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<p>In November last year at the Autumn Statement, the Department announced an additional
£2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years, over and above totals
announced at the 2021 Spending Review.</p><p>On 13 July 2023, the Department announced
an additional £525 million this year, to support schools with the teachers’ pay award,
and a further £900 million in the 2024/25 financial year.</p><p>It means overall school
funding is rising by over £3.9 billion this year alone, compared to the 2022/23 financial
year, on top of a £4 billion cash increase last year. Combined, that represents a
16% increase in just two years. School funding in 2024/25 will be more than £59.6
billion, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.</p><p>This additional funding
will enable head teachers to continue to invest in the areas that positively impact
educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the
pupils who need it most, as well as helping schools to manage higher costs, including
teacher pay awards.</p><p>Each year the Department publishes an assessment of schools’
costs and funding, which informs what pay award the Department judges to be affordable
for schools from within this existing funding. In March 2023, the Department set out
its calculation that schools, on average, could afford a pay award of 4% from within
existing funding.</p><p>The Department decided to fund the 2023 pay award from a lower
affordability figure than the 4% calculation, funding the costs of the pay award above
3.5%, on average, rather than above the 4% national affordability calculation. This
is a more generous funding offer than back in March 2023, and all four unions have
confirmed that this ensures the pay award is properly funded.</p><p>The Department
is also providing a further up to £40 million in addition to the £525 million in the
2023/24 financial year, to support individual schools which find themselves in particular
financial difficulties. This is to be allocated on a case by case basis.</p><p>Although
the Department will have to make difficult decisions, the Secretary of State has been
clear all frontline services will be protected. Funding for Early Years, SEND, School
Conditions and Core School and College Budgets are fully protected. To help fund the
pay award, the Secretary of State has also secured exceptional permission from the
Treasury to keep money where there have been or will be underspends, which in normal
years would have to be returned to Treasury.</p>
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