Financial year 2019-20

LA and school expenditure

Data guidance

Published 21 January 2021

Description

This document describes the data included in the School Finance in England National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data.

The methodology document should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

The Statistical Publication: ‘School Finance in England’ provides the latest information at national, regional and local level on the expenditure on schools, education and children's and young people's services by local authorities. Alongside the local authority spending, the release also provides a detailed breakdown of income and expenditure by schools, with aggregations to the local authority, regional and national level. The publication summarises the information that was collected via the October 2020 Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and S251 collections (with collection of both being delayed due to Covid-19). It supersedes the 2019 data release, which was provided as an Excel spreadsheet (LA_and_school_expenditure_2018-19_Tables.xlsx).

The release is being made in two stages, with the S251 data (spending by local authorities) being released on 21st January 2021 and the CFR data (schools finances) being released on 11th February 2021. The CFR data will also be available at an individual school level via the Schools Financial Benchmarking website.

This publication includes information on:

Local authority spending on schools and other education - time-series giving the detailed breakdown of spending split by school-phase and overall spending area (e.g. individual schools budget, expenditure on free school meals, SEN support etc).
Local authority spending on children's and young people's services - time-series giving the detailed breakdown of spending split by provision sector (e.g. own, private, voluntary) and spending area (e.g. sure start centres, family services, youth justice etc).
Schools' income and expenditure - time-series giving the detailed breakdown of schools income and expenditure by school phase and financial area (e.g. staff, estates and buildings, etc)
Schools' revenue balances - time-series giving the overall financial balance data for schools and overall numbers of schools in surplus and deficit.

File formats and conventions

The data files are provided in comma-separated values format, which is compatible with standard spreadsheet software such as Excel.

The following symbols are used in the underlying data files as follows:

: Not available - this information has not been collected or there are no estimates available at this level of aggregation.

N/A Not available - this is normally where a statistic cannot be produced. For example where a denominator is not available to produce a percentage.

z = not applicable. The 'z' symbol is only to be used when an observation is not applicable (e.g. in tables of employment where people under 16 cannot legally be employed).

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

CFR School Income and Expenditure (National, Regional, LA levels))

Filename: cfr_incomeexp_v2.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2014-15 to 2019-20
Content: Income and expenditure of LA maintained schools

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
Category	Financial category
Description	Financial entry
ReportGroup	Income/Expenditure
school_phase	School phase
Value	Total
ValueFY_perpupil	Per pupil

Footnotes

There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies.

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CFR School Revenue Balances (National, Regional, LA Levels))

Filename: cfr_revenuebalance_v2.3.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2014-15 to 2019-20
Content: Revenue balances of LA maintained schools

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
average_revenue_balance	Average revenue balance
AveValueOverThresh	Average value of surplus over surplus threshold
B01	Committed revenue balance (B01)
B02	Uncommitted revenue balance (B02)
B06	Community focussed extended school revenue balance (B06)
number_schools	Number of schools
NumOverThresh	Number of schools over surplus threshold
perc_BalanceofIncome	Revenue balance as percentage of total income
PercOverThresh	Percentage of schools over surplus threshold
PercSchools	Percentage of schools
revenue_state	Revenue state
school_phase	Phase
total_income	Total Income
total_revenue_balance	Total revenue balance
ValueOverThresh	Total value of surplus over surplus threshold

Footnotes

There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, are all academies.

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S251 Children and Young People's Services (National, Regional, LA levels)

Filename: s251_table-a1_cyps_ees_201420_v3.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2014-15 to 2019-20
Content: Spending by local authorities on Children's and Young People's Services

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
Capita	Capita
Description	Description - Choose the funding lines you are interested in
GovGrantsInsideAEF	Government Grants Inside AEF
GovGrantsOutsideAEF	Government Grants Outside AEF
Income	Income
LEANetRevenueExpenditure	Net Revenue Expenditure
NetCurrentExpenditure	Net Current Expenditure
NetExpPCapita	Net Current Expenditure per Capita
OtherPublic	Other Public
OwnProvision	Own Provision
PrivateProvision	Private Provision
ReportGroup	Report group - Choose the reporting group you are interested in
TotalExpenditure	Total Expenditure
Voluntary	Voluntary

Footnotes

Before using this data, please check the methodology section for important information such as definitions, limitations and caveats.

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S251 Dedicated Schools Grant Table 2019-20

Filename: s251_dedicatedschoolsgrant_ees_201920_v1a.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2019-20
Content: Financial breakdown of dedicated schools grant funding

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
AllocatedDSGFunding	Allocated DSG Funding
Description	Description - Choose the funding lines you are interested in
Net	Net
Plannedspend	Planned spend

Footnotes

Before using this data, please check the methodology section for important information such as definitions, limitations and caveats.

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S251 Schools Expenditure (National, Regional, LA levels)

Filename: s251_table-a_schexp_ees_201420_v3d.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2014-15 to 2019-20
Content: Spending by local authorities on schools and other education and community services

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
APPru	Alternative Provision PRU
Description	Description - Choose the funding lines you are interested in
EarlyYears	Early years
Gross	Gross
Income	Income
MaintainedSchools	Maintained Schools Count
Net	Net
NetpPupil	Net per Pupil
PostSchool	Post-school
Primary	Primary
PupilCount	Pupil Count
ReportGroup	Report Group - Choose the reporting group you are interested in
Secondary	Secondary
SenSpecial	SEN Special

Footnotes

Before using this data, please check the methodology section for important information such as definitions, limitations and caveats.

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S251 Summary Data

Filename: cfr-s251_highlightssummary_v1.2.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2014-15 to 2019-20
Content: Combined overview of gross and net spending by local authorities on schools, other education and children's and young people's services.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
cyps_spend	Children and young people's services
Description	Description
GrossExpend	Gross expenditure by schools
GrossExpendpPupil	Gross expenditure by schools per pupil
NetExpend	Net expenditure by schools
NetExpendpPupil	Net expenditure by schools per pupil
OtherEdComm	Other education and community
ReportGroup	Report Group
school_expenditure	School expenditure

Footnotes

Before using this data, please check the methodology section for important information such as definitions, limitations and caveats.

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