Correspondence

EFA e-bulletin for academies: 30 March 2017

Published 30 March 2017

This correspondence was withdrawn on

This has been withdrawn as it’s out of date. The EFA e-bulletin has been replaced by ESFA Update.

1. Information: announcement of the Education and Skills Funding Agency from 1 April 2017

The Secretary of State has announced that Education Funding Agency (EFA) and Skills Funding Agency (SFA) will be brought together to create one funding agency from 1 April 2017.

The new agency will be called the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). ESFA’s first working day will be Monday 3 April 2017.

There will be no impact on existing contracts and funding agreements with education and skills providers and other contractors.

For any further queries, please use the EFA enquiry form.

2. Action: academies budget forecast return outturn (BFRO) 2016 to 2017

We’ve issued the academies budget forecast return outturn (BFRO) for 2016 to 2017. We’ve also issued full guidance for completing the return.

All academy trusts open as at 31 March 2017 must submit a completed BFRO to the EFA by 19 May 2017.

For more information about EFA’s arrangements for collecting academy trust budget forecast information, please read Peter Lauener’s letter to accounting officers.

3. Information: 2017 to 2018 academy revenue funding allocations

We’ve uploaded all pre-16 and post-16 funding allocations for 2017 to 2018 to Document Exchange. These are for academies that opened before or on 1 January 2017. Your statement is in the Document Exchange ‘revenue funding’ folder, under ‘AY 2017-18 (2017/18)’.

To access Document Exchange, log into EFA Information Exchange and choose the Document Exchange tab at the top of the page.

For support and guidance about EFA Information Exchange, please visit our support page.

We’ve published guidance on academy revenue funding allocations to help you understand your funding statement. We’ve also published explanatory notes about post-16 funding allocations for academies with sixth-forms.

We’ll issue 2017 to 2018 academic year allocations to those academies that opened in February and March 2017 by mid-April 2017.

Please contact us using our online enquiry form if you have any queries.

4. Information: national non-domestic rates (NNDR) claim form

We’ll refresh the online claims form for national non-domestic rates on 3 April 2017. This will allow claims for the financial year 2017 to 2018. It will still be available for claims for the financial years 2015 to 2016 and 2016 to 2017. EFA will make payments in full within 2 months of your claim.

To make additional claims for buildings revalued before the financial year 2015 to 2016, please contact us using our enquiry form. Please attach associated invoices relating to the revaluations.