Update of high needs places file to reflect additional data return.
This release contains information on local authority (LA) spending plans for education, children's services (including youth justice), early years, and high needs place funding for the financial year 2023-24.
LAs are required under section 251 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to prepare and submit a budget statement to the Department for Education each year. The information provided is used in this release.
Figures are presented in cash terms and are not adjusted for inflation.
‘Explore data and files’ contains files that underpin this release and allows expert users to interrogate and analyse data for themselves. For pre-populated summary statistics please see the relevant section below, from which the data can be further explored using the ‘Explore data’ functionality. You can also view featured tables or create your own tables using the ‘create tables’ functionality.
For the financial year April 2023 to March 2024, local authority total net planned expenditure on education and children's and young people’s services is £72.2 billion, £5.3 billion higher than 2022-23. This consists of:
Please note that these figures are in cash terms and are not adjusted for inflation.
Gross expenditure is the actual total estimated costs of activities before allowance for any expected income.
Income is the estimated income the local authority expects to be able to offset against gross expenditure on an activity (this does not include self generated income for individual schools).
Net expenditure is gross expenditure minus expected income.
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This file contains the number of high needs places, pupil referral unit places and hospital school places by school. The number of places for the periods between April 2023 and August 2023 and September 2023 and March 2024 are shown, together with the total high needs funding for the financial year 2023-24. File updated 12 December 2023
Local authorities in England planned net expenditure on schools in 2023-24 is £57.8 billion; £3.7 billion higher (6.9%), in cash terms, than in 2022-23. This takes into account planned gross expenditure of £57.9 billion and income of £0.1 billion.
This expenditure on schools accounts for 80.1% of LA planned spending on education and children's and young people's services; a similar proportion to previous years.
Of the planned £57.8 billion spend on schools:
These figures are prior to academy recoupment. Recoupment is a method of adjusting a dedicated schools grant (information on DSG is available here) to take account of the conversion of a maintained school into an academy. In 2023-24, it was planned that the total sum to be recouped from academies would be £25.6 billion, with a further £0.8 billion recouped from academies high needs place funding.
Within the £57.8 billion planned total net expenditure on schools, the following categories have seen the largest increases since 2022-23:
Categories which have seen the largest decreases in planned net expenditure include:
A full breakdown can be found in Table 1: Planned expenditure on schools, by category of expenditure, and phase of school, England, financial year 2023-24. A time series for gross and net expenditure, income and net expenditure per capita for all years from 2015-16 can be found in Table 2: Total planned expenditure, income, and net expenditure per capita, England, financial years 2015-16 to 2023-24.
In 2023-24, the £46.7 billion planned net expenditure on individual school budgets equates to £5,229 per pupil. This is £260 higher than in 2022-23 and continues the increasing spend per pupil trend since 2018-19.
As in previous years, planned net expenditure per pupil remains highest in Inner London, where staffing costs are higher. Per pupil planned spend on individual schools budgets in Inner London was £6,559 in 2023-24.
Within the Section 251 budget return, LAs are asked for gross expenditure categories by school phase. Expected income is not returned in the same manner, meaning that net expenditure by school phase cannot be calculated. Therefore, this section focuses on gross planned expenditure only.
Gross planned expenditure has risen for all phases of school:
In addition to this planned expenditure by school phase, there is a further £0.2 billion on central services which are funded through the schools budget. These include education welfare, asset management, central support and regulatory duties, school improvements and staff-related costs.
The total planned net expenditure on the other education and community budget for 2023-24 is £3.0 billion, £0.4 billion (16.1%) higher than in 2022-23. Net expenditure per capita is £849, £136 higher than in 2022-23.
This includes planned expenditure on education and community, including education welfare, home to school transport, educational psychology services, special educational needs (SEN) administration, central support and pension costs. The number of pupils who have education, health and care plans, and who have SEN support has increased each year since 2015. This, combined with changes in funding following the 2014 Children and Families Act, would result in some categories relating to SEN increasing. For other categories such as transport, rises in fuel prices and the cost of living may be a contributing factor.
The categories which have the largest planned expenditure decreases since 2022-23 are:
All categories in this area of budget can be found in Table 3: Planned expenditure on other education and community, by category of expenditure and phase of school, England, financial year 2023-24. This can be found under the explore data and files link. Also Table 4: Total planned expenditure, income, and net expenditure per capita, for other education and community, England, financial years 2015-16 to 2023-24.
