And why it is so important

As school budgets have tightened over the years, more and more have become reliant on dedicated funds and grants offered by the government and other NGO’s to help support vital expansion, refurbishment or safeguarding projects.

Every year there is over £2 billion of capital funding made available to schools and academies through various funds and grants, such as:

• School Condition Allocation (SCA)*

• Condition Improvement Fund (CIF)

• Basic Needs Fund

• Salix

• T-levels

• School Nurseries Capital Fund (SNCF)

To access many of these funds, academies and schools need to take part in annual bidding rounds. As you can expect, not only do these funds have strict qualifying criteria, but the majority, such as CIF, are usually oversubscribed every year.

With such fierce competition for funds, it is crucial to make sure bid submissions are of the highest standard to ensure the greatest chance of success.

Steps for bid writing success

• Plan ahead and start the bid process as early as possible in the process

• Ensure your goals and objectives are clearly outlined

• Ensure your bid is evidence based where applicable

• Meet key criteria i.e. an up to date condition survey is a pre-requisite of CIF

Preparing for and putting together bids can not only be challenging but also time consuming for individual academies and business managers. Using a specialist funding consultancy to provide this service will not only take away the stress and responsibility of putting together a bid application but also give you the best chance of success at no extra cost, leaving academies or schools to concentrate on doing what they do best: teaching.

When and why you might want to use an agency

• Time and resource constraints

• Experience and expertise especially when dealing with a new fund

• Writing the best possible bid

• Improved chances of winning

• Finding different ways to access capital funding

• More capital funding made available for your projects

At Surveyors to Education (S2e) we are committed to helping our clients secure the funding they need and have a track record of success, with over £50 million worth of CIF funding secured for our clients in just the last 2 years alone. We are able to offer a complete end to end service from preparing and tendering bids through to project management and have an unrivalled knowledge of putting together successful bid applications. If you would like to speak to someone about our ‘no win, no fee’ service, please contact us on  01530 276127 or email enquire@s2e.org.uk.

*This fund is automatically given to MAT’s with 5 or more academies, or more than 3000 pupils. The amount given to each school or academy is dependent on their circumstances