Local authority planned expenditure (section 251 budget) benchmarking tables: 2021 to 2022 financial year - explanatory note
Updated 6 July 2022
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2022
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1. Introduction
The local authority planned expenditure benchmarking tables contain information submitted in the section 251 (s251) budget data collection for the 2021 to 2022 financial year. The tables show the submitted information in a format that allows users to compare planned expenditure between local authorities.
The s251 budget collection was cancelled for the 2020 to 2021 financial year, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. Therefore, all year-on-year comparisons are made with data from 2019 to 2020. The layout of the benchmarking tables remains unchanged from the version published in 2019.
The benchmarking tables show the minimum, maximum, median and mean for each column.
The Department for Education publishes a statistical first release (SFR) approximately a week before the final tables. The SFR provides information and commentary about planned expenditure on education and young people’s services in the 2021 to 2022 financial year. It is designed to be a summary of the national picture of planned expenditure, whereas the benchmarking tables give detailed local authority level information, which allows comparison across areas.
Where information relates to items for which the local authority only has responsibility towards schools it maintains, the return gives full year budgets for schools that were maintained as at 31 March 2021. This includes any schools that were known to be converting to academy status during the year.
The final tables use s251 budget statement data loaded on the COLLECT system as of the closing date, regardless of the return status. The tables do not include the Isles of Scilly and City of London due to their small size.
2. Changes from the 2019 to 2020 publication
The layout of the benchmarking tables remains unchanged from 2019 to 2020. Following local authority boundary changes made in April 2021, the year-on-year table does not contain comparisons for North Northamptonshire or West Northamptonshire this year, as the data is not directly comparable to the data for the 2019 to 2020 financial year. Some columns in the Additional Information table have also not been populated for these local authorities, as the source data outside the s251 budget data has yet to be updated. The statistical neighbours tool has been updated to account for boundary changes and to update the ‘mean weekly wage’ and ‘percentage of children eligible for FSM’ data. Please see the local authority interactive tool user guide for further details.
4. Known data issue
There is one known data issue. Analysis of the data for West Northamptonshire has shown a potential issue with the data returned. To avoid presenting a misleading picture of the planned spending by this local authority, and prevent inaccurate comparisons with other local authorities, we have suppressed their data.
5. Per capita tables: calculations and underlying data
There are two per capita tables:
- per capita gross
- per capita net
The per capita gross table uses the gross amount submitted on the s251 budget statement. The per capita net table uses the amount net of any income tied to that line. The tables contain the amounts submitted in each line of the s251 statement divided by a count of children and young people (a ‘denominator’). In each case, the most appropriate available count is used according to whom that particular type of spending applies to.
For each line we choose the most relevant measure from:
- a count of pupils aged 3 to 19 in maintained schools only in the local authority
- a count of pupils aged 3 to 19 in maintained schools and all academies in the local authority
- a count of pupils aged 3 to 15 in maintained schools and all academies in the local authority
- the resident population aged 0 to 17 in the local authority
- the resident population aged 0 to 19 in the local authority
- the resident population aged 16 to 18 in the local authority
- the resident population aged 19 to 25 in the local authority
Denominators are chosen for each line based on a range of criteria, such as the age group the spending applies to, and whether spending applies to maintained school pupils, academy pupils or children and young people who don’t attend state schools.
Table 1: lines of the budget statement by denominator
| Denominator | Columns denominator used for in per capita tables |
|---|---|
| A | 4-14 |
| B | 1, 3, 30-64, 70-78 |
| C | 65-66 |
| D | 29,79-113 |
| E | 2, 15, 28 |
| F | 67,69 |
| G | 68 |
As more academies open it is becoming increasingly important to distinguish which categories include spending on maintained schools only and which include spending on all state funded schools. For example, ‘supply of school places’ is a statutory function of the local authority towards all schools, so denominator B is used. ‘Schools budget insurance’ uses denominator A because local authorities do not have responsibility for this for academies . Table 2, below, summarises the basic structure of denominators A, B and C (the ‘pupil number’ denominators).
