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1664896

registered interest
date	16/10/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter from Susan Acland-Hood to the Chair of the Education Select Committee on National Funding Formula Update, published on 6 October 2023, what is the (a) scope and (b) terms of reference for the internal review into the miscalculation in the total amount of funding allocated to schools for the 2024-25 financial year; and when will the review conclude.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	202590
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/10/2023 answer text <p>The Secretary of State for Education has asked the Department’s Permanent Secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process surrounding the calculation of the schools National Funding Formula figures. This will provide external and independent scrutiny. Peter Wyman CBE will lead this review, and will be supported in his work by an expert panel drawn from outside the Department. The timing and terms of reference of the review have yet to be finalised, but the expectation is that it will conclude before Christmas.</p> answering member constituency Bognor Regis and Littlehampton answering member printed Nick Gibb question first answered 19/10/2023 14:51:16 answering member 111 label Biography information for Nick Gibb
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1664897

registered interest
date	16/10/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter from Susan Acland-Hood to the Chair of the Education Select Committee on National Funding Formula Update, published on 6 October 2023, whether she plans to publish the findings of her Department's internal review into the miscalculation in the total amount of funding allocated to schools for the 2024-25 financial year.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	202591
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/10/2023 answer text <p>The Permanent Secretary has taken full responsibility for the error made by officials and has written to both the Secretary of State and the Education Select Committee to apologise.</p><p>The Secretary of State has asked the Department’s Permanent Secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process surrounding the calculation of the schools national funding formula (NFF) figures. Peter Wyman CBE, the chair of the board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, will lead this process, and he will be supported in his work by an expert panel drawn from outside the Department. This is not an internal review; it will provide external and independent scrutiny. As such, the Department does not plan to also invite the National Audit Office to investigate the schools NFF calculation error. The findings and recommendations of the review will be made public.</p> answering member constituency Bognor Regis and Littlehampton answering member printed Nick Gibb grouped question UIN 202592 202594 question first answered 24/10/2023 14:40:57 answering member 111 label Biography information for Nick Gibb
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1664898

registered interest
date	16/10/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter from Susan Acland-Hood to the Chair of the Education Select Committee on National Funding Formula Update, published on 6 October 2023, for what reason did she not announce an external review into the miscalculation in the total amount of funding allocated to schools for the 2024-25 financial year.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	202592
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/10/2023 answer text <p>The Permanent Secretary has taken full responsibility for the error made by officials and has written to both the Secretary of State and the Education Select Committee to apologise.</p><p>The Secretary of State has asked the Department’s Permanent Secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process surrounding the calculation of the schools national funding formula (NFF) figures. Peter Wyman CBE, the chair of the board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, will lead this process, and he will be supported in his work by an expert panel drawn from outside the Department. This is not an internal review; it will provide external and independent scrutiny. As such, the Department does not plan to also invite the National Audit Office to investigate the schools NFF calculation error. The findings and recommendations of the review will be made public.</p> answering member constituency Bognor Regis and Littlehampton answering member printed Nick Gibb grouped question UIN 202591 202594 question first answered 24/10/2023 14:40:57 answering member 111 label Biography information for Nick Gibb
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1664900

registered interest
date	16/10/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter from Susan Acland-Hood to the Chair of the Education Select Committee on National Funding Formula Update, published on 6 October 2023, whether she will invite the Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office to review the miscalculation in the total amount of funding allocated to schools for the 2024-25 financial year.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	202594
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/10/2023 answer text <p>The Permanent Secretary has taken full responsibility for the error made by officials and has written to both the Secretary of State and the Education Select Committee to apologise.</p><p>The Secretary of State has asked the Department’s Permanent Secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance process surrounding the calculation of the schools national funding formula (NFF) figures. Peter Wyman CBE, the chair of the board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, will lead this process, and he will be supported in his work by an expert panel drawn from outside the Department. This is not an internal review; it will provide external and independent scrutiny. As such, the Department does not plan to also invite the National Audit Office to investigate the schools NFF calculation error. The findings and recommendations of the review will be made public.</p> answering member constituency Bognor Regis and Littlehampton answering member printed Nick Gibb grouped question UIN 202591 202592 question first answered 24/10/2023 14:40:57 answering member 111 label Biography information for Nick Gibb
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1563589

