Financial year 2021-22

LA and school expenditure

Local authority and school spending on education, children's services and social care across financial years. Also includes income of LA maintained schools.

Release type
Published

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11 data sets available for download

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  • School income - national rounded summary

    National

    This file contains national level rounded data on income of local authority maintained schools. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.

    Number of rows
    1,386
    Indicators
    • Income (£ million)
    • Income per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of income
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School income - national rounded summary
  • School income - unrounded data

    Local authority, National, Regional

    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.

    Number of rows
    198,198
    Indicators
    • Income
    • Income per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of Income
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School income - unrounded data
  • School expenditure - national rounded summary

    National

    This file contains national level rounded data on expenditure of local authority maintained schools. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.

    Number of rows
    1,932
    Indicators
    • Expenditure (£ million)
    • Expenditure per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School expenditure - national rounded summary
  • School expenditure - unrounded data

    Local authority, National, Regional

    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.

    Number of rows
    276,276
    Indicators
    • Expenditure
    • Expenditure per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School expenditure - unrounded data
  • School revenue reserves - national rounded summary

    National

    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.

    Number of rows
    42
    Indicators
    • Average revenue balance per school
    • Average surplus per school for schools over the threshold
    • Committed revenue balances (B01)
    Filters
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School revenue reserves - national rounded summary
  • School revenue reserves - unrounded data

    Local authority, National, Regional

    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.

    Number of rows
    6,006
    Indicators
    • Average revenue balance per school
    • Average surplus per school for schools over the threshold
    • Committed revenue balances (B01)
    Filters
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using School revenue reserves - unrounded data
  • LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - national rounded summary

    National

    This file contains information on expenditure on education made by local authorities. Data is at national level and rounded to the nearest £ million.

    Number of rows
    552
    Indicators
    • Income (£ million)
    • Per pupil net expenditure (£)
    • Spend on early years establishments (£ million)
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - national rounded summary
  • LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data

    Local authority, National, Regional

    This file contains information on expenditure on education made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded.

    Number of rows
    89,809
    Indicators
    • Income
    • Per pupil net expenditure
    • Spend on early years establishments
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data
  • LA expenditure on children's services - national rounded summary

    National

    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.

    Number of rows
    266
    Indicators
    • Grants inside of aggregate external finance (£ million)
    • Grants outside of aggregate external finance (£ million)
    • Income (£ million)
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using LA expenditure on children's services - national rounded summary
  • LA expenditure on children's services - unrounded data

    Local authority, National, Regional

    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.

    Number of rows
    43,306
    Indicators
    • Grants inside of aggregate external finance
    • Grants outside of aggregate external finance
    • Income
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using LA expenditure on children's services - unrounded data
  • ANNEX - Headline figures

    National

    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.

    Number of rows
    7
    Indicators
    • Expenditure by local authorities on children's services (£ billion)
    • Expenditure by local authorities on other education (£ billion)
    • Expenditure by local authorities on schools (£ billion)
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2021-22
    Create table using ANNEX - Headline figures

Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

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 (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in new tab).

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. 

The CFR data is also available at an individual school level via the Schools Financial Benchmarking (opens in new tab)website. 

This publication includes information on:

  • 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).


Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about LA and school expenditure statistics and data:

Workforce and Finance Statistics Team

Email: finance.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Workforce and Finance Statistics Team

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

Opening times

Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)