Condition Improvement Fund 2026-27: the results and how bids are scored

What the 2026-27 outcome says

The Department for Education published the Condition Improvement Fund 2026 to 2027 outcome on 22 May 2026 and updated it on 3 August 2026. It confirms over £450 million for the 2026 to 2027 programme: 813 projects at 684 eligible educational establishments, including 12 projects at 11 establishments that were still pending approval, subject to further due diligence. The page also lists the successful appeals.

School-estates consultancy S2e analysed the same data and reported that 40% of the schools that applied secured funding (35% the year before), that 32% of projects succeeded (28% the year before), and that the winners were 17% of the 3,925 eligible institutions. Treat those percentages as S2e’s analysis of the DfE data rather than a DfE statistic. DfE’s own applicant guidance puts it more bluntly: “on average only around a third of applications are successful each year”.

Who bids, and who gets School Condition Allocation instead

In any financial year an eligible school either attracts School Condition Allocation (SCA) for its responsible body or is eligible for CIF, “but not both”. For 2026-27, CIF was open to stand-alone academies, schools in a trust or voluntary-aided body with fewer than five schools or fewer than 3,000 pupils, and sixth-form colleges. Multi-academy trusts with five or more schools and at least 3,000 pupils, and local authorities with maintained schools, receive SCA and cannot bid. Eligibility is notified each autumn and, in DfE’s words, “should not be assumed unless it has been confirmed”.

How a condition bid is scored

DfE’s 2026-27 information for applicants scores every condition project out of 100:

Section	Points	What it is made of
Project need	60	Project type (priority), urgency of need, strength of evidence, nature and extent of impact, and evidence of the trust’s estate-management approach (GEMS)
Project cost	25	Overall costs, cost certainty, funding sources, and environmental sustainability
Project planning	15	Appropriateness of the solution, timescales and delivery plan

Project type carries the most weight. DfE gives the highest priority to projects that address compliance and health and safety: building safety, fire protection systems, gas safety, electrical safety and emergency asbestos removal. It also prioritises critical replacement of coal and oil-fired boilers with low-carbon heating where there is a risk of school closure, then weather-tightness and continuous heating and water supply. The guidance is blunt about the rest: “We expect only applications that closely align with the CIF policy priorities will be successful.”

The funding-sources score rewards a contribution. A CIF loan counts as a contribution, so a 30% combined contribution scores 6 points and under 5% scores none, but DfE stresses that it is “the overall score that is the deciding factor”. Loans are at Public Works Loan Board rates, repaid over 2 to 10 years, and subject to affordability tests. Voluntary-aided schools must pay at least 10% themselves, and that 10% cannot be covered by a loan.

Where solar earns marks

Solar appears in one place: the environmental-sustainability sub-criterion of the cost score. To reach full marks an applicant must show a commitment to reducing carbon emissions across the estate and that the project delivers an energy or carbon reduction as a result of replacing components. Where the project itself cannot show that, the guidance allows “examples of other green technology installations unrelated to the project”, which can be existing facilities or works due soon, and lists solar panel installation first, ahead of rainwater recycling, smart lighting or heating systems and heat pumps.

That is useful and limited. The same guidance warns that works to improve energy efficiency, such as lighting projects, “which do not involve works to address high need condition issues, are unlikely to be successful”, and that sustainability and energy efficiency must not be the sole justification for replacing a boiler. A solar array on a sound roof is the kind of project that loses. A roof that has reached the end of its life, with solar designed in and priced separately, is the kind that wins its marks on need. Our guide to whether a CIF bid can pay for school solar shows how to structure that, and the solar panels for schools grants page compares it with every other route.

The cycle in dates

The 2026-27 round is the best guide to the shape of the next one. These are the dates DfE published, and the actual outcome date:

Milestone	2026-27 round
Guidance published, application window opens	21 October 2025
New applicants register for the portal	by 12 noon, 9 December 2025
Applications and supporting documents due	by 12 noon, 16 December 2025 (DfE: no extension for late requests)
Outcomes	published 22 May 2026 (guidance said “May 2026”)
Appeals	window planned for June 2026; appeal outcomes planned for July 2026

As of 20 October 2026 the gov.uk Condition Improvement Fund page still describes the 2026 to 2027 round. Last year’s guidance appeared on 21 October, so check that page for the next round’s information for applicants before assuming dates.

What replaces CIF

The Education Estates Strategy, published on 11 February 2026, says DfE will introduce “a new programme by autumn 2028” to replace the Condition Improvement Fund, so that eligible responsible bodies “will no longer need to submit full bids”. Until then, bids remain the route for smaller trusts and sixth-form colleges, and our write-up of what the Education Estates Strategy means for school solar sets the replacement alongside the £710 million Renewal and Retrofit Programme and the planned solar PPA.

Not eligible, or unsuccessful? Every school also receives Devolved Formula Capital for its own priorities, which we cover in whether a school can spend devolved formula capital on solar. Remember that there is no Salix loan for English schools, so for most English schools solar is paid for from capital, a CIF-funded roof project, or a power purchase agreement. The school solar cost guide shows what an array costs and earns.

Sources

• DfE, Condition Improvement Fund 2026 to 2027: information for applicants (key dates; eligibility; scoring; loans; sustainability).
• DfE, Condition Improvement Fund: 2026 to 2027 outcome, published 22 May 2026, updated 3 August 2026.
• DfE, School capital funding and the condition funding methodology and spend guidance 2026 to 2027 (SCA eligibility).
• S2e, CIF 2026–27 outcome: better news, but the bigger picture remains unchanged, 27 May 2026 (success-rate analysis).
• DfE, Education Estates Strategy: a decade of national renewal, 11 February 2026.