Area cost adjustment for high needs 2026 to 2027: technical note
Updated 14 October 2026
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2026
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Introduction
This note describes the high needs area cost adjustments (ACAs).
The high needs ACAs are published alongside the schools budget support grant 2026 (SBSG26). These ACA figures are used to calculate allocations for special and alternative provision (AP) schools through the grant.
The ACA is a multiplier applied to funding factors to reflect geographical variation in labour market costs.
The high needs ACA
The high needs ACA reflects a combination of:
- the 4 geographical pay bands for teachers
- regional variations in the labour market for non-teaching staff
For more information on the teacher pay and non-teaching element of the ACA refer to the 2026 to 2027 area cost adjustment for national funding formula (NFF) technical note.
Combining the teacher and non-teacher elements
The teacher and non-teaching staff elements are weighted in proportion to actual expenditure on teaching and non-teaching staff in special schools and AP schools.
The data source for this weighting is Schools financial benchmarking.
The 2023 to 2024 academic year data for maintained schools and academies is combined to calculate the weightings. Data taken from the 2023 to 2024 Consistent Financial Reporting returns (CFR 2023/24) for local authority maintained schools and the 2023 to 2024 academies’ accounts returns (AAR 2023/24) for academies can be found on the Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool.
The teacher proportion is the total expenditure on teachers divided by total expenditure on teachers, non-teaching staff and non-pay combined.
The non-teaching staff proportion is the total expenditure on non-teaching staff divided by total expenditure on teachers, non-teaching staff and non-pay combined.
The ACA weightings, based on the expenditure proportions, are set out in table 1.
Table 1: Teacher and non-teacher weightings
This table shows the teaching staff and non-teaching-staff weightings for the high needs ACAs.
| Expenditure type | Weightings for high needs ACA |
|---|---|
| Teaching staff | 42.27% |
| Non-teaching staff | 42.46% |
| Non-staff | 15.27% |
The ACAs for high needs are given by:
A = (T - 1) WT + (G - 1) WG + 1
Where:
A is the ACA
T is the teacher pay ratio for the geographical area
WT is the weighting for teaching staff
G is the general labour market specific cost adjustment for the geographical area
WG is the weighting for non-teaching staff
Implicitly non-staff costs are given a weighting of 0.
The 2026 to 2027 academic year high needs ACAs
| Local authority name | ACA for high needs |
|---|---|
| Barking and Dagenham | 1.12350 |
| Barnet | 1.11318 |
| Barnsley | 1.00000 |
| Bath and North East Somerset | 1.02241 |
| Bedford | 1.02404 |
| Bexley | 1.08816 |
| Birmingham | 1.00518 |
| Blackburn with Darwen | 1.00000 |
| Blackpool | 1.00000 |
| Bolton | 1.00837 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | 1.00000 |
| Bracknell Forest | 1.07585 |
| Bradford | 1.00025 |
| Brent | 1.14852 |
| Brighton and Hove | 1.00259 |
| Bristol, City of | 1.02241 |
| Bromley | 1.08816 |
| Buckinghamshire | 1.04878 |
| Bury | 1.00837 |
| Calderdale | 1.00025 |
| Cambridgeshire | 1.01969 |
| Camden | 1.20639 |
| Central Bedfordshire | 1.02404 |
