Yes, your school or academy trust can use an energy broker to arrange its next gas or electricity contract. That choice hasn’t changed, and we’ll explain what it means for your next renewal.
Key points
- Brokers remain an option: Your school can use one to arrange an energy contract.
- The whole bill matters: A unit rate alone won’t tell you what a contract will cost.
- Start early: We advise arranging your next contract as early as possible, normally 12 months before renewal.
- Trusts need a clear comparison: From October 2026, an academy trust choosing an alternative energy deal must show equivalent value for money.
- We can do the groundwork: We compare several suppliers’ prices in writing and arrange contracts.
Why School Energy Procurement Has Become More Complex
Your energy renewal isn’t like ordering another year’s stationery. A gas price can change between asking for a quote and getting the people around your table to sign it off. Electricity and gas usually need separate contracts, business energy prices aren’t capped like domestic prices, and there’s usually no cooling-off period. The DfE’s guidance on buying energy warns that prices can move rapidly from day to day. That makes the timing of your decision part of the job, not just an administrative detail.
Imagine you’re responsible for three schools with different contract end dates. One has a busy kitchen and long opening hours; another has evening lettings; the third has changed how it uses its buildings. A rate that looks attractive for one site tells you little about the total across all three. You need to know what each site uses, what its current contract says and which costs sit outside the headline energy price before the numbers mean much.
There’s more in the price than the energy itself. Gas accounts for about 65% of a gas bill and electricity for about 50% of an electricity bill, according to the DfE’s buying guidance. Network charges and other costs make up the rest. So two offers with similar pence-per-kilowatt-hour rates can leave your school with different overall costs. The figure worth taking to your governors or trustees is the full expected bill, not the most eye-catching unit rate.
We always advise arranging your next contract as early as possible, normally 12 months before your renewal date. Arranging it early lets you take advantage of forward pricing rather than the short-notice prices on offer when a renewal is left to the last month or two. If you’re already closer than 12 months, arrange it as early as you still can. The DfE’s guidance on academy trust energy procurement asks trusts to plan at least 12 months before their contracts end and says it doesn’t expect any trust to exit an existing contract. This is about preparing for your next decision, not undoing one you’ve already made.
The Myth That Schools Cannot Use Energy Brokers
Have you been told that your school can no longer use a broker? You can. It’s easy to see where the confusion comes from: the DfE’s energy and utilities listing says academies “must” use Energy for Schools or a DfE-approved deal, without mentioning the alternative that its fuller guidance permits. Read that short listing alone and you’d think the decision had been made for you.
The DfE has confirmed the choice in writing. In a response quoted by the Energy Consultants Association (ECA), the Department said: “schools and trusts remain free to pursue alternative procurement arrangements, including those facilitated by energy brokers, where they consider this to represent the best option for their circumstances.” That answers the central question. Using a broker hasn’t become a prohibited way of finding a school energy contract.
Part of the mix-up comes from treating different descriptions as though they mean the same thing. The DfE recommends its buying options and labels particular deals DfE-approved. Neither description means every other way of buying has disappeared. For an academy trust, the Academy Trust Handbook adds a requirement when it chooses an alternative. That requirement is about showing how the choice measures up, not about removing it.
It also helps to separate the person doing the work from the contract your school buys. A broker can gather details, obtain supplier prices and put a comparison in front of your team. Your school still makes its procurement decision. We compare supplier prices for our clients and arrange their contracts, giving them a written comparison of several suppliers’ prices. You have a choice of who helps with the renewal, and the decision remains yours.
Myth: Schools and academy trusts have been banned from using energy brokers. Fact: The DfE has confirmed in writing that both can use brokers for alternative energy arrangements.
What DfE Guidance Says About Your Options
DfE Energy for Schools is a government buying route for state-funded schools and academy trusts in England. It puts participating schools on the energy contract used by the Department, with energy bought through the Government Commercial Agency, formerly Crown Commercial Service. The DfE’s Energy for Schools listing describes the arrangement as its V30 contract. It’s one route for buying gas and electricity, rather than a ban on contracts arranged another way.
You’ll also see DfE-approved energy deals in the Department’s buying material. These aren’t all the same thing as Energy for Schools: the DfE’s energy and utilities listing includes separate gas and electricity buying options alongside the service. Its broader Buying for schools guidance explains that approved options have providers that have pre-checked suppliers and set pre-agreed terms and conditions. That describes how those options are set up. It doesn’t tell you what a particular contract will cost your sites or how its terms fit your plans.
