Guidance

Financial benchmarking tool for colleges

A tool to help colleges compare their financial performance with others in the sector.

From:
Education and Skills Funding Agency
Published
10 April 2017
Last updated
22 May 2024 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

College financial benchmarking tool: guidance

HTML

College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2022 to 2023

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 8.66 MB

College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2021 to 2022

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 7.86 MB

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Details

The intended audience for this page is:

  • sixth-form and further education college corporations
  • institutions designated under Section 28 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 as being in the further education sector

For the purposes of this page, these are collectively referred to as ‘colleges’.

Bodies funded by ESFA as ‘Special post 16 institutions’ (SPIs) (sometimes described as ‘colleges’) are not in scope, unless they are a subsidiary of one of the previously listed organisations.

You can filter the benchmark population based on certain criteria. The tool provides several benchmarking reports, trend analysis and access to the underlying datasets.

The latest version of the tool includes data submitted in colleges’ finance records for the years:

  • 2022 to 2023
  • 2021 to 2022

Additional information on ESFA’s financial reporting requirements for colleges is set out in our college accounts direction.

Published 10 April 2017
Last updated 22 May 2024 + show all updates

  1. Added 'College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2022 to 2023'.

  2. We have published a revised version of the college benchmarking tool for the financial year 2021 to 2022.

  3. We have published the college benchmarking tool for the financial year 2021 to 2022.

  4. Added the latest version of the tool in for the year 2020 to 2021 and updated guidance.

  5. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with data for 2019 to 2020.

  6. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with data from 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019.

  7. We have published an updated version of the college financial benchmarking tool and have updated the accompanying guidance.

  8. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with improved data accuracy.

  9. Page updated for 2017 to 2018.

  10. First published.

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