Section 251 budget guidance

Question 1

Summary

Accepted Answer

Local authorities are required under section 251 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to prepare and submit to the Secretary of State for Education an education and children and young people’s services budget statement not later than 28 April 2023 for the prescribed period. The prescribed period for this budget statement covers 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

If a local authority fails to submit its budget return by 28 April 2023, or does not exercise its functions properly, the Department for Education (DfE) can exercise its powers of intervention under paragraphs 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996. In addition, DfE may discount any late budget statements from publication due to the reduced time to validate the data.

Separate guidance applies to the preparation of the outturn statement.

Regulatory provisions directly affecting the education content of these budget statements are also made in the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023.

Where guidance material in this document is interpreted in such a way as to conflict with any regulations currently in force, those regulations take precedence.

Question 2

Expiry or review date

Accepted Answer

This advice applies to the returns for the financial year 2023 to 2024.

Question 3

Who this publication is for

Accepted Answer

This advice is for local authority finance officers.

Question 4

Purpose of financial statements

Accepted Answer

Local authorities have a statutory duty to publish their budget statements as and when prescribed in the administrative direction issued by the Secretary of State for Education. A separate administrative direction and guidance apply to outturn statements.

The copy of the statement that schools receive for that period is intended to provide a clear picture of the local authority’s planned spending. This includes how much the local authority intends to spend on:

the schools budget
de-delegated items
the high needs budget
the early years’ budget
central provision within the schools budget
children and young people’s services

It is important that schools forums and others can compare funding between different local authorities, to allow for an informed debate about budget levels and use of funds. It is therefore essential that all statements are prepared to a common format and are accurate.

The statements are used by DfE for the publication of statistics, for constructing benchmarking tables for local authorities, and for answering parliamentary questions and other requests for data.

Question 5

Format and content of statements

Accepted Answer

The administrative direction sets out the Secretary of State’s requirements relating to this data collection. Additional information or supplementary notes should be provided as necessary, separate to the statement itself. This can either be in the form of an additional annex or in the notes section of the template/proforma. The Funding Data and Financial Monitoring (FDFM) team can provide advice on what form any additional information should take.

You will be alerted when cells have been left blank. If this is the case, zeros must be entered where there is no planned expenditure; dashes must not be used, and cells must not be left blank.

Both the system and proforma will, where appropriate, validate the figures at source or carry out calculations (this is done within the template). This saves time for those completing the tables and also for those receiving them. The FDFM team will, however, follow up on any additional data validation issues with the relevant authorities at a later date.

It is extremely important that you complete your data entry as accurately as possible. It is also important that you take every opportunity to review and revise your data once the FDFM team undertakes the data validation process.

Question 6

Direct payments to academies

Accepted Answer

Direct payments by local authorities to academies must be recorded in the section 251 tables. For example, special educational needs (SEN) funding paid by the local authority in respect of top-up funding for individual pupils in academies needs to be included in the appropriate SEN lines.

Question 7

FRS17

Accepted Answer

These tables should not be completed on a FRS17 or IAS19 basis. Funding for schools should reflect what is actually paid in-year.

Question 8

Submitting the budget statement

Accepted Answer

Local authorities can return their statements by either:

manually entering data into COLLECT - you will be notified when the system goes live in March 2023
uploading their data to COLLECT in XML format—an XML generator that mirrors the structure of the COLLECT tables will be made available in advance of the collection

You can read the guidance on using COLLECT to submit your budget statement.

Technical help with the COLLECT system

Requests for technical help with entering your data, or how to use the COLLECT system or proforma should be directed to the data collections helpdesk via the data collections service request form.

Question 9

Revised statements

Accepted Answer

Revised statements can only be accepted if amendments are made as a result of errors being identified and corrected. Any revised versions should reflect the situation as of 28 April 2023.

If in doubt, please contact us at S251.BUDGETQUERIES@education.gov.uk to discuss.

