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 2025 Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and S251 Outturn collections. It supersedes the December 2024 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.
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.
Income of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
Filename
cfr_income_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2015-16 to 2024-25
Content
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
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year.
Expenditure of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
Filename
cfr_expenditure_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2015-16 to 2024-25
Content
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
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year.
Expenditure per pupil is based on the number of pupils on roll as at the January 2025 School Census. PRUs see more variation in pupil numbers through the course of the year than other school types. Funding for PRUs is based on number of available places.
Revenue reserves of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
Filename
cfr_revenue_reserve_la_regional_national_data.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2015-16 to 2024-25
Content
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
Committed revenue balances (B01)
community_focussed_school_revenue_balance
Community-focused school revenue balances (B06)
devolved_formula_capital_balance
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
opening_capital_balance
Opening capital balance (OB03)
opening_community_focussed_revenue_balance
Opening community-focused revenue balance (OB02)
opening_pupil_focussed_revenue_balance
Opening pupil-focused revenue balance (OB01)
other_capital_balances
Other capital balances (B05)
outstanding_balance_of_capital_loans_to_school
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
Uncommitted revenue balances (B02)
Footnotes
There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
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_national.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2015-16 to 2024-25
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. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.
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 education made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.
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