Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the lowest average funding per pupil is for each local authority in England for (a) secondary academies, (b) secondary local authority maintained schools, (c) primary academies and (d) primary local authority maintained schools.

The Department produces published statistics on school revenue funding annually. The latest Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) publication, from January 2021, is available online and covers the average funding per pupil in the 2021/22 financial year for local authorities: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2021-to-2022.

The publication shows the average per pupil funding to schools for 5 to 16 year olds. There is no separate breakdown available for primary and secondary schools, nor for maintained schools and academies.

The publication does provide the primary unit of funding and secondary unit of funding, which can illustrate the breakdown of funding for primary and secondary schools. They are based on funding through the National Funding Formula (NFF) rather than the actual DSG allocations. Local authorities set their own local funding formulae, which means that the funding that schools receive, and how funding is split between primary and secondary schools, can differ from NFF allocations.

Maintained schools and academies are both funded on the same basis, based on their individual pupil and school level characteristics.

The attachment provides a table showing the average funding per pupil in 2021/22 for each local authority.