Asked by: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in Chelmsford constituency received school improvement grants in (a) 2010-2017 and (b) 2017-2023; how many grants were received in each period; and what the total amount for each school was in each period.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Departmental records show that between 2010 and 2017 five schools in Chelmsford constituency received or benefited from specific school improvement grants, and between 2017 and the end of December 2023 ten schools received or benefited from specific school improvement grants.
The following grants have been included in this analysis:
The department has also included grants allocated for sponsored academy conversions (2010 to date), as well as grants for transferring academies between trusts (2012 to date) because these grants may include elements for school improvement activities.
The department has limited this analysis to these grants as they can be quantified for some of the time periods requested. The department's policy of retaining financial records for seven years limits access to data before the 2016/17 financial year. Other department grants may contribute less directly to wider school improvement. In addition, many of these and other grants are allocated via academy trusts or other organisations, and so schools may benefit indirectly without being the designated recipient from department. Finally, not all grant programs have been operational throughout the entire period between 2010 and 2023.
For a summary of the grants awarded, and for relevant school-level data, please refer to the tables below:
Table 1: Summary of school improvement grants paid for supporting schools in Chelmsford constituency.
| Number of institutions in receipt of a school improvement grant and their total value | |
Grant programme | (a) 2010 to 2017 | (b) 2017to2023 (to end December 2023) |
Regional Academy Growth Fund** | RAGF 2016-2017 2 trusts each with 1 school in Chelmsford* | N/A |
Multi-academy Trust Development and Improvement Fund** | N/A* | 2 trusts, one with 2 schools and 1 with 1 school in Chelmsford* |
Trust Capacity Fund ** | N/A* | 1 trust with 2 schools in Chelmsford* |
Strategic School Improvement Capital Budget | N/A* 2010-2017 | None |
Environmental Improvement Grant | None for 2016-17. | None |
Emergency Strategic Improvement Fund | N/A as fund started in 2017-18 | None |
Sponsored conversions to academy status | 3 academies, totalling £210,000 | None |
Transfer of an academy | None | None |
School Improvement Offer | N/A* | 1 school, totalling £1,800 |
Trust and School Improvement offer | N/A* | 4 schools, totalling £16,800 |
* Grant programme not operating during this period.
** The RAGF, MDIF, and TCAF funds support growth in the capacity of academy trusts to oversee academies. Funding is allocated to trusts, and available data only reflects the total amounts received at the trust level. We are unable to attribute specific portions of the funding awarded under the RAGF, MDIF or TCaF programmes to individual school improvement efforts within any given trust or locality.
Table 2: Value of school improvement grants awarded where it is possible to identify a value attributable to the Chelmsford constituency.
Name of school or trust | Grant name | Year funding allocated or first payment made | Amount paid or allocated |
Melbourne Park Primary and Nursery School | Pre-opening sponsored grant | 2014 | £70,000 |
Meadgate Primary School | Pre-opening sponsored grant | 2013 | £70,000 |
Larkrise Primary School | Pre-opening sponsored grant | 2016 | £70,000 |
Newlands Spring Primary School | School Improvement Offer Tier 1 | 2019 | £1,800 |
South Essex Academy Trust | Trust and School Improvement Offer | 2022 | £3,000 |
Bridge Academy Trust | Trust and School Improvement Offer | 2022 | £1,800 |
The Chelmsford Learning Partnership | Trust and School Improvement Offer | 2023 | £6,000 |
Attain Academy Partnership | Trust and School Improvement Offer | 2023 | £6,000 |
Asked by: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the per pupil funding to schools (a) in Essex and (b) nationally was in (i) 2016/17 and (ii) 2023/24; and what the percentage increase adjusted for inflation for schools (A) in Essex and (B) nationally was between those years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department publishes statistics on schools funding at the national level, including revenue funding to state-funded schools in England for pupils aged 5 to 16, in cash and real terms. Statistics for the 2010/11 to 2023/24 financial years are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics.
In 2016/17 national per pupil funding in cash terms was £5,590 and in 2023/24 this had risen to £7,460 in cash terms. This represents a cumulative growth in per pupil funding since 2016/17 of 9.9% in real terms, as measured by the GDP deflator.
The published information has been designed to capture core funding for schools and be as consistent and comparable as possible across these years, given that the funding system has changed significantly during that time. It covers mainstream primary and secondary schools, special schools, alternative provision, pupil referral units and non-maintained special schools. Information about the methodology can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/school-funding-statistics-methodology. The department does not have a breakdown of this time series at local authority level, therefore equivalent figures are not available for Essex.
At local authority level, the department instead publish per pupil units of funding for the schools block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) in cash terms. In 2016/17 for Essex, this was £4,392. Following changes to the funding system in 2017/18, the primary and secondary per pupil units of funding were provided separately and, in 2023/24 for Essex, these were £4,720 and £6,116 respectively. These figures are for mainstream schools only and do not include any additional grant funding outside of the DSG, such as the mainstream schools additional grant and teachers’ pay additional grant. The national equivalent to these local authority figures is £4,636 for 2016/17 and £4,954 and £6,422 for 2023/24 for primary and secondary schools respectively.