCaF grant thresholds

1.4. Activities not eligible for this fund The following activities will be ineligible for TCaF funding:

• Capital expenditures: spending on the purchase of assets (for example buildings, furniture, fittings)

• Any activity that was already underway prior to your proposal receiving RSC approval

• Any activities that the trust would otherwise be able to access free of charge • Small amounts of time for pre-existing salaried staff (e.g. 1 hour of HR time) • Foreign travel • Any activities that could be funded from other sources • Activities that are solely focussed on improving any single school rather than the

trust as a whole. The purpose of the grant is to strengthen the central capacity of trusts rather than individual schools.

• Any activities that took place prior to 1 September 2019.

Strand Minimum grant threshold Maximum grant threshold

A1 £50,000 £310,000

A2 £50,000 £200,000

B £20,000 £150,000

C £20,000 £100,000

5

1.5. Key dates and deadlines The TCaF application window will be open on Monday 9th September 2019 and will close on Tuesday 31st December 2019.

Applicants must also submit an application for growth to their RSC for discussion at Headteacher Board (HTB). This must be approved by the RSC no later than 31st January 2020. We will consider growth applications that were approved by RSCs after 20 June 2019 (and up to 31st January 2020).

The closing date to submit your growth paperwork will vary according to the date of the HTB you are submitting your growth proposal to. Please contact the relevant RDD team to confirm the deadline for submission.

Trusts should submit their TCaF application as soon as they are ready to do so and no later than 31st December. Applications will be assessed, whether or not the related growth application has at that time being considered by the HTB. A final decision on the TCaF application will be made, once the outcome of the growth application has been determined.

All funded activities in the TCaF application must start no earlier than 1st September, which was the start of the new school year and when the TCaF application form and guidance were published on gov.uk. All funded activities must be completed by 31st March 2020. Given this timetable, we recommend that trusts submit their applications as soon as they can in advance of the closing date. Trusts should consider the deliverability of their proposed activities carefully, at whatever point they submit their TCaF application, but especially when submitting an application that is close to the closing date. Key dates and deadlines for the application process are set out in the table below.

Milestones Dates

Publication of the TCaF application form and Information for applicants

6th September 2019

Application window for TCaF opens 9th September 2019

Application window for TCaF closes 31st December 2019

Assessment of applications September 2019 – February 2020

Notify applicants of outcomes October 2019 - February 2020

6

Milestones Dates

Funding distributed to trusts (payment in arrears) By 31st March 2020

Table 2: Important dates for TCaF

7

2. Who can apply for TCaF? All trusts are eligible to apply for TCaF funding unless they have an open Financial Notice to Improve (FntI). If you wish to apply for any of the strands of funding, you must:

• take into your trust at least one additional school • be able to demonstrate how you plan to use the funding efficiently and effectively • be of sound financial health and, as a minimum requirement, not have an open

FNtI.

2.1. Eligibility Applicants should ensure prior to submission that their application meets all aspects of eligibility by using the eligibility checker on GOV.UK. This eligibility checker brings together in one easy to understand format all the requirements for an eligible application as set out below. Trusts should apply to the highest tier for which they are eligible. Once the application has been submitted alongside the growth application to RSCs, RDD officers can advise if the proposed activity is more suited to a different tier.

2.2.1. Eligibility for Strands A1 and A2

You will be eligible to apply for these strands if you meet the following:

• Your trust consists of five or more schools • Your trust does not have an open Financial Notice to Improve (FNtI) • Phonics

o per academy: either 75% converter academies at above national average or 50% of converter & sponsored academies at above national average

Your trust must also meet a minimum of at least two of the following criteria:

• School Improvement

o Directive Academy Order (DAO) academies: 94% or more improved at first inspection with the trust and other academies: 80% or more remain stable or improve with the trust OR;

o as a trust: has improved four or more DAO academies from inadequate to good or outstanding

• Progress

o per academy: on average all schools remain in the same progress band or improve and any that are below average must have improved over the last three years. OR;

8

o as a Trust: published Multi Academy Trust (MAT) progress is above average for Progress 8 and/or Progress in reading writing and maths

• English Baccalaureate (Ebacc)

o per academy: Either 75% converter academies or 50% of converter & sponsored academies are above national average or above 33.4% (5% below national average) and on an increasing trend for the last three years OR;

o as a trust: Published Ebacc entries for the trust are above the national average

2.2.2. Eligibility for Strand B

You will be eligible to apply for this strand if you meet the following:

• Your trust consists of three or more schools • Your trust does not have an open Financial Notice to Improve (FNtI)

2.2.3. Eligibility for Strand C

You will be eligible to apply for this strand if you meet the following:

• Your trust does not have an open Financial Notice to Improve (FNtI)

9

2. Application process

2.1. The Application Form Applications should be succinct and must be within the word limit provided for each section of the form. Further guidance on what information is required can be found in the application form itself.

