Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the national funding formula for schools and high needs.

The National Funding Formula (NFF) replaced a system which was unfair, lacked transparency and was out of date. Schools and local areas received very different levels of funding, with little or no justification. By comparison, the NFF distributes funding fairly, based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics.

Moving to a ‘direct’ NFF, where all schools’ budgets are determined directly by the national formula, will ultimately ensure that mainstream schools in England are funded on a fair and equitable basis. This will complete the reforms started in 2018 when the department first introduced the NFF to ensure all schools were funded on a consistent assessment of need.

The department keeps the formula under review and will consider further whether and when additional changes might be necessary to ensure that our funding system is kept up to date in a way that is fair and is allocating funding where it is needed most.