School funding
Expenditure on education and children’s social care functions
Each year we submit our budget and outturn statements on our planned and actual spending to the Secretary of State for education. These statements -
- cover our spending for education and children’s social care functions. This is required under section 251 of the apprenticeships, skills, Children and Learning Act 2009
- are our primary means of informing schools and the public about our funding and spending plans
- provide detailed information in a form that allows benchmarking by schools, forums and authorities
The data is published by the Department of Education (DfE). They produce statistics and benchmarking tables.
School forums and others can review the information. It is supplied through section 251 to aid their discussions about budgets and use of funds.
Section 251 budget statements
By 31 March each year, we submit our section 251 budget statement to the Secretary of State for Education. The budget statement includes -
- the total dedicated schools grant (DSG) planned expenditure and other non-statutory spending
- planned expenditure for schools. This includes spending on early years, high needs and post 16
- details of the children and young people’s services budget
Part one - Local Authority level information
This document is available to download and provides -
- an overall picture of the funding being allocated direct to schools
- funding being spent on education centrally
- funding being spent on children’s social care
Part 2 - School table
This document lists place numbers and funding for maintained special and hospital schools, and pupil referral units. It is available for download.
Part 3 - Early years pro forma
This document you can view shows the details of our early years single funding formula. It includes the formula for 2-year-olds. It also includes the early years' pupil premium from 2016 to 2017.
Section 251 outturn statement
Each August we submit our section 251 outturn statement to the Secretary of State for education. It contains financial information about how much we have spent on -
- our schools' budget
- de-delegated items
- our high needs budget
- central provision within the schools' budget and children and young people’s services
The section 251 outturn statement is intended to inform -
- schools, parents and others with an interest in education and children’s services of schools and local authority funding and expenditure
- the treasury for monitoring purposes
- parliament in its role of monitoring the department’s accountability for public funds. MPs ask about school and local authority expenditure via parliamentary questions, or the education select committee
Part one - Local authority level and high needs information
This is information at local authority (LA) level. It provides a picture of the expenditure on schools and the amount being spent on education centrally.
Part 2 - Children's and young people’s services
This document relates to the expenditure on children and young people’s services. These include -
- Sure Start children's centres and early years
- children looked after
- other children and family services safeguarding children and young people’s services
- family support services
- services for young people and youth justice