Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that secondary schools are not in deficit.

The Government has protected the core schools budget in real terms. That means that in 2017-18 schools will have more funding than ever before for children’s education, totalling over £40 billion.

The most reliable way of looking at schools’ financial health is to look at their cumulative deficits. The number of maintained schools reporting cumulative deficits has fallen since 2010-11. Fewer than 4% of academies reported cumulative deficits in their latest financial accounts (2014/15).

To support schools to improve their financial health and efficiency we have produced a collection of tools, information and guidance, including benchmarking tools and workforce planning guidance to support schools to make savings.

Most recently, we published the Schools’ Buying Strategy to help schools make significant savings, over £1bn a year by 2019-20, in non-pay and procurement costs.