The Healthy Pupils Capital Fund is intended to improve children’s and young people’s physical and mental health by enhancing access to facilities for physical activity, healthy eating, mental health and wellbeing and medical conditions. These facilities include kitchens, dining facilities, changing rooms, playgrounds and sports facilities. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy will provide £100m revenue in 2018 to 2019 for the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund. This is a one year fund.
The DfE are using the existing mechanisms for school condition funding to allocate the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund:
- Local authorities and large multi-academy trusts will receive a direct allocation from the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund.
- Single and small academy trusts and sixth-form colleges have been able to bid for Healthy Pupils Capital Funding through the Condition Improvement Fund in 2018-19. The bidding round was launched on 19 October 2017 and closed on 14 December 2017. Further details are available here.
The DfE have published guidance for responsible bodies who will receive a direct allocation of the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund alongside details of how much funding each responsible body will receive.
Allocations are published at responsible body level. The Healthy Pupils Capital Fund uses a very similar methodology used for the School Condition Allocations. Pupil numbers underpin the allocations of the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund. These are weighted to reflect a number of factors: age-phase and type of pupils, whether a school has been modernised, the location of school and whether the school is a voluntary aided school.
Further details are provided in the guidance.
The DfE consider that responsible bodies are best placed to make decisions on their local priorities. The guidance highlights factors that responsible bodies may wish to consider when making decisions on how to use their funding most effectively in their local area and provides a series of illustrative examples.