Question 10

Publishing the budget statement

Accepted Answer

A copy of the budget statement must be made available:

to every school maintained by the local authority - if a school does not have access to the internet, the local authority must provide a hard copy of each budget statement, including table 1 (local authority information covering de-delegated items, high needs budget, early years budget and children’s social care), table 2 (high needs – special and alternative provision (AP) – settings), and the early years proforma, to the governing body and headteacher
to those private, voluntary and independent providers (PVI Providers) who are funded to provide free early provision to 2, 3 and 4 year olds—the local authority must show how they can access a copy of the budget statement
to the general public: the local authority must make a copy of the whole statement available at their education offices (where a copy must be available for inspection by parents and others in the community at all reasonable times and free of charge)
on a website: the local authority must make a copy of the whole statement available on a website which is maintained by the local authority and accessible by the public

Where local authorities adjust their tables to suit their own local publishing standards, all the headings for categories and items of expenditure must be listed, whether or not they are relevant to their expenditure activity in the year. Local authorities should ensure that when adapting tables for local publication, no font size used in the finished publication is less than 7 pt. and no shading or colouring is used. Figures might otherwise become unreadable when tables have to be photocopied.

Once you have entered your data, you will be able to produce reports for publication from the COLLECT system. The budget statement must then be published and presented in 3 parts, for the prescribed period.

The tables should appear on the local authority’s website in the following order:

Table 1: local authority level information provides an overall picture of the funding being allocated direct to schools, the amount being spent on education centrally and the amount being spent on children’s and young people’s services.
Table 2: lists the high needs place numbers and funding in each maintained setting.
Early years proforma: this provides a format for local authorities to record details of their early years single funding formula, including the 3 and 4-year-old free entitlements (the universal 15 hours and additional 15 hours for working parents) and the 2-year-old entitlement. Local authorities will also need to confirm their planned budget for the special educational needs (SEN) inclusion fund top-up grant, early years pupil premium (EYPP), and the disability access fund (DAF).

We regularly publish information and section 251 data reports from local authorities. These can be found in the section 251 documents collection.

Question 11

Main changes for 2023 to 2024

Accepted Answer

1.2.1 Top-up funding – maintained schools

Guidance has been updated to say that monies paid to local authority-maintained special schools (including hospital schools) and PRUs (including medical PRUs) under the additional condition of grant that requires payment of a sum equivalent to 3.4% of total grant funding should be included in this line.

1.2.2 Top-up funding – academies, free schools and colleges

Guidance has been updated to say that monies paid to special academies and free schools (including hospital schools), and to AP academies and free schools (including medical AP facilities), under the additional condition of grant that requires payment of a sum equivalent to 3.4% of total grant funding should be included in this line.

1.2.12 Carbon reduction commitment allowances (PRUs)

This line has been removed as the scheme has ended.

1.7.1 Other specific grants

Guidance has been updated to say that the mainstream schools additional grant should be excluded in this line.

1.9.1 Estimated dedicated schools grant for 2023 to 2024 (before academy recoupment), excluding high needs place funding for 16 to 19 academies and free schools and FE colleges and independent learning providers

Guidance has been updated to say that any funding the authority expects to receive under the Safety Valve programme should be included in this line.

2.4.1 Other specific grants

Guidance has been updated to say that expected income and expenditure under the Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme should be included in this line.

Percentage of funding provided through supplements

The cap on the total value of supplements used has increased from 10% to 12% of the total value of planned funding to be passed through to providers for delivering the government entitlement hours.

Advice on the regulations and guidance

For advice on the contents of the regulations and guidance, local authorities should contact S251.BUDGETQUERIES@education.gov.uk.

Question 12

General principles

Accepted Answer

Budget statements give details of planned expenditure for the school sectors. The below sets out what should be included in each section.

