Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding for education the Government has allocated to local authorities in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, (e) 2019, (f) 2020 and (g) 2021.

The published dedicated schools grant allocation tables contain details of early years entitlement funding distributed to local authorities. This is summarised in the attached table. The table shows final allocations, except for the financial year 2021/22 which shows initial allocations:

Most of the funding that the department provides for the provision of education, both for schools and high needs provision, is allocated to local authorities in the first instance. Local authorities are allocated most of their funding for schools and high needs through the dedicated schools grant (DSG).

Funding for academies is paid directly to trusts by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. However, local authorities set the local formulae that determine academies’ allocations. Local authorities’ DSG allocations take account of the funding made available for all schools in their local areas. There are also other grants which the department pays to local authorities in the first instance. The department then asks local authorities to pass those on to the maintained schools in their area. This includes, for example, the pupil premium grant. The pupil premium helps schools improve the academic attainment and wider outcomes of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and total pupil premium funding will increase to over £2.6 billion in financial year 2022/23, from £2.5 billion this year.

The table shows funding since the 2015/16 financial year for the education of 5 to 16-year-olds in England, in all state-funded schools. This is based on the annual release of the school funding statistics, which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics.

The published statistics include the schools block, central school services block and most of the high needs block of the DSG, pupil premium grant funding, the supplementary free school meals grant, the early career framework grant, and the teachers’ pay grant and teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (which have been rolled into the DSG from 2021/22). The coverage has been chosen both to capture core funding for schools and to ensure the series is as comparable over time as possible, despite changes to the specific grants allocated to schools and local authorities over the years shown.

The figures do not include any funding allocated to support with the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, because the inclusion of this time-limited funding to support schools would cause inconsistencies in the time series. Since June 2020, we have announced nearly £5 billion of investment for education recovery to support children and young people to catch up on missed education, and more information can be found in the annex to the school funding statistics publication above.

Figures in the funding time series are rounded to the nearest £100 million.

The table below provides the amount of 16-19 funding that has been allocated to local authorities in England. This excludes post-16 high needs but includes funding that goes directly to local authorities, and the funding they receive for school sixth forms, as set out in the published 16 to 19 allocations data. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2021-to-2022-academic-year.

Funding allocations for 19 year-olds and beyond, including allocations to local authorities, are published at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/19-funding-allocations.

Since the start of the 2019/20 academic year, a proportion of the adult education budget (AEB) has been devolved to several mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority. Approximately 50% was devolved in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years, and 60% was devolved in the 2021/22 academic year. The mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority are responsible for deciding which providers they contract with the amount of AEB they allocate to them.