| Cheshire East | 1.00556 |
| Cheshire West and Chester | 1.00556 |
| Cornwall | 1.00000 |
| County Durham | 1.00000 |
| Coventry | 1.00518 |
| Croydon | 1.08816 |
| Cumberland | 1.00000 |
| Darlington | 1.00000 |
| Derby | 1.00000 |
| Derbyshire | 1.00000 |
| Devon | 1.00000 |
| Doncaster | 1.00000 |
| Dorset | 1.00000 |
| Dudley | 1.00518 |
| Ealing | 1.14852 |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | 1.00000 |
| East Sussex | 1.00259 |
| Enfield | 1.08816 |
| Essex | 1.01956 |
| Gateshead | 1.00000 |
| Gloucestershire | 1.00966 |
| Greenwich | 1.20639 |
| Hackney | 1.20639 |
| Halton | 1.00556 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | 1.20639 |
| Hampshire | 1.02175 |
| Haringey | 1.12350 |
| Harrow | 1.11318 |
| Hartlepool | 1.00000 |
| Havering | 1.08816 |
| Herefordshire, County of | 1.00000 |
| Hertfordshire | 1.05363 |
| Hillingdon | 1.11318 |
| Hounslow | 1.11318 |
| Isle of Wight | 1.02175 |
| Islington | 1.20639 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | 1.20639 |
| Kent | 1.00846 |
| Kingston upon Hull, City of | 1.00000 |
| Kingston upon Thames | 1.11318 |
| Kirklees | 1.00025 |
| Knowsley | 1.00172 |
| Lambeth | 1.20639 |
| Lancashire | 1.00000 |
| Leeds | 1.00025 |
| Leicester | 1.00000 |
| Leicestershire | 1.00000 |
| Lewisham | 1.20639 |
| Lincolnshire | 1.00000 |
| Liverpool | 1.00172 |
| Luton | 1.02404 |
| Manchester | 1.00837 |
| Medway | 1.00108 |
| Merton | 1.14852 |
| Middlesbrough | 1.00000 |
| Milton Keynes | 1.04398 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | 1.00000 |
| Newham | 1.12350 |
| Norfolk | 1.00000 |
| North East Lincolnshire | 1.00000 |
| North Lincolnshire | 1.00000 |
| North Northamptonshire | 1.00504 |
| North Somerset | 1.02241 |
| North Tyneside | 1.00000 |
| North Yorkshire | 1.00000 |
| Northumberland | 1.00000 |
| Nottingham | 1.00424 |
| Nottinghamshire | 1.00424 |
| Oldham | 1.00837 |
| Oxfordshire | 1.03403 |
| Peterborough | 1.01969 |
| Plymouth | 1.00000 |
| Portsmouth | 1.02175 |
| Reading | 1.05327 |
| Redbridge | 1.08816 |
| Redcar and Cleveland | 1.00000 |
| Richmond upon Thames | 1.11318 |
| Rochdale | 1.00837 |
| Rotherham | 1.00000 |
| Rutland | 1.00000 |
| Salford | 1.00837 |
| Sandwell | 1.00518 |
| Sefton | 1.00172 |
| Sheffield | 1.00000 |
| Shropshire | 1.00000 |
| Slough | 1.07585 |
| Solihull | 1.00518 |
| Somerset | 1.00000 |
| South Gloucestershire | 1.02241 |
| South Tyneside | 1.00000 |
| Southampton | 1.02175 |
| Southend-on-Sea | 1.00543 |
| Southwark | 1.20639 |
| St. Helens | 1.00172 |
| Staffordshire | 1.00000 |
| Stockport | 1.00837 |
| Stockton-on-Tees | 1.00000 |
| Stoke-on-Trent | 1.00000 |
| Suffolk | 1.00004 |
| Sunderland | 1.00000 |
| Surrey | 1.07585 |
| Sutton | 1.11318 |
| Swindon | 1.01100 |
| Tameside | 1.00837 |
| Telford and Wrekin | 1.00000 |
| Thurrock | 1.04609 |
| Torbay | 1.00000 |
| Tower Hamlets | 1.20639 |
| Trafford | 1.00837 |
| Wakefield | 1.00025 |
| Walsall | 1.00518 |
| Waltham Forest | 1.08816 |
| Wandsworth | 1.20639 |
| Warrington | 1.00556 |
| Warwickshire | 1.01074 |
| West Berkshire | 1.05327 |
| West Northamptonshire | 1.00504 |
| West Sussex | 1.01202 |
| Westminster | 1.20639 |
| Westmorland and Furness | 1.00000 |
| Wigan | 1.00837 |
| Wiltshire | 1.01100 |
| Windsor and Maidenhead | 1.07585 |
| Wirral | 1.00172 |
| Wokingham | 1.05327 |
| Wolverhampton | 1.00518 |
| Worcestershire | 1.00000 |
| York | 1.00000 |