Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average cash balance held by schools in England as a percentage of their annual budget was on 31 March (a) 2015 and (b) 2016.

The latest available revenue balances for Local Authority (LA) maintained schools are given in the table below. They are on an accruals rather than cash accounting basis. Equivalent figures for academies are not available as they report on academic years ending 31 August.

Total revenue balance¹ as a % of total revenue income² in LA maintained schools

Source: Consistent Financial Reporting survey

1. A school's total revenue balance is calculated from the combination of any unspent allocations and the cumulative balance of income minus expenditure from revenue funding sources during the financial year and any balances carried forward from previous years.

2. A school's total revenue income for the year includes all revenue funding available in the year as well as any additional income generated by the school. This does not include any revenue balances carried forward from previous years.

These data are published annually, most recently in the Department’s Statistical Release LA and school expenditure: 2014 to 2015 financial year, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-education-and-childrens-services-spending-2014-to-2015

Figures for 31 March 2016 will be published in December 2016.