Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of exploring alternative funding models for academy schools.

The schools national funding formula (NFF) distributes funding for mainstream schools based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. This treats academies and local authority-maintained schools equivalently.

In 2025/26, as in previous years, local authorities will be responsible for deciding local funding formulae that determine the actual funding allocations for individual mainstream schools in their area. The department uses the respective local funding formulae to calculate funding allocations to academies, which again ensures that academies and maintained schools are funded on an equivalent basis.

The schools NFF for 2025/26 was published on 28 November, with details of the provisional allocations at local authority and school level available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2025-to-2026.