Early years column

Includes the free entitlement in maintained nursery schools, nursery classes and private, voluntary and independent providers (including childminders). It therefore must include the total expenditure within the early years single funding formula for:

the 15-hour entitlement for disadvantaged 2 year olds
3 and 4 year olds entitlements for both the universal 15 hours and additional 15 hours for eligible working parents

Also include other relevant expenditure on early years children, including the:

special educational needs inclusion fund top-up grant
early years pupil premium (EYPP)
disability access fund (DAF)

In this column include everything funded from the dedicated schools grant (DSG) early years block relating to children under 5 who are not in reception classes. Nothing for this age range should appear in the primary column.

Primary column

Includes, first, infants, juniors and middle-deemed primary schools plus funding for units attached to them, such as immigrant centres, and special units and resourced provision for pupils with SEN attached to primary phase schools. This must exclude all expenditure within the early years single funding formula.

Pre-16 funding should be compatible with what has been submitted in the authority proforma tool (APT).

Secondary column

Includes secondary and middle-deemed secondary schools. Include funding for all special units and resourced provision attached to secondary schools. Include funding for sixth forms in schools.

Pre-16 funding should be compatible with what has been submitted in the authority proforma tool (APT).

All-through schools should be apportioned between phases and between the appropriate columns, using the split shown on the authority proforma tool as a basis.

Special schools column

This covers special schools and special academies, including those hospital schools that are a type of special school. Do not include funding for special education units attached to, or resourced provision in, mainstream schools.

AP/PRUs column

This covers pupil referral units, alternative provision (AP) academies and other alternative provision made under section 19 of the Education Act 1996, including hospital education provision in pupil referral units (PRUs) and AP academies.

Post-school column

This covers further education (FE) colleges, sixth form colleges, independent colleges, special post-16 institutions and other post-16 providers that do not provide for pupils of compulsory school age, including 16 to 19 maintained schools and academies.

Gross total of all the columns

The figures entered in each individual column should be gross figures—that is actual total estimated costs of the activities before allowance for any expected income, but after allowing for any ‘buyback’ income from the local authority’s own schools to avoid double counting. Both expenditure and income should be excluded where maintained schools or recoupment academies within the local authority’s area are buying services. This column should be the total of the previous columns.

Income column

This column should be used for indicating any estimated income the local authority expects to be able to offset against gross expenditure on an activity. This will only include central government grants if they are additional to the DSG and to funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) for post-16 provision. The DSG and funding from ESFA for post-16 provision should not be shown as income. Other grants that should be excluded are universal infant free school meals (UIFSM), free school meal supplementary funding, PE and sport funding, year 7 catch-up funding, Mainstream Schools Additional Grant and public health grant. This should also exclude internal departmental recharges and DSG recharges. Income sources could include private sources, other local authorities’ fees, charges paid by parents (such as meals, music, board/lodging) and lettings.

Income from schools and academies should not be shown as income, because the expenditure is already within the individual schools budget (ISB) and this would result in double-counting.

Net column

This column will be calculated automatically.

Where a local authority is paying a contractor to carry out functions on its behalf, then the local authority must include budget information relating to these functions in its statement (the amount paid to the contractor by the local authority). Payments under the contract should be apportioned to the relevant functions.

The ISB is allocated to schools without reference to income accruing to schools. Any interest earned on schools’ balances should be excluded from these budget statements.

For overheads associated with ‘buy-back’, where delegation is required (that is, where an item falls within the schools budget but is not included in Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023) the amount to be delegated should be determined on a full-cost basis inclusive of overheads. Where a local authority has voluntarily chosen to delegate funding for an item that it could have funded centrally, it is for the local authority to determine the extent to which overheads should be taken into account.

All the financial information in the budget statement should be represented in pounds and not in thousands.

The Education Support Grant (ESG) for local authorities ceased with effect from September 2017. The treatment of services formerly funded through ESG is discussed in the section ‘Central provision within schools budget (former ESG retained duties)’

Question 13

Defining what is chargeable to the schools budget

Accepted Answer

Items that may be charged to the schools budget are set out in regulations 6 and 8 of Part 2 and in Schedule 2 of the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023. Schedule 1 items cannot be included in the schools budget and therefore must, by definition, be in lines 2.1.1 onwards. The DSG is intended to meet the educational costs of pupils in primary and secondary education, as well as the costs of special educational provision for children and young people with special educational needs in post-16 provision, including those aged over 19 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan. The DSG may not be used for purposes other than those specified in the regulations.

