Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that per pupil school funding is spread evenly across (a) Greater Manchester and (b) other regional areas.

The schools national funding formula (NFF) distributes core funding for 5 to 16-year-old pupils in mainstream state-funded schools in England.

The NFF allocates funding to local authority areas, based on schools’ and pupils’ characteristics. In the current NFF, the vast majority of funding is allocated based on pupil numbers and characteristics. The funding that individual schools actually receive is then based on their local authority’s funding formula.

The purpose of the NFF is not to give every school the same level of per pupil funding. It is right that schools with lots of pupils with additional needs, such as those indicated by measures of deprivation or low prior attainment, receive extra funding to help them meet the needs of their pupils.