Total net planned expenditure on children's and young people's services for 2023-24 is £11.4 billion. This is £1.1 billion (11.2%) higher than for 2022-23 and includes:
Per capita, planned expenditure is £969, £121 higher than in 2022-23 and continuing an increasing trend since 2016-17 when spend per capita was £642.
The planned net expenditure per capita is highest in Inner London at £1,312 and lowest in the East of England at £759.
Children looked after (CLA)
The latest published information shows that the number of CLA in England increased by 2% between 2021 and 2022, continuing recent years' trend.
In 2023-24 planned net expenditure on CLA is £6.1 billion, a 13.5% increase from 2022-23. Expenditure on CLA consistently forms the largest proportion of LA spending on children's and young people's services. It represents 53.7% of this expenditure in 2023-24, slightly higher than in 2022-23 (52.6%).
Planned net expenditure increased across all categories for CLA, with the largest rises seen in asylum seeker children (71.7%), residential care (19.7%) and leaving care support services (14.7%). The latest data published by the Home Office, shows an increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children applications between 2021 and 2022.
Sure Start Children's Centres and Early Years Funding
Planned net expenditure on Sure Start Children's Centres and Early Years Funding for 2023-24 is £456.8 million, £13.4 (3.0%) million higher than in 2022-23. This reverses the trend seen in previous years, with increases in both funding for individual Sure Start Children's Centres (4.4%) and funding on LA management costs relating to Sure Start Children's Centres (13.0%).
A full breakdown of all categories within children's and young peoples services for the financial year 2023-24 can be found in Table 5: Planned expenditure, income and per capita expenditure, by category, on children's and young peoples services, England, 2023-24. A summary showing net planned expenditure, and expenditure per capita, for all financial years since 2015-16 is shown in Table 6: Total planned expenditure, income and net expenditure per capita, for children's and young peoples services, England, 2015-16 to 2023-24.
Other children's and young people's services
Other net planned expenditure within children's and young people's services includes family support, which has increased by 10.0% to £1.2 billion in 2023-24 and safeguarding services which has increased by 9.4% to £3.0 billion.
For services targeted at young people, net planned expenditure on universal services increased by £16.2 million between 2022-23 and 2023-24. Universal and open access services are open to all young people, regardless of their circumstances or perception of vulnerability. Over the same period, targeted services for young people has increased by £2.1 million. Targeted services are those focused on supporting early intervention for vulnerable young people, including but not limited to those at risk of teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, youth crime and not being in education, employment or training.
As part of the Section 251 Budget return, LAs return details of their early years single funding formula (EYSFF), including 2, and 3 and 4-year-old free care entitlements. LAs also confirm their planned budget for the special educational needs (SEN) inclusion fund top-up grant, early years pupil premium (EYPP), and disability access fund (DAF).
Planned expenditure on early years education based on the EYSFF, for 2 year olds is £439 million, an increase of 8.7% from 2022-23. For 3 and 4 year olds the planned expenditure is £3.2 billion in 2023-24, also an increase of 8.7%. Since 2022-23, the number of funded hours increased for both 2, and 3 and 4 year olds; by 4.3% and 3.1% respectively.
Planned expenditure for the most vulnerable groups of 2, 3 and 4 year olds has increased since 2022-23:
A full breakdown of all categories within early years planned expenditure for the financial year 2023-24 can be found under the explore data and files link in Table 7: Planned expenditure on early years, by category and age group, England, financial years 2017-18 to 2023-24.
A full breakdown of all categories within early years planned expenditure for each local authority for the financial year 2023-24 can be found under the explore data and files link in Table 8a: Planned expenditure on early years, for 3 and 4 year olds, for each local authority for financial year 2023-24. The figures for 2 year olds are shown in Table 8b: Planned expenditure on early years, for 2 year olds, for each local authority for financial year 2023-24.
As part of the Section 251 Budget return, LAs submit details of high needs places, the planned spending of which is included within the reported £2.0 billion planned expenditure (section “Planned expenditure on schools”). More information on high needs funding can be fund in the methodology associated with this publication.
For the financial year 2023-24:
A file containing high needs places and funding for the financial year 2023-24, for each school returned by a local authority as having funded places, is available under ancillary files.
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