Administrative costs and overheads attributable to a particular category of expenditure that regulations allow to be charged to the schools budget should in general be included under the appropriate item heading, if necessary, suitably apportioned between school types. This may include expenditure in relation to the following:

ensuring payments are made in respect of taxation, National Insurance and superannuation contributions
recruitment, training, continuing professional development, performance management and personnel management of staff
investigation and resolution of complaints
legal services related to education functions

Except in the case of permitted spend on prudential borrowing and Capital Expenditure from Revenue (CERA), capital charges should not appear in this table in any form. However, back pay that is capitalised through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) should be included. If funded from central DSG, then it should appear on line 1.4.9, Equal pay – back pay. If charged to delegated school budgets, then it will fall within the ISB total.

In the majority of cases, educational provision will be delivered in schools or colleges. However, in some cases, specific types of health or social care provision may be considered as educating or training. This particularly applies to therapies such as speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires that health or social care provision which educates or trains a child or young person must be treated as special educational provision. This means that it will be recorded in section F of an EHC plan and will be treated as special educational provision. It is therefore in scope of the high needs budget. However, all decisions about whether health care provision or social care provision should be treated as special educational provision must be made on an individual basis.

Case law from the First-tier Tribunal has established that only the specific elements of health or social care provision which educate or train can be considered as special educational provision. The fact that health or social care provision is intended to support a child or young person to access learning, for example, does not mean that it should be considered as special educational provision.

Question 14

Schools budget

Accepted Answer

1.0.1 Individual schools budget (before academy recoupment), including sixth form grant for maintained schools, but excluding high needs place funding

Within the schools budget, the amount available for delegation to schools after provision has been made for retained items is known as the individual schools budget (ISB). The same figure will appear in the ‘gross’ and the ‘net’ columns. Note that the ISB continues to include funding for school business rates (National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR)), despite the change from 2022 to 2023 in how these are actually paid.

This line should include funding that the local authority would have made available to primary and secondary academies funded through recoupment, as if it was still funding them. The corresponding expected recoupment should be entered in line 1.10.1.

Funding for maintained secondary schools and pupil referral units with sixth forms should include funding for the pupils in the sixth forms. Funding for the sixth form pupils in academies should not be included since that does not pass through the local authority.

Places in mainstream schools that are not in a special unit or resourced provision should be included in line 1.0.1. Top-up and other high needs funding for these schools should not be included in this line as they form part of the high needs budget (section 1.2).

Please note that line 1.0.1 is to be shown net of any de-delegated funding that appears in lines 1.1.1 to 1.1.9, and any central provision funded from the budgets of maintained schools that appears in lines 1.6.1 to 1.6.7.

Free entitlements for 2 year olds, and 3 and 4 year olds

Funding within the schools budget allows for a free entitlement of 15 hours per week per child for disadvantaged 2 year olds, and for 3 and 4 year olds, and 30 hours per week for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds.

This line should include all funding made available to private, voluntary and independent (PVI) providers, maintained nursery schools and schools with nursery classes for the free entitlements.

Show here if a local authority makes payments to maintained schools for early years provision for hours above the universal/additional 15 hours through its early years formula.

Please include the funding for special educational needs inclusion fund top-up grant, early years pupil premium (EYPP) and the disability access fund (DAF) here. This information is also required in the early years proforma.

1.0.2 High needs place funding within individual schools budget (before academy recoupment), excluding funding for 16-19 academies and free schools and FE colleges and independent learning providers

Include high needs place funding for:

special schools
pupil referral units
hospital schools
special units and resourced provision attached to nursery, primary and secondary schools and the place funding for the equivalent academies

This line should include high needs place funding that the local authority would have made available to special and alternative provision (AP) academies funded through recoupment if it was still funding them, and the place funding in special free schools that the local authority is required to fund from its DSG. The corresponding expected recoupment should be entered in line 1.10.2.

