Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote the financial sustainability of schools with falling pupil rolls.

The 2022 Autumn Statement has provided an additional increase in the core schools’ budget of £2.3 billion for both financial years 2023/24 and 2024/25.

Taking the Dedicated Schools Grant allocations and the additional funding announced in the 2022 Autumn Statement together, core schools funding is increasing by £3.5 billion in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. This takes the total core schools budget for 2023/24 to £57.3 billion. The core schools budget will total £58.8 billion in 2024/25.

The ‘lagged’ funding system in the schools National Funding Formula, where schools are funded on the basis of their pupil numbers in the previous October census, helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels. This aids their planning, and is particularly important in giving schools that see year on year reductions in their pupil numbers time to re-organise their staffing and costs.

Local Authorities are also allocated growth funding, which they can use to support schools with falling rolls. This funding can be used to support good and outstanding schools with falling rolls where local planning data shows that the surplus places will be needed with the next three financial years. In 2022/23, 24 out of 150 Local Authorities chose to have falling rolls funds.

The Department has consulted on changes to the role of the Local Authority in managing pupil growth, and falling rolls, as part of our consultation ‘Implementing the Direct National Funding Formula’. This included proposals on allowing some additional flexibility on how Local Authorities can operate their falling rolls funds.

The Department will publish the Government response to this consultation in spring 2023.