Consistent financial reporting framework 2025 to 2026

Summary

Guidance to help schools collect information about their income and expenditure.

The consistent financial reporting (CFR) framework provides a template for schools to report their income and expenditure by financial years.

The CFR framework applies to maintained schools and pupil referral units. It is optional for nurseries and non-maintained special schools.

If you have any questions about this guidance, please contact us through the data collections service request form.

Introduction

About this guidance.
Spotlight for 2025 to 2026

Details of the key areas we would like to highlight.
Schools open for part of the financial year

Instructions for where schools are only open for part of the financial year.
Federated schools receiving a single budget share

Information where schools are federated and receive a single budget share from the local authority.
Schools holding money on behalf of other schools

Information on where schools hold money on behalf of other schools.
Data items used in the collection

Table of guidance about some of the data items we use.
Income

This section provides information on income for schools.
Expenditure

This section provides information on expenditure for schools.
Capital income

This section provides information on capital income for schools.
Capital expenditure

This section provides information on capital expenditure for schools.
Balances

This section provides information on balances for schools.
Consistent financial reporting framework XML generator 2025 to 2026

Use the XML generator to prepare your data for uploading to COLLECT.