School finance

Guidance for managing budgets, costs and funding covering academy conversion, public duties claims, statutory information and VAT.

Academy conversions

When maintained schools convert to academies they must complete and send us a return showing their final closing position within 4 months of the conversion date.

Once a conversion has taken place, we will send a letter and guidance document to the converted school.

Download a copy of the letter or the return document.

Once we’ve agreed final accounts, we will authorise the transfer of the closing cash balance from the school to the academy bank account. No funds can be transferred without our authorisation.

We raise a charge to new academies for the costs we incur during the conversion process.

To find out more about these legal and property charges download our Cost of academy conversion letter (PDF, 132KB).

To find out more about the procedures and legislation around the transfer of balances visit Academy conversion: surplus and deficit balance transfer process on GOV.UK.