Guidance

Guidance for completing the disapplications form

Updated 15 February 2024

Applies to England

© Crown copyright 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-16-schools-funding-local-authority-guidance-for-2024-to-2025/guidance-for-completing-the-disapplications-form

1. Introduction

This document is for local authorities. It sets out how to complete the disapplication request form. It also helps schools forums plan how to implement their funding.

The Secretary of State requires a local authority to submit a disapplication request to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) where its local approach to school funding would not ordinarily be allowable within the Schools and Early Years Finance Regulations and dedicated schools grant (DSG): conditions of grant.

Where such situations arise, this disapplication request service provides local authorities with a process for submitting an exceptional request to the Secretary of State to disregard aspects of the regulations and DSG conditions of grant.

2. When to complete your submission

Please refer to the schools operational guide 2024 to 2025.

3. Accessing the form

Access the local authority disapplication request form to complete your return.

All relevant sub-forms must be submitted for your return to be considered complete. You should make a note of your submission progress to keep track of each submission and to avoid missing submitting a sub-form.

3.1 Before you start

Make sure you have:

3.2 DfE Sign-in

Sign in to your DfE Sign-in account

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

  1. When prompted, enter your DfE Sign-in credentials (your account email address and password) for authentication.

  2. Choose the organisation for which 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 URN or UKPRN of the organisation, as well as the name and email address of the person who logged into DfE Sign-in.

  4. If these details are correct, select ‘continue’ to go to the next page.

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

  6. Complete the form as instructed.

Your account must be connected to the local authority you are completing the form 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 the steps below:

  1. Visit the DfE Sign-in page.

  2. Select ‘create a DfE Sign-in account’.

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

  4. 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.

  5. Create a memorable password of 8 characters or more. Your password must include 2 uppercase letters, 2 lowercase letters, and 2 numbers.

  6. Sign in using your new credentials, and request access to the local authority for which you would like to submit a form.

  7. Your request will be sent to the approver(s) at the local authority for action.

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 an administrator or a manager.

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

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.

3.3  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.

4.  Completing the form

This form is divided into a number of sub-forms that make up the full disapplication submission. All relevant sub-forms must be submitted for your return to be considered completed. Depending on your disapplication type, you may need to submit up to 6 sub-forms in total to make up the full disapplication return.

There is a ‘save and continue’ button at the bottom of each page. Clicking on this button will take you to the next page.

The form will remember information you have saved if you sign out of the form if you leave it open for an extended period or if you have submitted but you access the form again to make changes.

You will also be advised what will happen next once you have submitted the form.

4.1  Your details

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

4.2 Types of requests

You can make a disapplication request for 1 of the 5 types as below:

  • early years – pass through only

  • early years – all others (not related to pass-through)

  • general (schools and central school services)

  • high needs

  • schools block movement

You then need to complete all the relevant sections/sub-forms following selecting your request type from above.

Please be advised that the early years entitlements: local authority funding operational guide 2024 to 2025 sets out new guidance in relation to extending the facility to apply for a disapplication from the 95% pass through rule to the disadvantaged 2-year-old entitlement and the new working parent entitlements. The operational guide also sets out criteria against which a disapplication will be considered. Local authorities are advised to consult this guidance and contact us via the ESFA help centre for any queries on how to best complete the disapplication proforma where the request relates to disadvantaged 2-year-old entitlement and the new working parent entitlements.

4.3 Sub-form details

Once you have signed in to access the digital submission form and selected a request category type, the form will present you with the list of the sub-forms for completion. You will need to complete and submit these to make a full submission.

You will need to return to this main page after each sub-form submission to access and complete all the remaining sub-forms, which will involve you logging back into DfE Sign-in and retracing your steps to get to the main page.

All listed sub-forms must be individually completed and submitted for your disapplication submission to be considered complete.

The following are the standard set of sub-forms your institution will need to complete for all disapplication types:

  • summary

  • supporting information

  • consultation information

  • legal

  • equality assessment

More detail on each sub-form content is provided later below.

Then there are the following sub-forms that may also apply, depending on the type of your request:

  • school block movement

  • early years pass-through only

For each request type, you will be asked questions on the following topics:

Summary

To complete this section, you will need:

  • the reasons why you are making this request

  • the number of years that the request is for

  • information about any transitional measures that you might need to implement.

  • confirmation of how your request fits with the national funding formula

Supporting information

To complete this section, you will need:

Consultation information

To complete this section, you will need:

  • information to demonstrate how you have consulted with schools, the schools forum and any other interested parties about your disapplication request

  • schools forum minutes detailing the consultation and any vote that took place

To complete this section, you will need to:

  • submit legal information to support of your request to disapply regulations to ESFA

Equality assessment

To complete this section, you will need to:

  • provide a summary of what impact your request will have on pupils, schools and the local authority in terms of equality of opportunity

  • upload a copy of your completed equality impact assessment or analysis

  • identify and confirm equalities impact on age, gender, orientation, race, disability, religion or belief, gender assignment, pregnancy and maternity, civil partnerships and intersectional discrimination

4.4 Declarations page

You must complete the declarations on each sub-form. You will not be able to submit your form without fully completing this section.

4.5 Submission summary

You will see a summary page where you can check all your answers before submitting a sub-form on behalf of your organisation. You can change your answers by using the ‘change’ link that appears next to each data entry.

You can save your submission by clicking ‘save summary as PDF’ before you submit. If you are unable to see your submission summary within the PDF, you can download it by following steps as below or via the link within confirmation email that you will receive after each form submission.

  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 the ‘save’ button

4.6  Confirmation

The final page confirms your sub-form submission and shows a unique reference number. Each completed sub-form has its own unique reference number. Make a note of all reference numbers as we will not include this information in your confirmation email.

We will send an email to confirm we received your submission to the email address linked to your DfE Sign-in account.

4.7  Amending your submission

You can make changes to the sub-forms and resubmit. To do this, you will need to log back and access the main page, select the relevant sub-form you wish to review and resubmit it. Please also refer to the schools operational guide: 2024 to 2025.

5. Enquiries

If you have read this guidance and have any questions about this digital disapplication submission process, please contact us via the ESFA help centre.

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