How Much Does Academy Conversion Cost Now the Support Grant Has Ended?

For more than a decade, the answer to this question began with a reassurance. There is a government grant of £25,000, and for most schools it covers the legal work.

That reassurance no longer applies. The academy conversion support grant ended on 1 January 2025, with final applications closing in December 2024. The Department for Education removed the section on it from its conversion guidance at the end of January 2025, and the guidance page now states plainly that the grant has ended. No replacement scheme has been announced.

Schools can still convert. They now fund it themselves.

This article sets out what conversion actually costs without the grant, where the money can come from, and what governing bodies should be modelling before they commit.

What Happened to the Grant

It is worth understanding the sequence, because a good deal of published advice still describes the old position.

The grant gave voluntarily converting schools up to £25,000 towards conversion costs, including legal advice, human resources and TUPE advice, software licence transfers, rebranding and the expenses of setting up the trust.

From 1 September 2024, eligibility narrowed. The grant was paid only to schools approved to join or form a trust as part of a group of three or more schools. Special schools and alternative provision settings, including pupil referral units, remained eligible as single school conversions.

From 1 January 2025, it ended entirely. Applications closed on 20 December 2024.

The Trust Capacity Fund, which supported trusts to build capacity and take on underperforming schools, was scrapped at the same time, with the department indicating no plans for further rounds.

Arrangements for schools converting under a directive academy order, where a sponsor is appointed following intervention, sit outside the voluntary conversion grant and have historically operated differently. If your school is in that position, confirm the current arrangements with your regions group contact rather than assuming either way.

Grant policy can change again. Check the current position with the Department for Education before relying on anything written here or elsewhere.

What Conversion Actually Costs

Without the grant, these are the numbers a governing body should be planning around.

Legal fees. The core conversion documents, funding agreement, articles, commercial transfer agreement and standard land work. Firms experienced in conversions have historically quoted fixed fees designed to sit within the old grant, and many still quote in that region. Budget in the order of £15,000 to £25,000 for a straightforward conversion.

Complex land work. Unregistered title, third party occupation, shared sites, playing fields held separately, diocesan land or a PFI contract will push legal costs well beyond a standard fee. This is the single most common overspend and the hardest to predict.

Project management. Somebody has to hold the plan. Bought in, budget for it. Absorbed internally, the cost is still real and usually shows up as something else not getting done.

Financial systems. A new chart of accounts, an academy compliant finance system, and often external support to configure it and train staff.

Payroll and pensions transition. Moving payroll, establishing Local Government Pension Scheme admitted body status, and running parallel arrangements during changeover.

Insurance. Academies arrange their own cover. Compare the risk protection arrangement against commercial options properly.

Governance and clerking. Trusts need company secretarial capability and proper clerking, which is frequently a step up from what a maintained school has.

Rebranding, where required. Not universal. Ask early.

The Recurring Costs That Follow

The conversion is a one off. The change to your annual budget is not, and it is the part most often missed.

New recurring costs typically include external audit, which academy trusts require and maintained schools do not, insurance, human resources and legal support, payroll provision, finance system licensing, governance and clerking, and where you join a multi academy trust, a top slice contribution to central services.

Against those, model what you gain. Direct funding rather than a local authority allocation. Services no longer bought from the authority. Procurement through a trust. Central capacity you no longer provide yourself.

For many schools the position is broadly neutral or positive. For some, particularly small primaries, it is not. That is worth knowing before you commit. Our guide to the advantages and disadvantages of academy status covers the wider trade offs.

Where the Money Comes From Now

Four options, in rough order of how often we see them.

School reserves. The most common answer, and viable for schools with healthy balances. Less so for schools that are the very ones a trust would most help.

The trust pays. Since the grant ended, a number of trusts have begun meeting conversion costs from their own reserves to remove the barrier for schools they want to attract. Some have set aside a specific annual sum for this.

If you are talking to a trust, ask directly whether they will cover conversion costs. It is now a reasonable question and increasingly a common arrangement. Be aware of the flip side, which is that a trust's willingness to pay should not become the reason you choose it. Our guide to choosing the right trust covers what actually matters.

Shared costs across a converting group. Where several schools convert together, some legal work is genuinely shared and the per school cost falls.

Phasing. Some costs, particularly systems and governance capability, can be sequenced across the conversion year and the one after rather than landing at once.

What This Means Strategically

The removal of the grant has a practical consequence worth naming. It makes conversion harder for exactly the schools that would benefit most.

