Financial year 2024-25

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.

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1 updatefor Financial year 2024-25

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  • Income of LA maintained schools - 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
    280,203
    Indicators
    • Income
    • Income per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of Income
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2024-25
    Data set information page for Income of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
    Create table using Income of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

  • Expenditure of LA maintained schools - 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
    390,586
    Indicators
    • Expenditure
    • Expenditure per pupil
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    • Phase of school
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2024-25
    Data set information page for Expenditure of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
    Create table using Expenditure of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

  • Revenue reserves of LA maintained schools - 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
    8,491
    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 2024-25
    Data set information page for Revenue reserves of LA maintained schools - unrounded data
    Create table using Revenue reserves of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

  • 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. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.

    Number of rows
    130,725
    Indicators
    • Income
    • Per pupil net expenditure
    • Spend on early years establishments
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2024-25
    Data set information page for LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data
    Create table using LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data

  • LA expenditure on children's services - 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. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.

    Number of rows
    61,976
    Indicators
    • Grants inside of aggregate external finance
    • Grants outside of aggregate external finance
    • Income
    Filters
    • Category of expenditure
    Time period
    2015-16 to 2024-25
    Data set information page for LA expenditure on children's services - unrounded data
    Create table using LA expenditure on children's services - unrounded data
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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 a new tab) (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab) (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 2025 Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and S251 Outturn collections. It supersedes the December 2024 data release. 

The CFR data is also available at an individual school level via the Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool (opens in a new tab) (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.
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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)

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