The Department for Education (DfE) has today (9 March) announced the new round of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) and has issued guidance for academy trusts who are interested in applying for the 2020 to 2021 round. The guidance is for academy trusts, and for good or outstanding Local Authority (LA) maintained rural schools forming a new multi-academy trust, who wish to apply for the 2020-21 TCaF. The TCaF will award up to £17 million of funding over the 2020-21 financial year across the following five strands, each with their own eligibility criteria (source: DfE):
- A1: Support strong trusts to grow and innovate in areas of long-standing need.
- A2: Encourage strong trusts to grow by taking on and improving weaker maintained schools and academies.
- B: Accelerate the development of mid-sized trusts with the potential to be strong.
- C: Support the merger of smaller trusts to form new strong trusts, as well as priority projects from Regional School Commissioners (RSCs) which do not fall under the other strands.
- D: Support good or outstanding LA maintained rural schools to collaborate and create new, strong MATs.
Application process
The TCaF will run two application windows across the 2020-21 financial year, to ensure applicants are able to access funds throughout the year. The first TCaF application window will open on 6th April 2020 and will close on 31st July 2020, whilst the second TCaF application window will open on 1st September 2020 and close on 31st December 2020.
Further details about the process and eligiblity can be found here or on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/