Financial year 2022-23

Planned LA and school expenditure

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  1. Featured tables added relating to planned expenditure on early years for each local authority (see tables 8a and 8b)

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Introduction

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 2022-23.

LAs are required under section 251 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (opens in a new tab) 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.


Headline facts and figures - 2022-23

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Additional supporting files

All supporting files from this release are listed for individual download below:

  • High needs places by school (xlsx, 178 Kb)

    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 2022 and August 2022 and September 2022 and March 2023 are shown, together with the total high needs funding for the financial year 2022-23.

Planned expenditure on schools

Local authorities in England planned net expenditure on schools in 2022-23 is £54.0 billion; £2.3 billion higher (4.5%), in cash terms, than in 2021-22. This takes into account planned gross expenditure of £54.1 billion and income of £0.1 billion.

This expenditure on schools accounts for 80.8% of LA planned spending on education and children's and young people's services; a similar proportion to previous years.

Of the planned £54.0 billion spend on schools:

  • £44.0 billion (81.5%) is for individual school budgets.
  • £2.0 billion (3.6%) is for high needs place funding.
  • £8.0 billion (14.9%) is for other services, such as high needs top-up funding, behavioural support, bilingual support, museum and library services, SEN support, and educational welfare.

These figures are prior to academy recoupment. Recoupment is a method of adjusting a dedicated schools grant  (information on DSG is available here (opens in a new tab)) to take account of the conversion of a maintained school into an academy. In 2022-23, it was planned that the total sum to be recouped from academies would be £23.5 billion, with a further £0.8 billion recouped from academies high needs place funding. 

Within the £54.0 billion planned total net expenditure on schools, the categories which have seen the largest increases since 2021-22 include: 

  • High needs top-up funding for maintained schools has increased by 10.4% to £2.2 billion, for non-maintained and independent providers by 21.7% to £1.9 billion, and for academies, free schools and colleges by 22.1% to £1.9 billion. High needs top up funding is funding over and above the core high needs place funding, which a school or college receives to enable a pupil or student with high needs to participate in education and learning. 
  • Additional targeted SEN funding for mainstream schools and academies has increased by 21.9%, to £53.7 million. This is additional funding given by the LA to ensure schools have enough funding to meet additional support costs up to £6,000 for pupils with SEN, where they cannot reasonably do this out of their budget share or other mainstream funding.
  • Planned expenditure for SEN support services increased by 8.6% to £555.0 million. This includes costs of non-delegated centrally retained specialist SEN support services, including services for  visual, hearing and physical impairment, specific learning difficulties, speech, language and communication, profound and severe learning difficulties and autism. 
  • Support for inclusion, which includes collaboration between mainstream and special schools and expenditure for the integration of children between settings, has increased by  12.3% to £192.1 million. 
  • Planned expenditure on therapies and other health related services has increased by 20.6% to £61.0 million, while planned net expenditure on alternative provision services has increased by 9.6% to £211.7 million. 

Categories which have seen the largest decreases in planned net expenditure include:

  • Licences/subscriptions, planned net expenditure on these has decreased by 26.1% to £2.6 million.
  • Planned net expenditure on insurance has decreased by 16.6% to £7.0 million.
  • Statutory/regulatory duties (funded through maintained schools budget) decreased by 11.8% to £16.9 million. 
  • Fees to independent schools for pupils without SEN have decreased by 9.0% to £3.4 million. 

A full breakdown can be found in Table 1: Planned expenditure on schools, by category of expenditure, and phase of school, England, financial year 2022-23. 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, and net expenditure per capita, England, financial years 2015-16 to 2022-23

i) Individual schools budget per pupil

In 2022-23, the £44.0 billion (81.5%) planned net expenditure on individual school budgets equates to £4,966 per pupil. This is £92 higher than in 2021-22 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 £6,278 in 2022-23.

The percentage increase from 2021-22 was lowest in Inner London (1.1%). The largest rise (2.5%) was in the North East, from £4,866 per pupil in 2021-22 to £4,987 per pupil in 2022-23. 

ii) Planned expenditure by phase of school

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 on early years establishments decreased from £3.9 billion in 2021-22 to £3.8 billion in 2022-23. This corresponds with the decreasing pupil population forecasts for this age group. Further information on pupil populations and forecasts is available within the National Pupil Projections release.

Gross planned expenditure on all other school phases has risen:

  • For primary schools, planned expenditure increased from £22.5 billion in 2021-22 to £23.1 billion. 
  • For secondary schools, planned expenditure increased from £19.6 billion in 2021-22 to £20.7 billion. 
  • For special schools, planned expenditure increased from £4.5 billion in 2021-22 to £5.1 billion.
  • For pupil referral units, planned expenditure increased slightly from £685 million to £719 million.
  • For post 16 establishments, planned expenditure increased from £0.5 billion to  £0.6 billion.

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. 

Planned expenditure on other education and community

 The total planned net expenditure on the other education and community budget for 2022-23 is £2.6 billion, £0.2 billion, 9.4% higher than in 2021-22.  Net expenditure per capita is £713, £79 higher than in 2021-22. 

This includes expenditure on education and community includes 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, pupils returning to school following the COVID-19 pandemic, costs of socially distanced transport and rises in fuel prices may all have contributed.

