Guidance

Schools supplementary grant 2022 to 2023: methodology

Updated 26 April 2023

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The autumn 2021 spending review confirmed £1.6 billion of funding for schools and high needs, for the 2022 to 2023 financial year, above the previous settlement for that year.

In the 2022 to 2023 financial year, schools will be allocated £1.2 billion of this additional funding, to provide support for the costs of the Health and Social Care Levy and wider costs. This funding will be allocated through the schools supplementary grant (SSG) 2022 to 2023.

This methodology will help schools and local authorities understand how the SSG is calculated for 2022 to 2023.

In addition to the SSG, local authorities have been allocated £325 million additional high needs funding for 2022 to 2023, on top of the dedicated schools grant high needs block allocations, calculated under the national funding formula (NFF).

We’ve published the additional high needs funding allocations which include funding for the Health and Social Care Levy and wider cost pressures in special schools and alternative provision. Those schools will not receive the SSG covered by this methodology, but should discuss with their local authority any increases as part of the top-up funding paid from local authorities’ high needs budgets.

2. Eligibility for the grant

The SSG will fund the following providers:

• maintained nursery schools
• primary and secondary maintained schools
• primary and secondary academies and free schools
• all through maintained schools
• all through academies
• 16 to 19 maintained schools
• 16 to 19 academies
• city technology colleges

The SSG will only be payable to public sector employers. This means that further education colleges, sixth form colleges, independent learning providers, as well as private and voluntary sector early years providers will not be eligible to receive this funding.

3. Paying the grant

School-level allocations of the SSG for the full 2022 to 2023 financial year will be published in May 2022.

We will pay the funding for maintained mainstream schools to local authorities, who’ll be required to pay it to individual schools at the rates published.

We will pay funding at the published rates directly to mainstream academies.

Local authorities and academies will receive their payments for 2022 to 2023 in two tranches. Payments will be made in May 2022 (for local authorities) and June 2022 (for academies) to cover April 2022 to August 2022, and in October 2022 (for local authorities) and November 2022 (for academies) to cover September 2022 to March 2023.

This additional funding will be provided in each year of the current spending review period. Our intention is that payment of this additional funding in the form of a separate grant will be for 2022 to 2023 only. The funding will be incorporated into core budget allocations for 2023 to 2024 where possible. So, for primary, secondary and all-through schools, this will mean the funding being rolled into the schools NFF for 2023 to 2024.

Both local authority-maintained mainstream schools and mainstream academies will receive allocations under the SSG, covering the financial year 2022 to 2023.

In recognition of the funding cycle for academies, which follows the academic year (rather than the financial year, as for local authority-maintained schools), academies will receive an additional allocation of the SSG to cover April to August 2023, this is the period in advance of the funding being rolled into academies’ core budget allocations through the NFF. This will be allocated using the same rates and pupil numbers as the 2022 to 2023 grant, and will therefore represent five-twelfths of their 2022 to 2023 allocations.

Schools will have the flexibility to prioritise their spending of the SSG to best support the needs of their pupils and staff and address cost pressures, including those associated with the Health and Social Care Levy.

4. Funding rates

As set out above, £1.2 billion of additional funding is to be allocated to schools through the SSG.

The funding for early years and post-16 provision in schools is provided in respect of the Health and Social Care Levy. The additional funding for mainstream school provision for pupils in year R to year 11 is provided in respect of both the Health and Social Care Levy and wider cost pressures. This means that the funding rates in the SSG are higher for primary and secondary provision than early years or post-16.

The early years and post-16 elements of the SSG will be allocated on a simple per-pupil basis.

Funding for mainstream schools makes up the bulk of the additional £1.2 billion to be allocated through the SSG. The funding rates consist of the following three elements, which are based on factors already in the schools NFF:

• a basic per-pupil rate (with different rates for primary, key stage 3 and key stage 4)
• a lump sum paid to all schools, regardless of pupil numbers
• a per-pupil rate for pupils who are are recorded as having been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years (FSM6), with different rates for primary and secondary pupils.

When confirming the school-level allocations of the SSG we will apply an area cost adjustment (ACA) to the funding rates below to take into account geographical variation in labour costs. The ACAs will be those used for the schools NFF for 2022 to 2023.

The ACAs used in the schools NFF are published at annex A of the schools block national funding formula technical note. The base funding rates provided below will be multiplied by the relevant ACA to determine the school-level allocations.

5. Rate for early years

The base per-pupil funding rate for early years provision in schools, and for maintained nursery schools, will be £24 per pupil.

6. Rates for primary, secondary and all-through provision schools:

The base funding rates for 5 to 16 schools will be:

• basic per-pupil rate of £97 for primary pupils, including pupils in year R
• basic per-pupil rate of £137 for key stage 3 pupils
• basic per-pupil rate of £155 for key stage 4 pupils
• lump sum of £3,680
• FSM6 per-pupil rate of £85 per eligible primary pupil
• FSM6 per-pupil rate of £124 per eligible secondary pupil

7. Rates for post-16

The base per-student funding rate for 16 to 19 provision in schools, including 16 to 19 schools and academies, will be £35 per student.

8. Allocations

School-level allocations will be published in May 2022 and will show the total funding allocated for the 2022 to 2023 financial year for each applicable phase of provision. Conditions of grant will be published alongside the school-level allocations.

For early years, allocations will be calculated by multiplying the per-pupil funding rate (with the ACA applied) by the pupil count using data on the number of under-5’s registered as pupils at the schools in early years or nursery classes on the January 2022 schools census.

For primary, secondary and all-through school provision, allocations will be calculated by multiplying the relevant funding rates (with the ACA applied) by the pupil count, and FSM6 pupil count, using data from the October 2021 school census. The allocations will also include the lump sum amount.

For post-16, allocations will be calculated by multiplying the per-student funding rate (with the ACA applied) by the student count using data from the 2022 to 2023 16 to 19 allocations.

Schools which are closing in the 2022 to 2023 financial year will have their allocations pro-rata for the portion of the year that they are open.

9. New and growing schools: adjustments

Schools that have opened in the past 7 years and are still adding year groups in the 2022 to 2023 academic year and schools that opened between September 2021 and August 2022 (and are not recorded on the autumn 2021 October census) will be funded based on the estimated pupil numbers as recorded in their respective local authority’s 2022 to 2023 authority proforma tool (APT). This data is used for their first payment of the SSG in spring 2022.

These schools’ funding allocations will be subject to adjustment to reflect actual pupil numbers in 2022 to 2023. For these ‘new and growing’ schools the second payment of the SSG will determine whether a retrospective adjustment is required to bring the initial funding allocations into line with the actual pupil numbers that the schools record in the autumn 2022 (October) school census. These schools will receive this second payment of SSG by February 2023, to allow sufficient time to process the autumn 2022 census data. If the ‘new and growing’ school is an academy, the third and final payment of the SSG (to cover the period April 2023 to August 2023) will also include this adjustment, again based on autumn 2022 (October) pupil numbers.

Schools that opened in September 2022 will receive their first payment of the SSG in February 2023, and this will be calculated using pupil number data from the autumn 2022 (October) census. For academies that opened in September 2022, a further payment will be made to cover April 2023 to August 2023, again using data from the October 2022 census.