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Financial year 2021-22
LA and school expenditure
Data guidance
Published
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: ‘LA and School Expenditure’ 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 summer 2022 Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and S251 Outturn collections. It supersedes the December 2021 data release.
Local authority spending on schools and other education - time-series giving the detailed breakdown of spending by local authorities 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 by local authorities 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 LA maintained 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 LA maintained schools and overall numbers of schools in surplus and deficit.
Rounded data files contain national level data rounded to the nearest £ million. These files are intended to provide national level summaries of financial data. Unrounded data files contain local authority, regional and national unrounded financial data.
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 = 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.
School income - national rounded summary
Filename
cfr_income_national_summary2.csv
Geographic levels
National
Time period
2015-16 to 2021-22
Content
This file contains national level rounded data on income of local authority maintained schools. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
income
Income (£ million)
income_description
Category of income
income_per_pupil
Income per pupil
school_phase
Phase of school - Filter by school type
Footnotes
The category reference (I01, I02, E01, OB1, etc) relates to the categories collected in the Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return. Further information on each category can be found on the CFR website linked to in the methodology document.
This file contains unrounded data on income of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
income
Income
income_description
Category of Income
income_per_pupil
Income per pupil
school_phase
Phase of school - Filter by school type
Footnotes
The category reference (I01, I02, E01, OB1, etc) relates to the categories collected in the Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return. Further information on each category can be found on the CFR website linked to in the methodology document.
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. Thurrock returned no data from primary schools in 2021-22. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, pupil referral units or special schools. Full details are in the methodology document. These local authorities will be uncoloured in the maps above.
This file contains national level rounded data on expenditure of local authority maintained schools. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
expenditure
Expenditure (£ million)
expenditure_description
Category of expenditure
expenditure_per_pupil
Expenditure per pupil
school_phase
Phase of school - Filter by school type
Footnotes
The category reference (I01, I02, E01, OB1, etc) relates to the categories collected in the Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return. Further information on each category can be found on the CFR website linked to in the methodology document.
This file contains unrounded data on expenditure of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
expenditure
Expenditure
expenditure_description
Category of expenditure
expenditure_per_pupil
Expenditure per pupil
school_phase
Phase of school - Filter by school type
Footnotes
The category reference (I01, I02, E01, OB1, etc) relates to the categories collected in the Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return. Further information on each category can be found on the CFR website linked to in the methodology document.
Data for the City of Kingston upon Hull is based on a part year return for one primary school and a full year return for one other. Only 2 primary schools submitted a Consistent Financial Reporting return in 2021-22.
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. Thurrock returned no data from primary schools in 2021-22. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, pupil referral units or special schools. Full details are in the methodology document. These local authorities will be uncoloured in the maps above.
This file contains national level rounded data on revenue reserves of local authority maintained schools. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
average_revenue_balance
Average revenue balance per school
committed_revenue_balances(B01)
Committed revenue balances (B01)
community_focussed_school_revenue_balance(B06)
Community-focused school revenue balances (B06)
devolved_formula_capital_balance(B03)
Devolved formula capital balance (B03)
number_schools
Number of schools making a Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return
number_schools_with_deficit
Number of schools with a negative revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus
Number of schools with a surplus revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus_over_threshold
Number of schools with a surplus over the threshold
This file contains unrounded data on revenue reserves of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
average_revenue_balance
Average revenue balance per school
committed_revenue_balances(B01)
Committed revenue balances (B01)
community_focussed_school_revenue_balance(B06)
Community-focused school revenue balances (B06)
devolved_formula_capital_balance(B03)
Devolved formula capital balance (B03)
number_schools
Number of schools making a Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return
number_schools_with_deficit
Number of schools with a negative revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus
Number of schools with a surplus revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus_over_threshold
Number of schools with a surplus over the threshold
Outstanding balance of capital loans to schol (B07)
PC_schools_with_deficit
Percentage of schools with a negative revenue balance (deficit)
PC_schools_with_surplus
Percentage of schools with a surplus revenue balance
pc_schools_with_surplus_over_threshold
Percentage of schools with a surplus over the threshold
revenue_balance_as_pc_total_income
Revenue balance as a percentage of total income
school_over_threshold_av_per_school
Average surplus per school for schools over the threshold
school_phase
Phase of school
school_surplus_over_threshold
Total surplus of schools over the threshold
total_income
Total income
total_revenue_balance
Total revenue balance
total_revenue_reserve_schools_deficit
Total revenue balance of schools with a deficit
total_revenue_reserve_schools_surplus
Total revenue balance of schools with a surplus
uncommitted_revenue_balances(B02)
Uncommitted revenue balances (B02)
Footnotes
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. Thurrock returned no data from primary schools in 2021-22. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, pupil referral units or special schools. Full details are in the methodology document. These local authorities will be uncoloured in the maps above.
Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year
LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data
Filename
s251_alleducation_la_regional_national2.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2015-16 to 2021-22
Content
This file contains information on expenditure on education made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
category_of_expenditure
Category of expenditure - Filter by expenditure category
This file contains information on expenditure on children's services made by local authorities. Data is at national level and rounded to the nearest £ million.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
description_of_expenditure
Category of expenditure - Filter by expenditure category
grants_inside_AEF
Grants inside of aggregate external finance (£ million)
grants_outside_AEF
Grants outside of aggregate external finance (£ million)
income
Income (£ million)
net_current_expenditure
Total net current expenditure (£ million)
net_revenue_expenditure
Net revenue expenditure (£ million)
other_public_sector_provision
Spend on other public sector provision (£ million)
This file contains information on expenditure on children's service's made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
description_of_expenditure
Category of expenditure - Filter by expenditure category
These are the national headline figures, rounded to the nearest billion and include both financial data for LA maintained schools and financial data for local authorities.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
number_school_surplus
Number of LA maintained schools with surplus revenue reserve
number_schools_deficit
Number of LA maintained schools in deficit
pc_schools_deficit
Percentage of LA maintained schools in deficit
pc_schools_surplus
Percentage of LA maintained schools with surplus revenue reserve
total_childrens_services_gross_expenditre_by_la
Expenditure by local authorities on children's services (£ billion)
total_childrens_services_income_by_la
Income of local authorities for children's services (£ billion)
total_childrens_services_net_expenditure_by_la
Net expenditure by local authorities on children's services (£ billion)
total_expenditure_billion
Total expenditure of LA maintained schools (£ billion)
total_expenditure_PP
Total expenditure per pupil for LA maintained schools
total_income_billion
Total income of LA maintained schools (£ billion)
total_income_PP
Total income per pupil for LA maintained schools
total_other_education_gross_expenditre_by_la
Expenditure by local authorities on other education (£ billion)
total_other_education_income_by_la
Income of local authorities for other education (£ billion)
total_other_education_net_expenditure_by_la
Net expenditure by local authorities on other education (£ billion)
total_schools_gross_expenditre_by_la
Expenditure by local authorities on schools (£ billion)
total_schools_income_by_la
Income of local authorities for schools (£ billion)
total_schools_net_expenditure_by_la
Net expenditure by local authorities on schools (£ billion)