High needs place funding for maintained special schools and special academies (and free schools) with sixth forms should include the place funding for these 16 to 19-year-old pupils; likewise for any special units attached to secondary schools that include 16 to 19-year-old pupils.

For special units and resourced provision in primary and secondary schools, special schools and pupil referral units, the delegated amount is only the place funding under Regulation 14 of the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023. Top-up funding should appear in section 1.2 of the form.

Funding for nursery places funded from the high needs block should also be included.

Do not include place funding for:

FE colleges
sixth form colleges
independent colleges
special post-16 institutions and other post-16 providers that do not provide for pupils of compulsory school age
maintained schools and academies that provide only for 16 to 19 year olds

1.0.1 and 1.0.2

Total ISB must be consistent with figures recorded in the authority proforma tool (APT) and accompanying tables submitted to ESFA in January, and will include the following when populated in the workbook:

early years column—the total early years single funding formula including PVIs, maintained nursery schools and nursery classes, special educational needs inclusion fund top-up grant, early years pupil premium and disability access fund
primary column—total budget share including all primary minimum funding guarantee with the early years element removed
secondary column—total budget share, including sixth forms and including all secondary minimum funding guarantee with the early years element removed
special schools column—total budget share, including sixth forms (the high needs place funding)
Alternative provision/pupil referral units column—total budget share (for example, the high needs place funding)

Question 15

De-delegated Items

Accepted Answer

These apply only to maintained primary and secondary schools.

1.1.1 Contingencies

Include expenditure as defined in Part 1 of the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023. This ‘expenditure on the schools specific contingency’ is central expenditure deducted for the purpose of ensuring that monies are available to enable increases in a school’s budget share after it has been allocated, and where a governing body has incurred expenditure where it would be unreasonable to expect it to meet this from the school’s budget share.

This may include expenditure in relation to:

schools in financial difficulty
the writing-off of deficits of schools which are discontinued, excluding any associated costs and overheads
new, amalgamating or closing schools
other expenditure where such circumstances were unforeseen when initially determining the school’s budget share

1.1.2 Behaviour support services

Include here the cost of providing or purchasing specialist behaviour support services, both advisory and teaching.

1.1.3 Support to under-performing pupils from ethnic minority groups and bilingual learners

Include expenditure for the purposes of improving the performance of under-performing pupils from ethnic minority groups and meeting the specific needs of bilingual pupils.

1.1.4 Free school meals – eligibility

Include here expenditure on determining the eligibility of a pupil for free school meals.

1.1.5 Insurance

Include expenditure on insurance in respect of liability arising in connection with schools and school premises, and on membership of the risk protection arrangements where schools have joined collectively through de-delegation.

1.1.6 Museum and library services

Include here expenditure on services to schools provided by museums and libraries.

1.1.7 Licences/subscriptions

Include here expenditure on licence fees or subscriptions paid on behalf of maintained schools. A number of licences are now dealt with through a central contract with DfE, and funding to pay for this (for maintained schools and recoupment academies) should appear in line 1.4.14 – ‘Other items’.

1.1.8 Staff costs – supply cover (excluding cover for facility time)

Include expenditure in making payments to, or in providing a temporary replacement for:

a woman on maternity leave
a man on paternity leave
a person on shared parental leave
a person on adoption leave

Also, expenditure of the same kind in respect of persons:

performing public duties under section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996
undertaking jury service
who are elected or appointed representatives of employee safety where there is no recognised trade union safety representative, under the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996
who are elected or appointed employee representatives where there is no recognised trade union, for the purposes of Chapter II of Part IV of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 as defined in section 196 of that Act or regulation 13 (3) of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006
taking time off for ante-natal care under section 55 of the Employment Rights Act 1996
undertaking duties as members of the reserve forces as defined in section 1(2) of the Reserve Forces Act 1996
suspended from working at a school