A well resourced secondary with strong reserves can absorb £25,000. A small primary with a deficit, falling rolls and a leadership team already stretched cannot, and it is that school for which trust membership would most likely improve financial and educational sustainability. Sector bodies raised precisely this concern when the change was announced.

If you are a small school in that position, two things follow. First, the conversation with a prospective trust about who pays is now a legitimate and necessary part of the discussion. Second, do not let cost alone drive the decision in either direction. Converting because a trust will pay is as poor a reason as not converting because you cannot.

If you are a trust with growth plans, this is now part of your growth model. Our guide to MAT growth strategy covers building that into your financial planning.

From Our Experience

Many leaders tell us they budgeted the conversion carefully and were caught by the year afterwards.

We often see a school arrive at opening day having managed the legal costs well, only to find the first academy budget contains three or four recurring lines nobody had modelled. External audit is the classic one. It is not enormous, but it is new, it is annual, and in a small primary budget it is noticeable.

We also see the opposite mistake, which is a governing body that fixates on cost and never models the benefit. Schools that convert into a well run trust often stop paying for a range of local authority services, gain procurement leverage and access central capacity they could never have funded alone. An analysis that only looks at what conversion costs is not an analysis.

The most useful exercise we run with boards is a simple side by side. Current position, year one as an academy, year three as an academy. Not precise to the pound, but honest about direction. Boards that do this make confident decisions. Boards that do not tend to convert anxiously and then feel ambushed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the £25,000 academy conversion grant still available?

No. The academy conversion support grant ended on 1 January 2025 and no replacement has been announced. A great deal of online guidance still refers to it, so check dates carefully on anything you read.

Why was the grant removed?

The department described the decision in the context of wider public spending pressures. It followed an earlier narrowing of eligibility in September 2024, which had limited the grant to groups of three or more schools converting together.

Were special schools and PRUs affected?

Yes. They had been an exception to the September 2024 restriction, remaining eligible as single school conversions, but the grant ended for all schools from 1 January 2025. Our guide to special school and PRU conversion covers the wider position for specialist settings.

Is any funding available for conversion now?

Not for voluntary conversion. The Trust Capacity Fund also closed. Arrangements for sponsored conversions under a directive academy order operate separately, so check with your regions group contact if that applies to you. Grants for academies transferring between trusts still exist in limited form but are awarded to a small minority of transfers.

Can the trust pay our conversion costs?

Yes, and a growing number do. Ask directly. Just be careful that willingness to pay does not become the deciding factor in which trust you join.

Can we use our reserves?

Yes, and most converting schools now do. Model the impact on your reserves position properly, particularly if you are already tight.

Do we still need our own auditor?

Academy trusts require external audit. If you join an existing trust this is handled at trust level and forms part of what the top slice covers.

A Common Misconception

The misconception we now meet most often is that the grant still exists.

It is an understandable one. A great deal of published guidance, including some from reputable sources, still describes the £25,000 grant in the present tense, because it was in place for well over a decade and articles written before 2025 have not been updated. Governing bodies quite reasonably read those pages and plan accordingly.

If your conversion budget assumes a grant, check the current position with the department before you go any further. It is better to find out now than at the point the first invoice arrives.

Questions for Leaders

• Does our conversion budget assume a grant that no longer exists?
• Have we asked the trust we are considering whether they will meet conversion costs?
• Do we know of any land complexity, and has our solicitor been told?
• Have we modelled our first full academy year, including audit?
• Have we modelled what we will stop paying for?
• What does this do to our reserves position, and are we comfortable with that?

Our Perspective

Money is rarely the reason a school should or should not convert, but since the grant ended it has become a larger part of the conversation than it was.

That makes honest modelling more important, not less. The boards we see making confident decisions are not the ones with the biggest reserves. They are the ones that did the arithmetic properly, including the parts that were uncomfortable, and went in with their eyes open.

The risk in the current climate is that cost quietly becomes the deciding factor in a decision that should be about what children need. A school that converts because a trust offered to pay, or that does not convert because it cannot afford to, has let the wrong question drive the answer. Work out what is right for your pupils first, then work out how to fund it.

How Can Jarvis Education Help?

Jarvis Education supports schools and trusts through academy conversion and MAT growth, including honest financial modelling of what conversion will mean for you now that the grant has gone.

We provide project management, independent due diligence in both directions, governance design and review, and straightforward advice about whether conversion makes sense for your school. If we think it does not, we will say so.

For trusts, we help build conversion costs into a realistic growth model rather than treating each one as an exception.

Our consultants have led schools and trusts, inspected schools, and supported MATs through growth, merger and rebrokering.

Explore our academy conversion and MAT growth support, or get in touch for a conversation about the numbers.