The main section of the application form comprises of two parts:

• Section A - Organisation details: Details of the trust organisation including the Companies House Number and Group ID.

• Section B - Application details: Requests information about the project and the strand of TCaF funding your trust wishes to apply for. This section of the application form is designed for applicants to summarise the most important features and rationale behind their projects.

A senior responsible officer (SRO) in the applicant organisation will need to ratify all applications. This must be an individual who is in a position to commit the applicant organisation to be accountable for the correct use of funding and for delivery of the outcomes set out in the application.

The SRO is also accountable for ensuring compliance with the Department for Education’s terms and conditions of the grant funding agreement.

10

2.2. Submitting your application Please email your completed application form to the Regional Delivery Directorate (RDD) office for the area you are proposing to work in.

Your organisation name and the words ‘Trust Capacity Fund Application’ should be included in the email subject field when submitting your application.

Applications for TCaF funding should be submitted during the application window, either in advance of or alongside your growth proposal to your relevant RSC.

We recommend that you submit both your applications for growth and TCaF in advance to avoid any delay that could lead to missing the submission deadlines set by the RDD office.

2.3. Receipt of applications On receipt of applications, we will undertake checks to ensure that the applicant has completed all the fields in the application form and that the application meets all requirements of the fund.

TCaF is a competitive grant, so please submit your best projects in accordance with the assessment criteria. In order to meet the Department’s policy objectives for this funding, the DfE reserves the right to determine which applications are successful during the process, based on the quality of the bids received.

Your application is not an agreement or grant. Meeting the selection criteria does not guarantee funding. Funding is limited and applications will be assessed and prioritised according to the extent to which they meet the selection criteria. Only high-quality applications are likely to be considered for funding.

You will not be entitled to claim from the DfE any costs or expenses which you may incur in preparing your bid whether your bid is successful or not.

11

2.4. Questions and clarifications Potential bidders may raise questions or seek clarification regarding any aspect of this grant funding at any time prior to the submission of their applications. The DfE may also raise Clarification Questions during the tender assessment process. In either case, Clarification Questions may only be asked to confirm information already provided by the other party: Clarification Questions are not intended to represent an opportunity for either party to provide additional information beyond that contained with this Invitation to Tender or the Tender received respectively.

Questions must be submitted to the Regional Delivery Directorate (RDD) office for the area you are proposing to work in.

The DfE will not enter into exclusive discussions regarding the requirements of this Grant with potential applicants.

12

3. Assessment All projects received within the application deadline will be subject to a two-stage project assessment process.

Please Note: Applicants must also submit an application for growth to their RSC for discussion at HTB. Applications for growth rejected by the RSC at this stage will not be considered any further for TCaF funding.

3.1. Stage 1: Initial eligibility During stage 1 we will shortlist bids based on the eligibility criteria set out in section 2.1. This stage will use published criteria to determine whether a trust is eligible to apply and under which strand of the fund. This will be a pass/fail assessment and in order to pass stage 1 the application must meet all the eligibility criteria. Any bid which does not pass this stage will be excluded from the process. Stage 1 will only serve as an initial sift and funding decisions will not be made until after Stage 2.

3.2. Stage 2: Assessment Criteria Applicants who pass the stage 1 criteria will enter stage 2, at which point we will assess the detail of the bids in section B of the application form. Stage 2 will assess proposals against the following criteria:

• Geographical need • Contextual need • Deliverability • Resource management • Value for money • Sustainability

Assessors will evaluate each project using the information contained within the application and data generated from DfE centrally held sources to make a relative judgement. Their judgement will also be informed by the relative strength of other bids submitted for consideration at that time.

Applications, including those with an innovative or new approach, will also be subject to a financial health assessment using the core financial returns shared with the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).

13

The following sections set out the basis for judgements under each set of assessment criteria and set out the information you might consider providing to support applications, given the principle of proportionality applied to this programme.

Geographical and contextual need

One of the main objectives of TCaF is to encourage the development of additional capacity where it is most needed. To support this objective, applications from places and contexts in which trust capacity is less abundant will be deemed stronger.