More detail can be found in the explanation in the following table:
Table 2: structure of pupil number denominators
| Maintained school | Academy | |
|---|---|---|
| Aged 3 to 15 | A, B, C | B, C |
| Aged 16 to 19 | A, B | B |
All pupil number denominators (A, B and C) include:
Table 3: pupil numbers included in denominators A, B and C
| Type of pupils | Source | Age |
|---|---|---|
| full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained nursery schools | January 2021 schools census[1] | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained primary schools (including nursery classes)[2] | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained secondary schools | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained special schools | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| full time equivalent pupils educated in pupil referral units | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| Pupils educated in general hospital schools | January 2021 school level annual schools census (SLASC) [3] | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| Pupils receiving education in other settings due to arrangements made by the local authority | January 2021 alternative provision (AP) census[4] | 3 to 15 inclusive |
| [1] For the schools census, the counts for pupils less than 4 years old were recorded in part time equivalent format for the first time in 2018. This includes universal hours entitlement, as well as additional hours entitlement. For the benchmarking tables, these pupil numbers are converted to full time equivalent (i.e. part time equivalent x 0.6) before adding to the full time equivalent pupil numbers for ages 4 and over. |
| [2] Maintained as at 31 March 2021. Excludes CTCs. |
| [3] For the school level annual schools census (SLASC), the pupils are counted using full time equivalent numbers for pupils less than 4 years old, and headcount for pupils aged 4 and over. |
| [4] For the alternative provision (AP) census, the pupils are counted using full time equivalent numbers for pupils less than 4 years old, and headcount for pupils aged 4 and over. |
Denominator A:
All the pupils in Table 3, above, plus:
Table 4: pupil numbers additionally included in denominator A
| Type of pupils | Source | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained secondary schools | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained special schools | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in pupil referral units | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Pupils educated in general hospital schools | January 2021 SLASC | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Pupils receiving education in other settings due to arrangements made by the local authority | January 2021 AP census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
Denominator B:
All the pupils in Table 3, above, plus:
Table 5: pupil numbers additionally included in denominator B
| Type of pupils | Source | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Pupils receiving education in private, voluntary and independent early years settings | January 2021 early years schools census[1] | 2 to 4 inclusive[2] |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in all academies in the local authority | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 19 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained secondary schools | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in maintained special schools | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in pupil referral units | January 2021 schools census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Pupils educated in general hospital schools | January 2021 SLASC | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| Pupils receiving education in other settings due to arrangements made by the local authority | January 2021 AP census | 16 to 19 inclusive |
| [1] For the early years schools census, pupil numbers were recorded in part time equivalent format for the first time in 2018. This includes universal hours entitle-ment, as well as additional hours entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds. For the bench-marking tables, these pupil numbers are converted to full time equivalent (i.e. part time equivalent x 0.6) before adding to the full time equivalent pupil numbers for the denominators. | ||
| [2] Pupils aged 2 receiving education in private, voluntary and independent early years settings are included in the count because they are entitled to free education paid for by local authorities. |
Denominator C:
All the pupils in Table 3, above, plus:
Table 6: pupil numbers additionally included in denominator C
| Type of pupils | Source | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Pupils receiving education in private, voluntary and independent early years settings | January 2021 early years schools census | 2 to 4 inclusive |
| Full time equivalent pupils educated in all academies in the local authority | January 2021 schools census | 3 to 15 inclusive |
Pupil numbers are based on January 2021 data collections, so they may not match perfectly the pupil numbers for whom planned expenditure is recorded in the s251 budget data. This is the case particularly where schools have opened or closed mid-year, or converted to academy status. As highlighted above, pupils at schools that converted to academy status between the census date and the end of March 2021 are not counted towards the maintained schools only pupil numbers. This counts all pupils at maintained schools as at the end of March 2021, which is consistent with the local authority’s budgetary information for the relevant lines.
For denominators A-C, alternative provision (AP) and census data for Northamptonshire had to be proportionally split between North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. 93% of the pupils were allocated to one of the new local authorities, using postcodes. The remainder of the children could not be placed using this method, as they were in residential or foster care, or in residential schools.
The proportion of children mapped to the new authorities was applied to the total number of children in the AP census. Where a category has very low numbers we have taken the numbers from direct mapping of the postcodes. For example, in one age category there is just one child, this child has a postcode which maps to North Northamptonshire so they have been assigned there with 0 being returned from the other new local authority. The alternative provision (AP) census represents a small number of pupils in the denominator, and the impact on the data in the per capita tables is expected to be nominal.
