CEF Access Policy

The Community Education Fund (CEF) provides fully or partially funded tutoring places to students in financial hardship. This policy sets out who qualifies, how decisions are made, and what protections are in place.

Eligibility pathways

There are three routes to CEF eligibility.

1. Benefit receipt (hard grant)

A household that receives one or more of the following DfE FSM-qualifying benefits is automatically eligible for CEF support, subject to monthly intake caps:

• Income Support
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
• Universal Credit – net household earnings below £7,400/year (after tax and National Insurance)
• Child Tax Credit (without Working Tax Credit) – annual income not exceeding £16,190
• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for four weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)
• The guarantee element of Pension Credit
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (asylum support)

Evidence required: A benefit award letter, DWP/HMRC correspondence, or a Universal Credit statement showing the amount. Evidence is requested after the initial application; you do not need to upload documents to complete the enquiry form.

2. Postcode and school deprivation signals (score-based)

Eligibility is assessed using a points-based model. Points are awarded for your postcode’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) decile, your school’s Free School Meal (FSM) percentage, Pupil Premium eligibility, and English as an Additional Language status. If your total score meets or exceeds the eligibility threshold, you qualify for CEF support. You do not need to know your score – the system calculates it automatically during your application.

3. Professional referral

A referral letter from a qualified professional – including a teacher, school staff member, GP, social worker, youth worker, or counsellor or therapist – combined with a score meeting the eligibility threshold entitles you to a fully-funded place (£0 per session).

A professional referral without reaching the score threshold does not automatically grant CEF eligibility, but the referral is a strong supporting signal and may be considered by trustees on manual review.

What is not used

The following factors play no part in the eligibility assessment:

• Ethnicity, religion, or nationality
• Parental employment status (except benefit receipt as listed above)
• Whether a student is home-educated
• Single-parent household status

Contribution levels

Fund protection

The CEF operates from a charitable fund. To protect the fund’s longevity:

• Monthly benefit-declaration intake cap: A maximum number of new benefit-declared CEF places are granted per calendar month. This cap varies by fund band. Applicants who qualify but cannot be admitted immediately are added to a waitlist and contacted when a place becomes available.
• Fund bands: Healthy (100+ session runway), Monitoring (50–99), Constrained (16–49), Emergency (under 16). Contribution minimums and caps tighten as the fund shrinks.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) pathway

Professionals making a referral may indicate that a child has experienced significant adversity or trauma. This flag is visible to NSEMM administrators only – it is never shared with tutors without explicit written consent. Its sole effect is to prioritise the student’s place in the matching queue; it does not change the contribution level.

Self-declaration and accuracy

Benefit declarations are made on trust. Providing false information to obtain CEF funding may result in termination of the tutoring arrangement and recovery of subsidised fees, as set out in our Terms and Conditions. NSEMM reserves the right to request evidence at any stage.

Override and manual review

Families may request a manual review of their eligibility outcome at any time by contacting [email protected]. Administrators may override the automated decision; all overrides are recorded with a reason and are visible in the internal audit log.

Data and privacy

Eligibility data – including postcode signals, benefit declarations, and school information – is held for three years after the end of the tutoring relationship, then pseudonymised. Full details are in our Privacy Notice.

Year group scope

CEF eligibility applies to students in Year 6 and above. Students in Year 5 and below are offered Pay What You Can (PWYC) support only. This reflects the NSEMM CIO Constitution (Clause 3), which limits funded support to KS3, GCSE, A-Level, and university admissions contexts.

Last updated: May 2026. Questions: [email protected]