Which capital funding a school can get depends mostly on what kind of school it is and who is responsible for it. Getting that wrong wastes time on bids you cannot win, or means missing money you are entitled to.
If you are in a larger trust or a maintained school
The School Condition Allocation (SCA) is paid by formula each year to local authorities, voluntary aided bodies and larger multi-academy trusts. For 2026-27, a trust or VA body qualifies if it had five or more open schools in September 2025 with at least 3,000 pupils between them. There is no bid: the trust or local authority receives the money and decides how to spend it across its schools. Maintained schools should ask their local authority how its SCA is prioritised.
With SCA, the challenge is deciding where the money goes. That needs good condition data across every site and a clear, defensible way of ranking the work.
If you are a single academy, a smaller trust or a sixth-form college
The Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) is an annual bidding round for academies, sixth-form colleges and voluntary aided schools that do not receive SCA. It pays for condition and health and safety work, and a small number of expansion projects. Around £450 million was available for 2026-27. The next round, for 2027-28, is expected to open in autumn 2026, and the DfE has said CIF will be replaced by a new allocation model from autumn 2028.
CIF is competitive. Bids that do well usually have:
- independent condition evidence: surveys, reports and photographs that show the problem clearly
- a project that addresses a real risk to safety or to keeping the school open
- realistic costs from a professional, not a guess
- a project that is ready to go, with a clear programme
Where a building problem is urgent enough to threaten closure, academies and sixth-form colleges can apply for Urgent Capital Support at any time of year. It is mainly offered as a loan.
Other routes
- Devolved formula capital: a small annual amount every school receives for its own priorities.
- Locally Controlled Voluntary Aided Programme (LCVAP) funding, managed through dioceses for VA schools.
- Basic need and high needs capital, which go to local authorities to create school places.
- The School Rebuilding Programme, for buildings in the worst condition, selected in national rounds.
Energy funding has changed too. The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme has closed to new projects, although some regional retrofit schemes and Great British Energy's school solar programme are running.
How we help
We help schools and trusts work out which routes apply to them, gather the condition evidence and write bids that score well. For larger trusts, we help build a fair way to prioritise SCA across the estate. See our Capital Projects Management service.