Introduction

This guidance applies to maintained schools and pupil referral units and is for:

• local authority finance officers
• school finance officers
• business managers
• bursars

It is optional for nurseries and non-maintained special schools.

The consistent financial reporting (CFR) framework provides a standard template for schools to collect information about their income and expenditure by financial years, which maintained schools provide to their local authorities in a financial statement each year.

Financial statements must be in line with the approved headings set out in the The Consistent Financial Reporting (England) Regulations 2012.

The guidance provides definitions for each CFR code set out in the regulations.

Financial statements include:

• school resources received in a financial year, including any unspent at the end of the previous year
• the application of any school resources
• a summary of the school’s financial position at the end of the year

The information supports benchmarking and enables governors and local authorities to produce simple reports. The financial benchmarking website enables comparisons of school income and expenditure profiles with similar schools.

We have published guides to help schools and local authorities submit data using COLLECT (collections online - learners, education, children and teachers). The guides include information on accessing COLLECT, and uploading and submitting data.

Consistent financial reporting framework 20252024 to 20262025

View the consistent financial reporting framework for 20252024 to 20262025

Consistent financial reporting framework 20242023 to 20252024

View the consistent financial reporting framework for 20242023 to 20252024

Consistent financial reporting framework 20232022 to 20242023

View the consistent financial reporting framework for 2022 to 2023

Consistent financial reporting framework 2021 to 20242022

View the consistent financial reporting framework for 2021 to 2022

Consistent financial reporting framework 2020 to 2021

View the consistent financial reporting framework for 2020 to 2021

Consistent financial reporting framework 2019 to 2020

View the consistent financial reporting framework and XML generator for 2019 to 2020

To view frameworks published prior to 20232019 to 2024,2020, please visit the national archives website.

Consistent financial reporting data

Data for 2014 to 2015 onwards is published on the schools financial benchmarking service.