Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2018 to Question 147900 on the Education and Skills Funding Agency, what the budget was for administrating the schools system; and how many staff were employed by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to administer that system in each of the last three financial years.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) began its first year of operation on 1 April 2017.

The figures provided below do not include budget spend or headcount for the ESFA Capital, Further Education and Apprenticeship teams.

The budget for administering the school system was £29 million at April 2017 and £33 million at April 2018.

The number of staff employed to administer the schools system was 520 in April 2017 and 566 in April 2018.

The figures include headcount and budget spend for the ESFA Intervention and Young Peoples Funding and ESFA Academies and Maintained Schools Groups.

Please note that staff within these teams may not spend 100 per cent of their time working on matters related to academies, maintained schools and school sixth forms.