Issue details

For schools converting to academy status, local authorities must either bear the full cost of the work they undertake by law to facilitate transfers of status, or charge the converting school the costs, which they are entitled to do.

The charging for academy conversion costs was set in July 2019 at £6,000 for a community or voluntary controlled school, £5,000 for a voluntary aided school (which does not require HR service input); and £4,000 for foundation or trust schools (which do not require human resource and less property service input). The charging was based on an average cost at the time. The charges were levied for any new school formally requesting to convert to academy status from 1 September 2019 (upon receipt of approval from the DfE). Cabinet decision was made on 16 July 2019.

From 1 November 2024, the terms and conditions for the DfE Academy conversion Support Grant, normally £25,000 per school, will be updated. It will be paid only to trusts approved to convert as part of a group of 3 or more schools joining the same multi academy trust. Special and alternative provision schools (also known as pupil referral units, or PRUs) will continue to be eligible to receive it as part of a single-school conversion process.

The costs for academy conversions have not been reviewed annually as intended and the costs now often exceed the level originally set in 2019.

Conversions have become far more complex over time especially reaching agreements with academy trusts, with challenges about: site ownership; rents; condition matters; future liabilities; etc.  This has led to much more legal work, that is externalised, for leases andcommercial transfer agreements (CTA). This has also made it more difficult to achieve conversions in the anticipated time.

National Audit Office review of publicly available information suggested, nationally the charges by local authorities to schools range from £2,500 to £20,000 per school.^[1]

Publicly available information in the table below shows a range of charges across the country and across different types of councils, unitary and county councils.

In determining new charges to schools, to cover some of the costs to SCC for the work being undertaken, consideration of the following areas has been made: staffing costs dedicated to academy conversions; the average number of conversions per year, and a weighting for different status of schools. A simple conversion without protracted negotiations, the average legal cost for a CTA and Lease is £2,500 to £3,000 per agreement, whereas legal fees have reached over £16,000 for two schools recently.

The Council will be increasing charges to £12,000 for a community and voluntary controlled school, £6,000 for a voluntary aided school; £6,000 for foundation schools. In addition, excessive legal cost to the Council, that is above £6,000, will be passed to the school.