Guidance

Section 151 officer return: guidance for completing the digital form

Published 24 April 2023

Applies to England

1. Introduction

Local authorities have continuing responsibility for financial regulation in schools. The section 151 officer (usually your chief financial officer) of the local authority is responsible for making the necessary arrangements for local financial and management controls, under section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Under these arrangements, the section 151 officer, must ensure that the grant monies received from DFE and/or ESFA for pre-16 and post-16 grants (non dedicated schools grant) are used for the purpose for which they are intended.

2. About the grant

The requirements for each grant are detailed in separate forms.

You must complete a form for each of the grants listed in your schedule before submitting your section 151 officer certificate.

For more information, and instructions on completing your returns, read this guidance document.

If you need further support completing your returns, contact us via ESFA help centre.

3. When to complete your submission

The deadline for submitting all funding forms and your section 151 officer certificate for the financial period of 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 is 5pm on 19 May 2023.

If you are able to complete your submission earlier, it would be helpful and appreciated.

4. Accessing the form

Access the submit your section 151 officer returns digital form to complete your submission for 2022 to 2023.

Use this form to certify that your local authority has met the required terms and conditions of grant funding provided by ESFA in the 2022 to 2023 financial year.

4.1 Before you start

Make sure you have:

1. Read this guidance document.

2. A DfE Sign-in account that is linked to your organisation. You need to have an account with the DfE Sign-in service.

3. If you have not used DfE Sign-in before you’ll need to create an account. Read if you do not have a DfE Sign-in account for more information.

4. Your spend details for each grant in your schedule for the financial year 2022 to 2023.

5. Details of unspent grant funding that may be recoverable by ESFA.

6. Details of any instances of fraud or theft.

4.2 DfE Sign-in

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

Follow the below steps to access your DfE Sign-In account:

1. Access the online form and when prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your username and password) for authentication.

2. Choose the organisation for whom you are completing the form.

3. 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 local authority, as well as the name and email address of the person who signed into DfE Sign-in.

4. If these details are correct, then all you need do is to select ‘Continue’ to go to the next page.

5. If you believe these details are incorrect, please complete the ESFA enquiry form form and we will investigate. You can still proceed with your submission.

6. Complete the form as instructed in the following sections.

Your account must be connected to the local authority you are completing the form(s) for. You do not need to add any services in DfE Sign-in; it is used for authentication only.

If you do not have a DfE Sign-in account

You will need to create one by following steps 1 to 5 below:

1. Select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’ on the DfE Sign-in page.

2. Enter your name and email address (use a valid business email address that contains your name).

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 or more. Your password must include 2 uppercase letters, 2 lowercase letters, and 2 numbers.

5. Sign in using your new credentials, and request access to the organisation for which you would like to submit the forms. Your request will be sent to the approver(s) at the local authority for action.

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

You might have noticed the term ‘approver’ when creating 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’s usually a senior person, such as an administrator or a manager.

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

4.3  If you need further assistance

If you are having problems using the DfE Sign-in service, use our DfE Sign-in help service. You will be able to request further assistance if required. When raising a support request, select ‘other.’

If you have problems accessing the form, please contact us via the ESFA help centre.

5.  Completing the form

It is important to select the correct local authority from the dropdown when accessing the form(s) or you will not see your local authority schedule correctly and may not be able to access any of the funding lines.

When you have been authenticated through DfE Sign-in, you will find a ‘save and continue’ button on each page of the form(s). If you have to sign out of a form or your form is open for an extended period before submitting it, you can resume your submission when you sign back in.

Selecting ‘save and continue’ on each page will take you through the form(s).

5.1 Your local authority schedule

If you have selected the correct local authority from the dropdown to continue with your submissions, you will be presented with a number of your local authority schedules to complete. Select and complete all of the grants listed to conclude that part of the section 151 return. The section 151 officer will be notified when all grant forms are completed and the certificate can be submitted.

5.2  Your details

This page will display the details we hold about the organisation you selected when you signed into your DfE Sign-in.

5.3 Amounts of grant allocation

If there are discrepancies between your allocation and department’s records, you can submit an amended amount received to be investigated. To do that you need to enter a valid amount received along with agreeing to mandatory declarations.

5.4 Funding distribution

As part of your form submission, you need to confirm the grant funding retained, if any, including any underspend, overspend or carry forward to the 2023 to 2024 financial year.

5.5 Fraud cases

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.

Further information about fraud can be found in Cabinet Office guidance.

5.6 Section 151 officer certificate

You will have been sent a blank copy of the certificate when we emailed you, but if you require a new version, you can download one via this form.

You must ensure that a form for each of the grants listed in your local authority’s schedule have been fully completed.

Only upload your section 151 certificate once all funding lines in your local authority’s schedule have been completed fully, no outstanding issues apply and you have received a summary data from ESFA asking you to compete the section 151 officer certificate.

5.7 Declarations page

Once you have completed your submission(s), you will be presented with mandatory declarations.

You will not be able to submit your form(s) without agreeing to the declarations.

You will also be asked to enter your email address. We will use this to send you an email confirmation of your submission(s).

5.8 Submission summary

You will be presented with a summary page that will allow you to check all your answers before submitting your form.

If you would like to change any answers, use the ‘change’ link that appears next to each data entry.

Select ‘save summary as pdf’ button, should you wish to keep a breakdown of the information you have entered in the form. You should do this before clicking the ‘Submit’ button.

If you are unable to see your submission summary within the PDF, you can download it by following steps as below:

1. At the summary page, select ‘file’ and then ‘print’ option.
2. A new window will pop up. From the dropdown, select ‘save as PDF’.
3. Click on ‘save’ button.
4. A PDF copy will be saved.

5.9  Confirmation

The final page confirms your submission and will provide you with a unique reference number.

Make a note of your unique reference number as this information will not be included in the confirmation email.

5.10  Amending your submission

If your submission is incorrect, you can resubmit up until 5pm on 19 May 2023 when this form window closes. To do this, you’ll need to log in and resubmit your form.

Forms can be submitted or resubmitted until the deadline by selecting the link to the form.

It will not be possible to grant any extensions to the deadline.

If you make a second submission, we’ll take the details of the most recently submitted form and disregard previous versions. You will receive a new unique submission reference for an amended submission.

6. Enquiries

If you’ve read this guidance and have any questions about the section 151 officer return, please contact us via the ESFA.