registered interest
date	20/12/2022
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she will hold discussions with head teachers on the financial needs of schools before the Budget on 15 March.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	114710
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/01/2023 answer text <p>Department officials and Ministers continue to meet regularly with education and childcare sector leaders, unions and other representative bodies to discuss a wide range of early years, school, further education and higher education policy issues.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Bognor Regis and Littlehampton answering member printed Nick Gibb grouped question UIN 114708 114712 114714 114715 question first answered 11/01/2023 09:54:20 answering member 111 label Biography information for Nick Gibb
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1506542

registered interest
date	20/09/2022
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with school leaders on the adequacy of levels of school budgets in autumn 2022.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	51616
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/10/2022 answer text <p>The Department continues to speak to a range of organisations representing Head Teachers and directly to Head Teachers themselves. Discussions have included school funding and build on the regular engagement the Department has already had.</p><p>Overall, core schools funding, including funding for both mainstream and high needs schools, is increasing by £4 billion in 2022/23 financial year compared to 2021/22. This brings the total core schools budget to £53.8 billion. This means the total funding allocated to schools and high needs seeing a 7% cash terms per pupil increase in the 2022/23 financial year compared to the previous financial year.</p><p>On 21 September 2022, the Government set out how businesses and public sector organisations, including schools, will be supported by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This will reduce how much schools need to spend on their energy, and give schools greater certainty over their budgets over the winter months.</p><p>Any school which has signed a fixed energy contract since April 2022 will be eligible for support if, at the time they signed their contact, wholesale prices for the next six months were expected to be higher than the Government-supported price of £211/MWh for electricity, and £75/MWh for gas.</p><p>For example, a school which uses 10 MWh of electricity and 22 MWh of gas a month and signed a fixed contract giving them a current monthly energy bill of about £10,000, would receive support based on the difference between expected wholesale prices when they signed their contract and the Government-supported price. For a contract signed in July 2022, this could be worth £240/MWh for electricity and £70/MWh for gas, meaning the school receives a discount of £4,000 per month, reducing their original bill by 40%.</p><p>Support will also be available to schools on variable, deemed and other contracts.</p><p>The details of the scheme can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/energy-bill-relief-scheme-help-for-businesses-and-other-non-domestic-customers" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/guidance/energy-bill-relief-scheme-help-for-businesses-and-other-non-domestic-customers</a>.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Stoke-on-Trent North answering member printed Jonathan Gullis question first answered 17/10/2022 16:35:34 answering member 4814 label Biography information for Jonathan Gullis
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1420349

registered interest
date	07/02/2022
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of maintained school revenue balances in 2020-21 by share of FSM-eligible children in schools.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	119531
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/02/2022 answer text <p>The department pays close attention to the financial health of the sector, analysing maintained schools’ consistent financial reporting returns and academies’ accounting returns. The latest published figures show both maintained schools and academy trusts have on average been able to add to their reserves in the latest reporting year.</p><p>The schools financial benchmarking website allows schools and trusts to compare their financial data with other schools that share similar characteristics, including similar levels of free school meal (FSM) eligibility. The website is available here: <a href="https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/" target="_blank">https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/</a>.</p><p>A full dataset used to produce this analysis for schools can be found here: <a href="https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/Help/DataSources" target="_blank">https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/Help/DataSources</a>.</p><p>In financial year 2022-23, the National Funding Formula (NFF) will allocate £6.7 billion (17% of all funding allocated by the NFF) through additional needs factors, including pupils eligible for FSM. That includes an increase of £225 million, or 6.7%, in the amount distributed through deprivation factors. In addition, in financial year 2022-23, schools will receive a supplementary grant, which will provide significant further funding for deprivation: £85 for each primary pupil and £124 for each secondary pupil who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years (FSM6). Schools’ individual allocations from the supplementary grant will be finalised in the coming months.</p><p>On top of this core funding, pupil premium funding rates are increasing by 2.7% in financial year 2022-23, to £1,385 for each FSM6 primary pupil and £985 for each FSM6 secondary pupil. This means that the per pupil funding rate will be the highest, in cash terms, since the introduction of the pupil premium in 2011. Total pupil premium funding will increase to over £2.6 billion in 2022-23, from £2.5 billion this year.</p><p>All schools continue to be able to access a wide range of school resource management tools so they can more effectively invest their resources into areas that improve educational outcomes for all pupils. Schools in serious financial difficulty should contact their local authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.</p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 14/02/2022 15:38:40 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1402976