Plus, expenditure in making payments to, or in providing a temporary replacement for:

a person who is seconded on a full-time basis for a period of 3 months or more other than to a local education authority or the governing body of a school
persons who have been continuously absent from work because of illness for 21 days or more

1.1.9 Staff costs – supply cover for facility time

Include expenditure in making payments to, or in providing a temporary replacement for, persons:

carrying out trade union duties or undergoing training under section 168 and 168A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
taking part in trade union activities under section 170 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (although such activities should attract unpaid time off)
who are officials of a recognised trade union acting as safety representatives under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations 1977
who are officials of a recognised trade union acting as employee representatives for the purposes of Chapter II of Part IV of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 as defined in section 196 of that Act or regulation 13 (3) of the Transfer of Undertakings(Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006
who are appointed learning representatives of recognised trade unions under section 168A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, in order for them to analyse training requirements or to provide or promote training opportunities, and to carry out consultative or preparatory work in connection with such functions

Question 16

High needs budget

Accepted Answer

1.2.1 Top-up funding – maintained schools

Include planned expenditure on top-up funding for maintained schools, including pupil referral units (PRUs).

Top-up funding is paid to schools for pupils with high needs in:

mainstream classes
special units and resourced provision attached to mainstream schools
special schools
PRUs
sixth forms

Top-up funding is usually administered directly by local authorities from a central high needs budget. Where such funding has been devolved to groups of schools or individual schools for them to decide what to pay other schools (for example, when a school pays top-up funding for a pupil it places in a PRU), this funding should also be included. It is important, however, that this excludes any funding already in schools’ budget shares and included in line 1.0.1. This line should also include any high needs funding paid to maintained special schools and PRUs for teachers’ pay and pensions (employer contributions) costs, under the additional condition of grant attached to local authorities’ DSG (section 3.6(7)).

Moneys paid to LA-maintained special schools (including hospital schools) and PRUs (including medical PRUs) under the additional condition of grant that requires payment of a sum equivalent to 3.4% of total grant funding should also be included in this line.

1.2.2 Top-up funding – academies, free schools and colleges

Include planned expenditure on top-up funding for academies and free schools. Top-up funding is paid to academies for pupils with high needs in:

mainstream classes
special units and resourced provision attached to mainstream academies and free schools
special academies and free schools
alternative provision academies and free schools
academy and free school sixth forms

Also include, in the ‘post-school’ column, top-up funding for students with high needs in:

further education colleges
sixth form colleges
16 to 19 schools and academies without pupils of compulsory school age
local authority post-16 provision

Top-up funding is usually administered directly by local authorities from a central high needs budget. Where such funding has been devolved to schools and academies for them to decide what to pay other schools (for example, when an academy pays top-up funding for a pupil it places in an alternative provision free school), this funding should also be included. It is important, however, that this excludes any funding already in academies’ budget shares and included in line 1.0.1. This line should also include any high needs funding paid to special academies and free schools, and to AP academies and free schools, for teachers’ pay and pensions (employer contributions) costs, under the additional condition of grant attached to local authorities’ DSG (section 3.6(7)).

Moneys paid to special academies and free schools (including hospital schools), and to AP academies and free schools (including medical AP facilities), under the additional condition of grant that requires payment of a sum equivalent to 3.4% of total grant funding should also be included in this line.

1.2.3 Top-up and other funding – non-maintained and independent providers

Include planned expenditure on top-up funding for non-maintained special schools in the special schools column.

Planned expenditure on pupils with education, health and care (EHC) plans at independent special schools, including pupils in their sixth forms, should be included in the special school column.

Planned expenditure on mainstream independent schools should be recorded in the primary or secondary columns, as for mainstream maintained schools and academies.