For a school business manager, “approved” is a description of a buying option, not a substitute for understanding the bill. A like-for-like comparison still needs to cover contract duration, who you’re buying from and whether costs are fixed, flexible or variable. If your electricity use rises sharply during certain terms, or your trust is adding sites, those aren’t side issues. They’re part of what the proposed agreement has to cover.
A framework agreement is another term you’re likely to meet. It sets up a buying arrangement with pre-agreed conditions, from which an eligible school or trust can purchase under that arrangement’s rules. The National Governance Association’s procurement guide, produced in partnership with the DfE, says boards should seek assurance that competitive tendering requirements are followed or a suitable framework is used when a purchase exceeds a public-sector threshold. Which route fits your purchase still depends on the rules that apply and your school’s own procedures.
We’d put the decision in everyday terms: what are you buying, what will you pay across the contract, what support comes with it and who will manage it? A DfE label tells you something about how a route was set up. A supplier quote tells you something about a particular offer. Neither is the whole answer to what your school needs. Getting those distinctions straight makes the eventual recommendation easier for your headteacher, governors or trustees to understand.
Yes, Schools Can Use Energy Brokers
The permission is straightforward: schools and trusts can use energy brokers. The DfE’s written response, quoted by the ECA, expressly includes broker-facilitated arrangements among the alternatives available to them. The guidance for academy trusts explains how to make that choice rather than taking it away. If you run a maintained school, your school’s own and local authority’s procurement arrangements still matter.
Imagine your trust has several gas meters and electricity meters, each with a different bill and end date. A useful quotation needs to reflect those differences. Before prices come in, it helps to know what each site uses, when its contract ends and which meters belong to it. A recent bill for each site is enough to get us started, though it won’t always give us the whole picture.
From there, the useful question isn’t simply “Which unit rate is lowest?” It’s whether the offers cover the same sites and usage, how long each contract lasts, which charges are included and what the school will need during the agreement. Energy buying guidance distinguishes fully fixed, fixed and flexible or variable pricing. A price fixed for the energy itself isn’t necessarily a price that fixes every electricity network charge. If two quotations treat those charges differently, lining their unit rates up in a row won’t settle the decision.
Your school’s governance doesn’t disappear because someone helps with the market work. The NGA guide describes procurement as planning what is needed, defining the requirement, comparing options and then managing the purchase. Governing boards are likely to delegate procurement responsibilities to a finance or resources committee while retaining oversight. For your team, that means knowing whose sign-off is needed under your rules and making sure those people can see the reasons behind the recommendation. We arrange the contract; you approve and sign it.
That division of work can make a difficult renewal more manageable. Your estates team knows what’s happening across the buildings. Your finance team knows the budget and sign-off timetable. Supplier prices need to reach both teams in a form they can use. A single-site primary and a growing multi-academy trust may need very different information in front of them before making their choice.
How Black Sheep Utilities Can Help
The hardest part of a school energy renewal is often bringing the pieces together while everyone still has time to decide. Bills arrive by site, contracts end on different dates and the person who understands the meters may not be the person who signs off spending. That’s where we come in. We’re an independent business energy and water broker based in Brighton, and we work with schools and academy trusts.
- Get the details together: Where we can, we gather your meter details, usage and contract end dates before asking suppliers for prices. Those details are almost always needed for a quotation and help make the pricing more accurate.
- Plan around sign-off: If you ask us to, we’ll plan the renewal around your meeting dates, so the prices reach the right people when they can decide.
- Check bills afterwards: We offer bill validation to all our customers, checking bills against agreed rates and recorded consumption and taking up errors with the supplier.
Those jobs connect. The comparison needs to reflect what your sites use. The contract needs to match the decision your team made. Once billing begins, the rates on an invoice need to match what was agreed. Has a bill ever risen when your usage hasn’t? Our bill validation means we’ll check it and take up any error with the supplier rather than leaving your finance office to untangle it alone.
The paperwork can be straightforward at the start. A recent bill for each site lets us begin; ideally, we’ll also have a signed Letter of Authority (LOA). Our LOA lets us speak to suppliers about data and quotes only. It never lets us enter a contract for you, and we never use a “level 2” LOA that would let a broker sign or agree one. It lets us get on with gathering the information without moving the decision away from your school.
If you’re responsible for both fuels, our business electricity comparison and business gas comparison pages cover those parts of a renewal. For a school, though, the starting point is your own sites, bills and dates. We can work from those rather than asking your team to make sense of unrelated rates. If your renewal is getting close, that’s the sort of pressure our Energy Team can help take off you.