registered interest
date	14/01/2022
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the total capital budget was for schools in England in each year between 2002 and 2022.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	104323
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/01/2022 answer text <p>The department provides annual capital funding to support the education sector. This includes funding to create sufficient school places and to maintain and improve the condition of the school estate. In addition, the department also delivers capital building programmes, including the free schools programme, Priority School Building Programme and the new School Rebuilding Programme. The department’s capital budget also supports providers other than schools. This includes post-16 and early years providers, as well as the department’s own estate. There is no separate capital budget for schools specifically.</p><p> </p><p>For a breakdown of capital expenditure in each financial year since 2002-03 please see the table below:</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Financial Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Capital Departmental Expenditure Limits, £billion</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2002-03</p></td><td><p>2.7</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2003-04</p></td><td><p>3.5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2004-05</p></td><td><p>4.1</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2005-06</p></td><td><p>4.4</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2006-07</p></td><td><p>4.1</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2007-08</p></td><td><p>5.2</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2008-09</p></td><td><p>5.5</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2009-10</p></td><td><p>7.4</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2010-11</p></td><td><p>7.1</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2011-12</p></td><td><p>5.0</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2012-13</p></td><td><p>4.6</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013-14</p></td><td><p>4.1</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014-15</p></td><td><p>4.8</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015-16</p></td><td><p>5.1</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016-17</p></td><td><p>5.7</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017-18</p></td><td><p>4.9</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018-19</p></td><td><p>5.4</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2019-20</p></td><td><p>4.9</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2020-21</p></td><td><p>4.8</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>Note: Figures have been taken from the department accounts which can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports</a>.</p><p> </p><p>The department’s capital expenditure limit for the 2021-22 financial year is £5.6 billion. In addition to this, the 2021 Spending Review announced a total of £19.4 billion of capital funding to support the education sector between the 2022-23 and 2024-25 financial years, an average of £6.5 billion per annum.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 24/01/2022 16:08:40 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1388816

registered interest
date	16/12/2021
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made on trends in the level of school financial reserves between 1 March 2020 and 31 December 2021, for (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools; and (i) academies, (ii) all other forms of school governance.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	94339
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 05/01/2022 answer text <p>The department trust schools to manage their own budgets. The majority of schools are operating with a cumulative surplus, with only a small percentage having a deficit. The latest published figures show that the percentage of both academy trusts and local authority maintained schools in surplus or breaking even increased compared to the previous reporting year.</p><p>Local authority maintained schools report their finances on a financial year basis, and the latest available data is from the end of March 2021 (covering the 2020/21 financial year). Academy trusts report their finances on an academic year basis, and the latest available data is from the end of August 2020 (covering the 2019/20 academic year).</p><p>At the end of 2020/21 financial year 92% of local authority maintained schools were in cumulative surplus or breaking even, compared to 88% the previous year. Of primary maintained schools, 93% were in surplus or breaking even, compared to 90% the previous year. Of secondary maintained schools, 81% were in surplus or breaking even, compared to 73% the previous year.</p><p>It is important to note that a large majority of secondary schools are academies. At the end of the 2019/20 academic year 96% of academy trusts were in surplus or breaking even, compared to 94% the previous year. Academy trusts may contain both primary and secondary provision, so there is no breakdown between primaries and secondaries in relation to academies.</p><p>The latest published figures show 2,604 academy trusts and 11,600 maintained schools in cumulative surplus or breaking even, compared to 112 academy trusts and 1,055 maintained schools in deficit, with an overall cumulative surplus of £5.4 billion, compared to a cumulative deficit of £280 million.</p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 05/01/2022 14:54:39 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson

1388821

registered interest
date	16/12/2021
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Schools: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance he provides to (a) primary and (b) secondary schools on the level of financial reserves that schools should have; what guidance his Department provides on the purposes for which schools can draw down on those reserves; and what the timescale are over which reserves should be rebuilt when below the recommended level.
tabling member constituency	Houghton and Sunderland South
tabling member printed	Bridget Phillipson
uin	94342
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/01/2022 answer text <p>The department trusts schools to manage their own finances, and we do not produce guidance on what is an adequate reserve level for academy trusts or schools. The amount of reserves that is appropriate to set aside will depend on the type and size of the academy trust or school as well as the particular risks that they face.</p><p>Academy trusts and schools have the flexibility to make their own decisions on how to prioritise their spending to invest in a range of resources and activities that will best support their staff and pupils. They can draw on their reserves for a range of planned and sensible reasons, for example, to spend on capital projects.</p><p>Academy trusts are directly accountable to the department for their financial management. Any academy trust reporting a cumulative deficit must agree a recovery plan with the Education and Skills Funding Agency to put the trust back on a financially sustainable path.</p><p>Local authority maintained schools are accountable to their local authority for their financial management.</p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 10/01/2022 17:06:40 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
tabling member	4046 label Biography information for Bridget Phillipson