This morning I received confirmation from Education Minister, Lord Agnew, that a number of bids from our schools for improvement funds have been successful! The Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) received requests for more than 4,500 projects to this year’s round. 1,413 projects at 1,210 academies and sixth-form colleges have been successful in their bids and will now benefit from £433 million for improvements. That includes in our constituency:

Sanders School

Drapers' Pyrgo Priory School

Drapers' Maylands Primary School

Upminster Junior School

Emerson Park Academy

Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School

The Campion School

Drapers' Academy

The core priority of CIF is keeping academy and sixth form college buildings safe and in good working order. Most CIF funding aims to address issues with significant consequences that revenue or Devolved Formula Capital funding cannot meet. These include issues with poor building condition, building compliance, energy efficiency and health and safety. CIF projects range in value from £20k up to £4m and the average amount awarded is just over £300k.

CIF also supports a small proportion expansion projects for Ofsted-rated good or outstanding academies and sixth-form colleges that need to expand their existing facilities and/or floor space to either increase the number of admissions in the main year of entry or address overcrowding.

As in previous rounds, the fund was heavily oversubscribed so only those projects that demonstrated a high project need and aligned with CIF priorities have been able to be funded. More information on CIF, including the full list of successful projects published today can be found here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/condition-improvement-fund