Guidance

Dedicated schools grant (DSG) assurance statement and note to the accounts: guidance for completing the digital forms

Published 20 November 2025

Applies to England

1. Introduction

Local authorities must complete both of the following digital forms for:

• the dedicated schools grant (DSG) assurance statement for the actual deployment of the 2024 to 2025 DSG, details of any fraud cases reported and recovered and numbers of schools subject to financial intervention by your local authority

• the note to the accounts figures for financial year 2024 to 2025

Before submitting each digital form, chief finance officers (CFOs) must be satisfied that the DSG has been used fully in support of the schools budget.

Local authorities do not need to include information about expenditure funded via other sources on their assurance statements.

Whilst completing the assurance statement, CFOs should refer, if necessary, to the Dedicated schools grant (DSG): 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK.

If required, DfE will contact local authorities to follow up any discrepancies highlighted during our scrutiny of the assurance statement and note to the accounts.

2. Who is this guide for?

This guide is for local authorities.

It provides instructions for completing your return. If you require further help completing your assurance statement or note to the accounts, or you have any queries, you can email us at LA.ASSURANCE@education.gov.uk

3. When to complete your submission 

The deadline for submitting the 2024 to 2025 autumn term DSG assurance statement and note to the accounts is 5pm on Tuesday, 16 December 2025. It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline.

4. Accessing the forms

Please read the sections below before accessing the DSG autumn assurance for financial year 2024 to 2025 digital form to complete your submission.

4.1 Before you start  

This service is for local authorities.

To access the form, you need to have an active DfE Sign-in account that is linked to your local authority.  If you have not used DfE Sign-in before you will need to create an account.

4.2 DfE Sign-in

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

Follow the below steps to access the form via your DfE Sign-in account:

1. Access the DSG autumn assurance for financial year 2024 to 2025 digital form. When prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your account email address and password) for authentication.

2. If multi-factor authentication (MFA) is enabled on your account, you’ll need to enter a verification code to login. To send the verification email with code you need to click on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ on the ‘Verify your identity page’ you were directed to after entering your email and password.

3. After clicking on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ you’ll progress to the next page ‘Enter code’. Copy the code from the verification email and paste it into the box. Then select ‘Verify’.

4. Choose the organisation you are completing the form for – this is only required if your account is linked to several organisations.

5. The next page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed in. This will show the name, address and unique identifier of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who signed into the form.

6. If these details are correct, select ‘Continue’ to go to the next page.

To complete the form, your DfE Sign-in account must be connected to the organisation you are completing the form for.

You do not need to add any services in DfE Sign-in; it is used only for authentication.

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account, you will need to create one by completing steps 1 to 7 below:

1. Access DfE Sign-in page and select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’. On the next page, select ‘No account? Create one’.

2. Enter your name and email address. You must use a valid business email address that contains your name – we are unable to accept generic emails, such as ‘admin’ or ‘info.’ You cannot use a personal email address.

3. We will send you an email to verify your email address. Copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page

4. Create a memorable password of 8 characters and contains 3 out of: lowercase characters, uppercase characters, numbers, symbols. Enter your given name and surname.

5. Sign in using your new credentials.  Request your multi-factor authentication (MFA) verification email by clicking on ‘Email code to [your email address]’ on the Verify your identity page.

6. We will send you an MFA email to verify your identity. Copy the code from this email and paste it into the box on the verification page.

7. Follow the next step instructions outlined in ‘Adding an organisation to your DfE Sign-in account’ below.

Adding an organisation to your DfE Sign-in account

To add a new organisation to your DfE Sign-in account, follow steps 1 to 6 below:

1. Login to your DfE Sign-in account.

2. Select ‘Organisations’ from the tab at the top of the page.

3. Select ‘Request access to an organisation’ from the ‘Related actions’ on the righthand side of the page.

4. Enter the name of the organisation you wish to add.

5. Select the organisation.

6. Select ‘Confirm.’

Your request will be sent to the approver(s) of your organisation. If you do not already have an approver your request will be actioned by the DfE Sign-in support team.

Once your request to access an organisation has been approved, you can follow the steps outlined under already have a DfE account to complete the form.

You may have noticed the term ‘approver’ when setting up your account. An approver is someone at your organisation responsible for controlling who has access to DfE Sign-in and the services within the system. It is usually a senior person, such as a manager.

For security reasons, you will need authorisation from one of your organisation’s approvers before you can access the form.

4.3  If you need further assistance

For problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service to request assistance. When raising a support request, select ‘Other.’

If you are having problems accessing the form collection, you can contact us through our Customer Help Portal.

5.  Completing the form 

Access the DSG autumn assurance for financial year 2024 to 2025 digital form and click ‘Start now’. When you navigate through the form, you will find a task list with a list of forms to complete as below:

1. DSG autumn assurance
2. DSG note to the accounts

Read the following carefully to ensure your submission is successfully completed: 

• all sub-forms are mandatory. Your submission will remain incomplete until every relevant sub-form has been completed

• each sub-form will display a status indicator showing one of the following:

• Not Yet Started – the form has not been accessed
• In Progress – the form has been started but not yet submitted
• Complete – the form has been successfully submitted

Please ensure you check the status of each sub-form and complete them all. Forms can be completed in any order. Only once all sub-forms show as ‘Complete’ will your overall submission be considered final. 