  • Home to post-16 provision transport for mainstream pupils increased by 105.6% to £23.8 million.
  • Home to post-16 provision for pupils aged 16 to 18 with SEN increased by 32.3% to £108.6 million. 
  • SEN administration, assessment and coordination and monitoring increased by 23.3% to £240.9 million. 
  • Home to school transport for pupils under 16 with SEN increased by 15.4% to £986.3 million. 

The categories which have the largest planned expenditure decreases since 2021-22 are:

  • Joint use arrangements (expenditure relating to a binding agreement, where the other party is a local authority or the other parties include one or more local authorities) decreased by 49.5% to £1.3 million. 
  • Central support services (including pupil support, visual and performing arts, outdoor education) decreased by 8.9% to £32.3 million.
  • Home to post-16 provision for young people with SEN aged 19 to 25 decreased by 6.9% to £32.7 million.

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 2022-23. This can be found under the explore data and files link. Also Table 4: Total planned expenditure, and net expenditure per capita, for other education and community, England, financial years 2015-16 to 2022-23.

Planned expenditure on children's and young people's services

Total net planned expenditure on children's and young peoples services in 2022-23 is £10.3 billion, £0.7 billion (7.3%) higher than in 2021-22. This includes:

  • Sure start children's centres and early years funding
  • Children looked after
  • Children and families services
  • Safeguarding children and young peoples services
  • Family support services
  • Services for young people, including substance misuse and teenage pregnancy services, and 
  • Youth justice

Per capita, planned expenditure is £848, £64 higher than in 2021-22 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 £1,067 and lowest in the East of England at £668. 

Children looked after (CLA)

The latest published information shows that the number of CLA in England increased by 1% in 2021, continuing recent years trend. In addition, figures collected by the department through the local authority survey in England to help understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s social care, indicate that the number of CLA has increased since 2019-20 (opens in a new tab).

In 2022-23 planned net expenditure on CLA is £5.4 billion, a 10.4% increase from 2021-22. Expenditure on CLA consistently forms the largest proportion of LA spending on children's and young people's services. It represents 52.6% of this expenditure in 2022-23, slightly higher than in 2021-22 (51.1%). 

Planned net expenditure increased across all categories for CLA, with the largest rises seen in asylum seeker children (53.0%), education of CLA (17.1%) and residential care (16.2%). The latest data (opens in a new tab) published by the Home Office, shows a rise of 67.0% in the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children applications for the year ending June 2022. Accordingly, LAs may be anticipating an increase in UASC numbers. 

Sure Start Children's Centres and Early Years Funding

Planned net expenditure on Sure Start Children's Centres and Early Years Funding for 2022-23 is £442 million, £5 million less than in 2021-22.

Trends of Sure Start planned expenditure categories are consistent since 2010-11; while planned expenditure on management costs has increased, planned expenditure on individual sure start centres, and services delivered through Sure Start Children's Centres has decreased. 

A full breakdown of all categories within children's and young peoples services for the financial year 2022-23 can be found in Table 5: Planned expenditure, by category, on children's and young peoples services, England, 2022-23.  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, and net expenditure per capita, for children's and young peoples services, England, 2015-16 to 2022-23.  

Other children's and young people's services 

Other net planned expenditure within children's and young peoples services includes family support, which has increased by 7.2% to £1.1 billion in 2022-23 and safeguarding services which has increased by 4.4% to £2.7 billion

For services targeted at young people, net planned expenditure on universal services decreased by £11.1 million between 2021-22 and 2022-23. 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 £5 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.

Planned expenditure on early years education

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 £0.4 billion, and for 3 and 4 year olds (collected as a combined figure) is £3.0 billion in 2022-23.

Since 2021-22, early years planned expenditure and number of funded hours decreased for 2, 3 and 4 year olds; planned expenditure decreased by 3.8% and 2.6%, respectively. Funded hours decreased by 9.9% and 5.6%, respectively. This is in line with forecasted decreases in pupil populations

Planned expenditure for the most vulnerable groups of 2, 3 and 4 year olds has increased since 2021-22:

  • SEN inclusion fund for 2 year olds from the early years block increased by 1.7% and from the high needs block by 15.5%
  • SEN inclusion fund for 3 and 4 year olds from the early years block increased by 19.1% and from the high needs block by 14.2%.
  • Disability access fund for 3 and 4 year olds increased by 25.8%.
  • Funding for early years from pupil premium for 3 and 4 year olds increased by 22.2%.

A full breakdown of all categories within early years planned expenditure for the financial year 2022-23 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 2022-23.

A full breakdown of all categories within early years planned expenditure for each local authority for the financial year 2022-23 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 2022-23. 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 2022-23

Planned high needs places and funding in maintained schools

As part of the Section 251 Budget return, LAs submit details of the 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 2022-23:

  • SEN (special educational needs) -  there were 96,000 planned places (September to March) with total funding for the financial year 2022-23 of £916 million. This is an increase of 2,300 places and £20 million since 2021-22, and similar to 2018-19 figures which had the highest planned places and expenditure since 2013-14.
  • PRU (pupil referral unit) - there were 13,200 planned places, with total funding for the financial year 2022-23 of £132 million. This is an increase of 100 places and £0.6 million since 2021-22. This follows a decrease of 1,200 places and £12 million that occurred between 2019-20 and 2021-22. 
  • Hospital education - there were 1,400 planned places, with funding for the financial year 2022-23 of £21 million. This is a decrease of 200 places and £0.2 million since 2021-22, continuing the trend seen in the previous reporting year, 2019-20.

A file containing high needs places and funding, by school, is available under ancillary files. 

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