Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average funding per pupil in state (a) primary and (b) secondary schools was in each local authority in each year since 2010.

Current school funding, for individual schools and at local authority level, cannot be directly compared to school funding in 2010 due to structural changes in the funding system. For local authorities, funding for schools was only identified separately from funding for high needs or early years in 2013, so comparisons cannot be made before that point. In 2018, the schools national funding formula (NFF) started to direct funding according to a consistent assessment of need, rather than historic local spending decisions. Funding changes since 2018 will therefore reflect this move to fairer funding.

Local authority level data on school funding, including average funding per pupil, is published annually as part of the announcement of Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocations.

The block of funding in the DSG relating to primary and secondary mainstream schools (the 'schools block') was first introduced in 2013/14. DSG data between 2013/14 and 2017/18 provides the schools block per-pupil unit of funding for each local authority. This covers both primary and secondary schools together. The department does not hold separate data for primary and secondary pupils for this period and does not have comparable data for years prior to 2013/14.

The funding system changed again in 2018/19 when the NFF was introduced. With the introduction of the NFF, funding was provided by reference to primary and secondary schools separately.

The scope of the per pupil figures pre and post-2018 are not directly comparable. In particular, the central services provided by local authorities was split out from the schools block funding in 2018/19, and instead funded separately through the central school services block from that year onwards.

Links to the published DSG tables can be found here:

The DSG allocations are at local authority level, not at the level of individual schools. However, notional school level funding data is published annually in the NFF school impact table, including notional funding per pupil. However, this does not represent the level of funding that individual schools will necessary ultimately receive, as schools’ actual allocations are based on local authorities’ local funding formulae.

Links to the latest NFF school impact tables can be found here: