Featured tables added relating to planned expenditure on early years for each local authority (see tables 8a and 8b)
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.
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All supporting files from this release are listed for individual download below:
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.
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:
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:
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 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.
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.
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:
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 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.
The categories which have the largest planned expenditure decreases since 2021-22 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 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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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:
A file containing high needs places and funding, by school, is available under ancillary files.
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