Applications from trusts will accordingly be considered as to:

• The extent of need and existing trust capacity within the Local Authority District (LAD) in which the growth project is situated

• Whether the growth project is in a context that has been identified as a priority for development, or presents an unusual level of risk for any trust that might take it on

Geographical need

The level of need in the local area covered by the proposal will be assessed, by comparing the number of at-risk schools and projects in a Local Authority District (LAD), with the supply of strong trusts in the same area. RSCs will also refer to local intelligence to inform decision-making, for example to ensure that boundary issues and anomalous cases do not unduly influence decisions.

Contextual need

Applications will be assessed as to the relative level of priority, based on contextual factors, attached to the growth project. Projects in the following contexts, that have been identified as priorities for development, will be deemed higher priority under this criterion:

• Special • Alternative Provision • Rural Village and Rural Hamlet settings within the Rural Urban Classification • Faith

Additionally, applications will be deemed stronger under this criterion if, in the judgement of the RSC, there are factors that escalate significantly the level of risk to any trust taking on the particular growth project. These include, but are not limited to, the current and historical educational and financial performance of the school and the condition of school estates.

Deliverability

Applications will be assessed on the degree to which they are able to provide strong evidence that the funded activity will be completed and paid for by 31 March 2019, as

14

funding will be paid in arrears. Activities for which funding will be paid should start no earlier than 1 September 2019. Projects will be deemed stronger if they are able to:

• Provide a realistic delivery plan for the size of the project size supported by appropriate evidence, including good consideration and mitigation of risk.

• Provide assurance that all funded activities will be completed by 31 March 2020.

Value for money

Applications will be assessed on the degree to which they provide value for money. Value for money is the demonstration of projects being appropriately costed and that all project costs are within an appropriate range for the type of work proposed. Applications will be assessed on whether the funding requested is proportionate to its size and its risk. Projects will be deemed stronger under this criterion if they are able to:

• Provide clear evidence that costs are minimised, and the delivery model is clear and cost-effective in relation to the scale of activity and intended impact

• Provide evidence that overall costs are at or below expectations • All cost elements should appear reasonable and where there are ‘abnormal’ or

high costs they are clearly justified.

Sustainability

Applications will be assessed on the degree to which they are able to provide evidence that the project will be sustainable after completion. Projects will be deemed stronger under this criterion if they are able to:

• Provide clear evidence that the trust can afford to pay for any new capabilities beyond March 2020 e.g. staffing costs

• Provide clear evidence that the trust will be financially sustainable without additional revenue support from the DfE

Resource management

Applications will be assessed as to the extent trust resources are used to support high-quality teaching and the best educational outcomes for pupils. Projects will be deemed stronger under this criterion by comparing favourably to thresholds on a range of statistics that have been identified by the Department for Education (DfE) as indicators of good resource management and outcomes.

15

4. Next steps

4.1. What happens if your application is successful? We will inform you via email if your application is successful or not after the assessment process is complete.

We will provide successful organisations with the final version of the DfE grant funding agreement. This agreement will set out our expectations of all successful applicants and all bidders will be required to accept the final version in full.

4.2. Terms and conditions of grant funding Before submitting an application, applicants should ensure they have read and understood the Department for Education grant funding agreement terms and conditions. In applying for the Trust Capacity Fund, applicants will be agreeing to the Department for Education grant funding agreement terms and conditions.

In the event of an application being successful, the applicant will be required to sign a grant offer letter. This will set out the specific grant conditions, monitoring arrangements and payment details. Grant funding will be paid to trusts in arrears in March 2020.

16

Annex A: Application checklist Before you start your application

Check that you have:

☐ Referred to the Information for applicants guidance and used this to check that your application is in line with the TCaF priorities and assessment criteria

☐ Used the eligibility checker on GOV.UK to check which strand of the fund your trust is eligible to apply for

Preparation of evidence

Check that you have:

☐ Summarised your project description, cost and delivery plan in your application

☐ Submitted an application for growth to your RSC or you are preparing to do so

☐ Completed all parts of the application form

Making an application

Check that you have:

☐ Planned your application ahead of the deadline so that you can review it and seek advice in order to resolve any issues before the application deadline

☐ Not included embedded files with your application

☐ Not included website or other external links in your application as these will not be accessed

17

© Crown copyright 2019

This publication (not including logos) is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

To view this licence: visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 email psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk write to Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London, TW9 4DU

About this publication: enquiries www.education.gov.uk/contactus download www.gov.uk/government/publications

Reference: DFE-00234-2019

Follow us on Twitter: @educationgovuk

Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/educationgovuk