Department for Education awards grant to New Schools Network
New Schools Network will provide pre-application support to those hoping to open free schools.
Following a competitive bidding process, the Department for Education has approved grant funding for New Schools Network (NSN) to provide pre-application support to parents, teachers and community groups and others hoping to open free schools. The grant will also allow NSN to support free schools in the pipeline and open free schools. NSN is a registered charity.
The grant will be for the financial years 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016. There is an option to extend the grant for 1 year beyond this.
The grant is expected to commence on 1 April 2014, subject to final negotiations on the grant agreement. This will be published in due course.
The grant was awarded after a rigorous bid assessment conducted by senior department officials.
Some 15 groups requested information about how to bid for the grant, with 3 applications being made. NSN was judged to have submitted the strongest bid as evaluated against the published award criteria.
Read the letter from the department, informing NSN of their successful bid.