The population number denominators (denominators D to G) are derived from the ONS’s mid-year population projections for 2021, which are based on population data from mid-2018.
Please note that the denominators for the Early Years Benchmarking table are calculated using a different method. The denominator for the average hourly funding rates for Early Years are based on the planned hours as reported by local authorities in their s251 Budget.
6. Year on year table: calculations and underlying data
This table provides information on changes in local authorities’ planned expenditure on education between the 2019 to 2020 financial year and 2021 to 2022 financial year for selected expenditure categories. The 2 year gap is because data was not produced for the 2020 to 2021 financial year.
As highlighted in the introduction, the comparisons for local authorities with modified boundaries are not included in this table for 2021 to 2022. In April 2021, Northamptonshire became two local authorities and the data for North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire cannot be accurately compared to the data from 2019 to 2020. These local authorities can also not be selected for comparisons against other local authorities and they will not appear in the breakdown by region or authority type. For some local authorities, one or two of the selection options for the statistical neighbours category will be blank.
The high needs budget (column 2) consists of the sum of various lines relating to the high needs budget.
The compositions of the selected expenditure categories are given below in Table 7, for ease of reference.
Table 7: budget lines used for comparison in year-on-year table
| Category | Lines of the s251 budget statement used in 2019 to 2020 | Lines of the s251 budget statement used in 2021 to 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Schools budget | ||
| 1. Individual schools budget (before academy recoupment), including high needs place funding | Sum of 1.0.1 to 1.0.2 (net) | Sum of 1.0.1 to 1.0.2 (net) |
| 2. High needs budget | Sum of 1.2.1 to 1.2.13 (net) | Sum of 1.2.1 to 1.2.13 (net) |
| 3. Contingencies | 1.1.1 (net) | 1.1.1 (net) |
| Local authority budget | ||
| 4. Central support services | Sum of 1.6.1 and 2.0.1 (net) | Sum of 1.6.1 and 2.0.1 (net) |
| 5. Education welfare service | Sum of 1.5.1, 1.6.2 and 2.0.2 (net) | Sum of 1.5.1, 1.6.2 and 2.0.2 (net) |
| 6. School improvement | Sum of 1.1.10 and 2.0.3 (net) | Sum of 1.1.10 and 2.0.3 (net) |
| 7. Asset management | Sum of 1.5.2, 1.6.3 and 2.0.4 (net) | Sum of 1.5.2, 1.6.3 and 2.0.4 (net) |
| 8. Statutory or regulatory duties | Sum of 1.5.3, 1.6.4 and 2.0.5 (net) | Sum of 1.5.3, 1.6.4 and 2.0.5 (net) |
| 9. Premature retirement cost or redundancy costs (new provisions) | Sum of 1.6.5 and 2.0.6 (net) | Sum of 1.6.5 and 2.0.6 (net) |
| 10. Monitoring national curriculum assessment | Sum of 1.6.6 and 2.0.7 (net) | Sum of 1.6.6 and 2.0.7 (net) |
| 11. Home to school or college transport | Sum of 2.1.4 to 2.1.8 (net) | Sum of 2.1.4 to 2.1.8 (net) |
There are also columns showing the percentage change in three of the denominators between the 2019 to 2020 financial year and the 2021 to 2022 financial year. These are 3 to 19 maintained schools only (denominator A), 3 to 19 maintained schools and academies (denominator B) and 0 to 19 population (denominator E). Any large decreases in ‘maintained schools only’ pupil numbers are likely to be because schools have converted to academy status.
If the underlying cash amounts are very small, a relatively small increase or decrease between years can result in a large percentage change. The average size (noted at the top of each column), together with the values on the per pupil table, give a general indication of the relative size of planned expenditure on these budget items. Year-on-year changes could also be a result of accounting changes or because of a local authority delegating increased levels of expenditure to its schools.