In the post-school column include planned expenditure on top-up funding for:

students at independent learning providers of post-16 education and training (previously called commercial and charitable providers)
independent specialist colleges
other independent special post-16 institutions

While independent and non-maintained provision frequently offers integrated education, health and social care provision, only educational costs should be charged to the DSG. The social care element of accommodating children with special educational needs in schools should be recorded elsewhere (for example, 3.1.1). In the event that health costs are recorded here (for example, paid up-front as part of an integrated package of support), they should be recorded with associated health income.

1.2.4 Additional high needs targeted funding for mainstream schools and academies

Include expenditure from the local authority’s high needs budget which is given to mainstream schools and academies (and exceptionally colleges) to ensure they 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.

Local authorities were asked to give more detailed information in their APT return (including the amounts and criteria) about such targeted funding for mainstream schools. More information is available in the detailed APT guidance.

1.2.5 SEN support services

Include the costs of non-delegated centrally retained specialist SEN support services for pupils with EHC plans, whether supported directly by the local authority or commissioned by them. This will include services for:

visual, hearing and physical impairment
specific learning difficulties
speech language and communication
profound and severe learning difficulties
autism

You should include:

the costs of these services for 0 to 5 year olds
any costs of providing these services to home educated children
the costs of early years SENCOs who are centrally managed across a number of early years providers

Do not include the costs of behaviour support services which are not in support of SEN (see line 1.1.2).

Do not include recharges or the cost of monitoring SEN provision. This should be included in Other Education and Community Budget, line 2.1.2, under ‘Monitoring of SEN provision’.

1.2.6 Hospital education services

Hospital education is defined in the regulations as education provided at a community special school or foundation special school established in a hospital (usually called a hospital school), or under any arrangements made by the local authority under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 (normally provision in PRUs or services centrally managed by the local authority, where the child is being provided with such education by reason of a decision made by a medical practitioner).

In line 1.2.6 only include expenditure on hospital education services. It should include both services made available to children and young people resident in the local authority’s area, and services made available to those who are in the area because that is where they are receiving their health care. It should also include expenditure on the local authority’s pupils who are receiving their education from an independent hospital education provider.

It is important to exclude from this budget line any funding for hospital education places in special schools (including those special schools that are hospital schools) or PRUs (sometimes these are known as medical PRUs), which should instead be included in line 1.0.2 with a breakdown in the High Needs Places Table.

1.2.7 Other alternative provision services

Include planned expenditure on AP services provided directly or commissioned by the local authority. This may include funding for home educating parents.

Also include funding for AP providers other than PRUs, AP academies and AP free schools. Include funding for commissioned services delivered by PRUs, AP academies and AP free schools.

Exclude any funding for high needs places at PRUs and AP academies (which should instead be included in line 1.0.2 and, in the case of PRUs, specified in table 2) and any top-up funding in respect of pupils at these providers (see lines 1.2.1 and 1.2.2).

Any funding for places in AP free schools that is recouped from local authorities from the third year that the free school is open should be included in this line, with the same amount included in the academies recoupment line 1.10.2.

1.2.8 Support for inclusion

Include here expenditure for:

collaboration between mainstream and special schools and primary and secondary schools to enable children with special educational needs to take part in mainstream activities
devolved expenditure for the integration of children from specialist to mainstream settings and the provision of discrete services or projects to promote such integration, such as commissioned outreach services

Do not include recharges or the cost of monitoring SEN provision. This should be included in the Other Education and Community Budget, line 2.1.2, under ‘Monitoring of SEN provision’.

1.2.9 Special schools and PRUs in financial difficulty

Include expenditure on assisting LA-maintained special schools and PRUs in financial difficulty.

1.2.10 PFI/BSF costs at special schools, AP/ PRUs and post-16 institutions only

Include expenditure on funding private finance initiative (PFI) or Building Schools for the Future (BSF) costs at special schools, special academies, PRUs and AP academies, where the local authority has decided to fund this outside the place funding and top-up funding. This line should also be used for funding PFI or BSF costs at maintained 16 to 19 institutions and 16 to 19 academies, which can no longer be funded through the schools formula as the post-16 factor has been discontinued.