If you experience any issues or have questions, please contact our support team for assistance.

When you select a sub-form from the task list, you will find a ‘Save and continue’ button that will take you through each page.  If you sign out of the form, or leave it opened for an extended period before submitting it, you can resume your submission when you sign back in.

Once you have submitted your form(s), you will be advised of the next steps and will receive an email confirmation of your submission, using the email registered with DfE Sign in, with a link to download a PDF copy of your submission. This link will expire after 6 months, so we recommend you download a copy as soon as possible.

The digital portal will record the status of your form submissions; you can edit and resubmit your forms until the submission deadline.

Further details on how to complete each form are outlined below.

5.1  Your details 

We will show details of the information we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed into your DfE Sign-in.

5.2 Outturn 2024 to 2025 DSG deployment

This page will ask if the DSG received by your local authority for 2024 to 2025 was fully deployed in support of the schools budget in accordance with the conditions of grant and School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2024.

5.3 Audited note to the accounts

This page will ask if your note to the accounts have been audited or not. You will then be presented with a series of questions relating to your audit status.

If your accounts have been audited, you will be asked if the audited note has been published or not and where published, you will need to provide the link. You will also need information on any adverse statements on the audited accounts relating specifically to the schools’ budget, regarding regularity or propriety.

If your accounts have not yet been audited, you will be asked if the draft note to the accounts has been published or not and where published, you will need to provide the link.

5.4 Fraud cases

This section will ask you to report on any fraud cases which have taken place during 2024 to 2025 financial year, and in previous years.

Fraud is defined as an intentional false representation, including failure to declare information or abuse of position that is carried out to make gain, cause loss or expose another to the risk of loss.

This includes cases where management authorised action has been taken, including, but not limited to, disciplinary action, civil action or criminal prosecution.

You can read further information on the common areas of spend: fraud, error and debt in the Cabinet Office guidance.

If your local authority has not identified any instances of fraud in schools you maintain, or funded early years providers, during 2024 to 2025 financial year, select ‘no’ to continue with your submission.

When reporting fraud, you need to include the number of fraud cases and their total value during 2024 to 2025 financial year. You will be asked a series of questions relating to fraud investigations and any recovery.

You must still provide information relating to fraud cases during previous years. If you have not reported any fraud cases for earlier years, then enter zero.

5.5 Schools subject to financial intervention

This page will ask about schools subjected to financial intervention by the local authority, for example, by suspension of delegated budgets, notices of financial concern and schools that have been required to submit recovery plans.

A single school might feature in more than one of these lines, if more than one of these measures applied to the school during the financial year 2024 to 2025.

Select ‘no’ if your local authority has not taken any form of financial intervention with any of its schools during the financial year 2024 to 2025.

If any financial intervention took place, we will ask you further questions including the number of schools with suspended budgets, schools with notice of financial concerns, and schools requiring plans to recover a budget deficit.

5.6 DSG note to the accounts

This is the second form that you must complete.

We have designed this new form that you can use to provide information about your authority’s use of the DSG for the 2024 to 2025 financial year, and it will do the calculations for you.

The layout of the return mirrors the format of the DSG note to the accounts recommended by CIPFA’s Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom.

You must have the correct DSG amount values from the actual DSG note to the accounts for current and previous financial years before and after academy and high needs recoupments including carry forward from previous financial year to this financial year.

For central expenditure and individual schools’ budget, you must know the agreed initial budget for the current year and the previous financial year including any in year adjustments. You will also be asked about actual central expenditure and your local authority contribution in the previous financial year.

5.7 Declarations page

Once you have completed all relevant data entries, in each form you must agree to all mandatory declarations.

You will not be able to submit your form(s) without completing the mandatory declarations.  You will need to tick each statement box to confirm your agreement.

5.8 Chief finance officer (CFO) details

It is important that you provide accurate and the most up-to-date information for the CFO at your local authority.

5.9 Submission summary

The summary page for each form allows you to check your answers before submitting the form(s). You can change your answers using the ‘Change’ link that appears next to each data entry.

You can also save this summary by selecting ‘Save summary as PDF’ before you submit.  We are unable to accept this PDF summary of your answers as proof of submission.

You must select ‘Submit’ at the bottom of this page and receive a unique reference number for your submission to be processed.

5.10  Confirmation 

The final page for each form confirms your form has been successfully submitted. You will receive a unique reference number against each submission followed by what happens next.  It also provides a link back to the start page for you to review or update your submission(s).

You will also receive an email confirming successful submission to the email registered with DfE Sign in. This email contains a link to download a PDF of your submission, which is valid for 6 months from the date of your submission.

It is important that you make a note of your unique reference number as we will not include this information in your confirmation email.

5.11  Amending your submissions

You can make changes and resubmit your form(s) up to or before 5pm on Tuesday, 16 December 2025. To do this, you will need to sign back in to access your form, make your amendments and resubmit it.

You will be unable to amend your data after the submission deadline. We are unable to grant any extensions to the deadline.

We will use the details provided on your most recently submitted form and disregard all previous versions.

You will receive a new unique submission reference number for an amended submission.

6. Enquiries

If you have read this guidance and have any questions, you can contact us through the Customer Help Portal.

7. Feedback

We are committed to enhancing our user experience and improving our digital forms. We, therefore welcome and encourage user feedback.