7. Additional information table: calculations and underlying data
This table provides additional information for schools forums and authorities and draws data from a number of sources. Further information about the columns in this table is given below:
Table 8: columns of the additional information table
| Column Number | Column Heading | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2021 to 2022 DSG schools block primary unit of funding (SBUF) per pupil | Taken directly from the amounts published as part of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations |
| 2 | 2021 to 2022 DSG schools block secondary unit of funding (SBUF) per pupil | Taken directly from the amounts published as part of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations |
| 3 | Planned expenditure in addition to DSG in 2021 to 2022 | The additional cash contribution (if any) made to the schools budget by the local authority, taken from line 1.9.5 of each authority’s latest section 251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year. |
| 4 | Percentage of maintained primary schools receiving minimum funding guarantee | The percentage of maintained primary schools recorded as receiving minimum funding guarantee on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in the calculation of these percentages. |
| 5 | Percentage of maintained secondary schools receiving minimum funding guarantee | The percentage of maintained secondary schools recorded as receiving minimum funding guarantee on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in the calculation of these percentages. |
| 6 | Number of maintained primary schools receiving minimum funding guarantee | The number of maintained primary schools recorded as receiving minimum funding guarantee on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in this calculation. |
| 7 | Number of maintained primary schools | The number of maintained primary schools recorded on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in this calculation. |
| 8 | Number of maintained secondary schools receiving minimum funding guarantee | The number of maintained secondary schools recorded as receiving minimum funding guarantee on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in this calculation. |
| 9 | Number of maintained secondary schools | The number of maintained secondary schools recorded on the latest authority proforma tool (APT) returns for 2021 to 2022. Academies are not included in this calculation. |
| 10 | Gross 2.1.4 Home to school transport (pre-16): SEN transport expenditure + 2.1.6 Home to post-16 provision: SEN or LLDD transport expenditure (aged 16 to 18) + 2.1.7 Home to post-16 provision: SEN or LLDD transport expenditure (aged 19 to 25) + 1.4.11 SEN transport | The total of home to school SEN transport expenditure (lines 2.1.4, 2.1.6 and 2.1.7 gross) and SEN transport (line 1.4.11 gross) in each authority’s latest section 251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of children and young people with a statement or education, health and care plan as at January 2021. Further information can be found in the Explore Education Statistics Service (SEN provision by LA). |
| 11 | Gross 3.1.11 Total children looked after | Total children looked after (line 3.1.11 gross) in each authority’s latest section 251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of looked after children using SSDA 903 return (as at 31 March 2020). Figures from 2020 have been used as this is the most up to date data available at the time of publication. Further information can be found in table LAA1 (local authority tables. |
| 12 | Gross 3.3.4 Total safeguarding children and young people’s services | Total safeguarding children and young people’s safety (3.3.4 gross) in each authority’s latest s251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of children in need plus looked after children (as at 31 March 2020). Figures from 2020 have been used as this is the most up to date data available at the time of publication. Further information can be found in table LAA1 (local authority tables) and table B1 (main tables). |
| 13 | Net 2.1.4 Home to school transport (pre-16): SEN transport expenditure + 2.1.6 Home to post-16 provision: SEN or LLDD transport expenditure (aged 16 to 18) + 2.1.7 Home to post-16 provision: SEN or LLDD transport expenditure (aged 19 to 25) + 1.4.11 SEN transport | Home to school transport: SEN transport expenditure (lines 2.1.4, 2.1.6 and 2.1.7 net) + SEN transport (line 1.4.11 net) in each authority’s latest s251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of children and young people with a statement or EHC plan as at January 2021. Further information can be found in the Explore Education Statistics Service (SEN provision by local authority). |
| 14 | Net 3.1.11 Total children looked after | Total children looked after (line 3.1.11 net) in each authority’s latest s251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of looked after children using SSDA 903 return (as at 31 March 2020). Figures from 2020 have been used as this is the most up to date data available at the time of publication. Further information can be found in the Explore Education Statistics Service table LAA1 (local authority tables). |
| 15 | Net 3.3.4 Total safeguarding children and young people’s services | Total safeguarding children and young people’s safety (3.3.4 net) in each authority’s latest s251 budget statements for the 2021 to 2022 financial year is divided by the number of children in need plus looked after children (as at 31 March 2020). Figures from 2020 have been used as this is the most up to date data available at the time of publication. Further information can be found in table LAA1 (local authority tables) and table B1 (main tables). |