How to Choose a Good Energy Broker
A good broker makes the money, authority and comparison clear before anyone signs. Your finance team will want to know how the broker is paid. The Essex Schools Infolink energy procurement guidance notes that broker services may involve a one-off fee or an additional cost per kWh on the energy bill. That cost belongs in the full-contract comparison, where the people making the decision can see it. We disclose our commission in full, in writing, before a contract is signed.
Next comes authority. Your broker may need to speak to suppliers, obtain usage information and request prices. That doesn’t mean handing over authority to commit your school to a contract. A good LOA makes its limits clear, and the contract terms make sense to the people signing off the purchase. Clear boundaries let the market work happen without blurring who makes the choice.
Then look at what arrives on your desk. Essex Schools Infolink advises against relying on verbal offers and says quotations should identify included and excluded charges. A useful comparison lets you see several suppliers’ prices in writing and understand what has actually been priced. If one offer includes a standing charge and another presents only the energy unit rate, the apparent difference won’t tell your governors much. The figures need to be on a common footing before the meeting, not explained in a rush during it.
There are standards beyond the quotation too. Membership of a recognised industry body and access to a dispute resolution scheme are useful things to ask about when choosing who will work with your school. We’re a member of the ECA and a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme with the Energy Ombudsman. Ofgem does not currently license energy brokers, so clear written terms and those practical standards matter. This is about choosing a good broker, not treating the profession itself as a problem.
Finally, think about what happens after the contract is arranged. A school might change finance staff, open another building or lose sight of a date that was obvious two years earlier. We keep every contract end date across a client’s sites on record in one place, and our dedicated retentions team manages renewal reminders and timetables. For a trust with more than one billing entity, we can link related companies and entities so the portfolio is managed together. That’s useful continuity when the next renewal comes round.
How Trusts Can Show Value for Money With a Broker
Yes, an academy trust can choose a broker-facilitated alternative. From October 2026, the Academy Trust Handbook asks a trust taking an alternative to DfE Energy for Schools or a DfE-approved energy deal to show equivalent value for money and follow the procurement requirements that apply. The DfE’s guidance on complying with the Handbook explains how. This particular condition applies to academy trusts, not maintained schools.
The first part is knowing which procurement rules govern your purchase and who signs it off under your trust’s rules. The alternative deal must comply with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 or the Procurement Act 2023, whichever applies, including the relevant financial thresholds. The NGA guide also points to internal procedures: who can sign off what, when written quotations or tenders are needed and how duties are separated. Your energy meeting doesn’t need to become a lesson in legislation. It does need to follow a route to the decision that your finance and governance teams recognise.
Next, give the comparison a sensible base. Use your energy bills to estimate annual cost and consumption, then compare the proposed alternative with Energy for Schools or a DfE-approved deal. Energy for Schools is variably priced, so its exact future prices can’t be confirmed in advance. The point is to show what information was available and how your trust used it, not to treat a changing price as a guaranteed figure. The written supplier comparison we give you can sit alongside your trust’s assessment of the relevant DfE option.
The DfE names four parts of overall value: full annual cost rather than only the unit rate; contract terms, including duration and end date; scope of services; and risk over the contract term. Its examples of services include account management, bill validation and energy reporting. Think about what each means for your sites. A shorter term changes when you’ll face another renewal. Variable pricing changes how your budget may move. A service included with one arrangement but not another belongs in the comparison, just as surely as a standing charge does.
The finished record should make sense to someone who wasn’t in the room. The DfE asks for a written evaluation of price, terms, service and risk; a recommendation paper; a record of the local governance decision; and supporting evidence for the School resource management self-assessment checklist (SRMSAC). Your trust should keep the reason for choosing the arrangement and the evidence behind it. If your committee meets on a particular date, we can plan the renewal around that meeting when you ask. Your team then has a usable comparison for its decision and can keep it with the supporting papers.
Choosing the Right Energy Procurement Route
There isn’t one energy contract shape that suits every school. Available routes include DfE Energy for Schools, other DfE-approved or public-sector buying arrangements, a contract facilitated by a broker and a supplier agreement arranged directly. The useful comparison is factual: who can use the route, what type of agreement it offers, how long it runs and who handles the buying work. It isn’t a contest between marketing claims or a search for the smallest unit rate in isolation.
Energy for Schools is open to state-funded schools and academy trusts in England. Its V30 agreement uses variable pricing, with energy purchased over time through the Government Commercial Agency. The DfE’s account of the service gives a rolling contract requiring 30 months plus at least 15 working days’ notice to terminate. Schools receive their own usage data and pay the supplier directly, while the DfE handles onboarding. Those terms make contract length and variable pricing particularly relevant to your comparison.
