2019 CIF Round - Were you Successful?

Higham Lane School Sixth Form Centre

The ESFA has recently published the outcome of the 2019 Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) round, with £433m being committed to 1412 projects across 1209 academies or 6th forms across the country.

Unsurprisingly, this year like previous years before was heavily oversubscribed. Additionally, the amount of funding awarded by the ESFA is also the lowest in 3 years, with this year’s amount 15%* lower than the CIF funding awarded for last year.

Surveyors to Education (S2e) have had another fantastic year in winning much needed funds for our school and MAT academy clients. If you have not been successful in securing this year’s CIF bid for your academy and want to ensure that you have the best chance of success, come and talk to the UKs most successful independent agency – we would love to help!

Who is eligible?

Any single academy or small MAT, that has fewer than 5 academies and 3000 students. If you are larger than this, you would be in receipt of the School Condition Allocation (SCA) fund and cannot apply for CIF.

Key dates

The guidance for the 2020-21 has yet to be published but it’s likely to follow the trend of previous years, with the online portal opening for applications in October 2019 and a completion deadline of December 2019.

Do I need a condition survey to ensure CIF bid success?

The ESFA bid guidance stresses the importance of an up to date and independent condition survey. This alone is critical in helping you justify the need for your project and exactly why (and what proportion of) funds should be awarded. At S2e we are experts in ensuring that we are able to provide you with a complete and professional condition survey, allowing you to identify what needs improving and prioritising key deficiencies and maintenance issues.

A successful CIF bid could unlock a significant amount of funding (on average this years CIF round awarded c. £300k per project) that could really transform part of your academy’s estate and develop the optimum learning environment for your pupils.

For more information on how we can help you, please contact us on  01530 276127 or email enquire@s2e.org.uk.

*A total of £514m was awarded last year across 1556 projects nationwide