Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is providing additional funding to schools whose budgets fall below the minimum per pupil funding level.

The minimum per pupil funding levels (MPPLs) in the schools National Funding Formula have been set so that, in the 2023/24 financial year, every primary school will receive at least £4,405 per pupil, and every secondary school at least £5,715.

All schools, including schools funded by reference to the MPPLs, will also receive additional funding in the 2023/24 financial year, following the 2022 Autumn Statement. A typical 200 pupil primary school can be expected to receive approximately £28,000, on average. A typical 900 pupil secondary school can be expected to receive £170,000. The Department will announce further details on allocations shortly.

The MPPL values are compulsory in Local Authority funding formulae, which determine actual funding allocations for maintained schools and academies. Academy trusts have flexibilities over how the funding they are allocated in respect of their individual academies is then distributed across academies in their trust. This means that in some cases, an academy could receive a lower per pupil funding amount than the MPPL value. This may reflect, for example, activities that are paid for by the trust centrally, rather than by individual academies.