Other public buying organisations and framework agreements bring their own eligibility rules, contract terms, pricing approaches and management arrangements. A DfE-approved framework is an approved buying option, but that label doesn’t tell you whether a particular offer is fixed or flexible. The DfE’s listings include both fixed and flexible gas and electricity options. To understand what you’d be buying, the term sheet and price structure matter more than the route’s name.
With us, the arrangement is different again: we compare several suppliers’ prices in writing and arrange the contract your school chooses. The resulting supplier contract has its own duration, price structure and charges. Going directly to a supplier also leads to a supplier contract, but your school carries out the price comparison and coordination itself. That distinction is about who does the work, not an assumption that one label guarantees a particular price.
The DfE’s energy buying guidance draws a useful line between pricing types. Fully fixed pricing includes specified network costs within the fixed cost per kWh. With other fixed-price electricity contracts, network costs may change if Ofgem approves changes. Flexible or variable arrangements buy energy in blocks, with the price paid changing during the contract. Before anyone says two offers are comparable, they need to cover the same sites, usage and categories of charge.
For a multi-academy trust, the route decision has an operational side too. Imagine an academy joining your trust while another moves buildings. Whoever manages the agreement needs to know how those sites are recorded, what the contract says about changes and which finance team receives each bill. For a maintained school, local authority procedures and your own sign-off arrangements shape the buying decision. In either case, the strongest choice is one your school can explain in terms of the contract it will actually live with.
What This Means for Your School or Trust
Your renewal becomes much easier to discuss once it’s about real sites and dates rather than a single figure on a quote. You might have one electricity meter at a small primary school or a mixture of gas and electricity accounts across a trust. Those details affect the quotations you can obtain and the people who need to take part. A clear picture of the sites gives your team something practical to work from when the prices arrive.
Bills are a good starting point, but they aren’t the entire story. Essex Schools Infolink says a like-for-like comparison should account for unit rates, standing charges, capacity charges where applicable, VAT, the Climate Change Levy and other fees. The Climate Change Levy, or CCL, is a charge that can appear on business energy bills. Schools with charitable status are usually entitled to a reduced VAT rate for fuel and power used for non-business education, subject to the relevant conditions, as the DfE’s buying guidance explains; specific VAT questions belong with HMRC or a tax expert. For your comparison, the practical point is to see the full charge picture, not mistake one line of the bill for the total.
What happens after the contract matters too. A contract left to expire without action can move onto a higher “deemed rate”: the price charged when supply continues without a negotiated contract. No school business manager wants that discovery to arrive with an invoice. A renewal timetable gives your team space for its normal meetings and sign-off instead of a last-minute scramble.
Picture a finance meeting with two proposals on the agenda. One page shows only unit rates. The other shows the expected annual cost by site, what the rates include, how long each contract lasts and what happens to the bills afterwards. The second lets your colleagues ask useful questions. It also gives the person writing up the decision something better than “this looked cheapest” to put on record.
Your team doesn’t need another list of jobs dropped on its desk. The important thing is that the figures reaching your meeting match the sites and the contract you’re considering. If a bill later leaves you wondering whether it matches the deal you agreed, our Energy Team can talk it through with you. That’s a much better starting point than trying to reconstruct the decision from a headline rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are schools allowed to use energy brokers?
Yes. The DfE has confirmed in writing that schools and trusts remain free to use alternative energy procurement arrangements, including ones facilitated by brokers. Your school still makes its decision under the procurement and governance arrangements that apply to it.
Do academy trusts have to use DfE Energy for Schools?
No. An academy trust can also consider a DfE-approved energy deal or an alternative arrangement. If it chooses an alternative, the Handbook requires it to show equivalent value for money through the comparison described here.
What is the difference between an energy broker and a framework provider?
A broker helps you obtain and compare supplier offers and arrange your chosen contract. A framework is a pre-established buying arrangement with its own eligibility and terms. The main difference for your team is who does the comparison work and what agreement results from it.
How can schools demonstrate value for money?
Look at the expected full annual cost, contract terms, services included and risk over the term, rather than only the unit rate. For an academy trust using an alternative deal, the DfE sets out the written evaluation and decision records it expects.
Are energy brokers regulated?
Ofgem does not currently license energy brokers. A good one makes its commission clear in writing before you sign, uses a Letter of Authority limited to quotes, provides a written supplier comparison and sets out clear contract terms.
Final Thoughts: The Choice Is Yours
Your school can use an energy broker, and a good renewal is one your team understands and can sign off under its rules. Arrange your next contract as early as possible and look at the whole cost, not just the headline rate. If you’d like us to handle the comparison for your next gas or electricity contract, book a call with our Energy Team or ring us on 01273 914000.