1.2.11 Direct payments (SEN and disability)

Include all expenditure planned by the local authority under The Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014 to provide a direct payment to the parents of children, or to young people, with an education, health and care (EHC) plan.

Include here SEN transport expenditure where there have been direct payments made to families to cover these costs.

1.2.12 Carbon reduction commitment allowances (PRUs)

This code is no longer in use.

Include costs associated with the provision or purchase of speech, physiotherapy and occupational therapies. Include any expenditure on the provision of special medical support for individual pupils which has been deemed to be special educational provision (for example, recorded under section F of an education, health and care plan) and therefore the responsibility of the local authority.

Question 17

Early years budget

Accepted Answer

1.3.1 Central expenditure on early years entitlement

This line should reflect the total funding for early years contingency and centrally retained spending for 2, 3 and 4-year-old entitlements from the early years proforma. The gross figure in line 1.3.1 in the local authority table should match the sum of early years proforma lines 8a, 8b, 9a and 9b.

Question 18

Central provision within schools budget

Accepted Answer

The finance regulations restrict a number of central schools block lines to historic commitments entered into prior to 1 April 2013. The budget for these cannot increase over the budget held in 2012 to 2013. The relevant expenditure lines are 1.4.1, 1.4.4, 1.4.6, 1.4.7 and 1.4.11.

These regulations state:

‘Expenditure referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Part 1 (Historic Commitments) of Schedule 2 may only be deducted by the local authority where the expenditure is to be incurred as a result of decisions taken before 1 April 2013 that commit the authority to incur expenditure in the funding period.’

The ‘funding period’ here refers to the forthcoming financial year.

Schedule 2 also states that, other than in the case of paragraph 1 (capital expenditure funded from revenue), the schools forum or the Secretary of State must have approved the original decision. Schedule 2 does not allow local authorities to maintain a budget of indefinite size for an indefinite period against these funding lines.

More information can be found in the 2017 to 2018 schools funding historic commitments guidance.

1.4.1 Contribution to combined budgets

Expenditure under this heading should only reflect the contribution to a combined service approved by the schools forum. The service must be partly funded from outside the schools budget and there should be an educational benefit arising from the service. These require annual authorisation as stated in paragraph 2 (c) of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023.

Also include expenditure on miscellaneous purposes, provided the expenditure does not amount to more than 0.1% of the local authority’s schools budget and was approved by the schools forum or Secretary of State before 1 April 2013 (paragraph 2(e) of Schedule 2).

1.4.2 School admissions

Include expenditure incurred in connection with the local authority’s functions under section 85A of the 1998 Act (as inserted by s46 2002 Act). This includes the administration of the system of admissions of pupils to schools including expenditure incurred:

1.4.3 Servicing of schools forums

Include expenditure incurred in connection with the local authority’s functions of running the forum as defined under section 47A of the 1998 Act (as amended by Section 43 of Education Act 2002) (establishment, maintenance of, and consultation with schools forums).

1.4.4 Termination of employment costs

Only include expenditure in respect of premature retirement costs, or for the purposes of securing the resignation of any person employed in a maintained school where there are consequential savings to the schools budget and where the cost relating to that individual had been approved by the schools forum prior to 1 April 2013 (paragraph 2 (b) of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023). It does not count as a commitment to have identified a budget for different individuals’ costs each year or to support new redundancy costs in schools.

1.4.5 Falling rolls fund

Expenditure to be incurred due to a decline in pupil numbers in:

where funding is likely to be necessary due to subsequent growth in pupil numbers at such schools before the end of the next 3 financial years after the funding period.

1.4.6 Capital expenditure from revenue (CERA)

Include expenditure commonly known as CERA (capital expenditure which an authority expects to charge to a revenue account of the authority within the meaning of [section 22 of the Local Government Act 2003])(https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/26/section/22) and where the expenditure relating to the specific project had been approved prior to 1 April 2013.

It does not count as a commitment to have identified a budget for different capital works each year or a general contribution to the capital programme. PFI costs should be delegated through the funding formula.

1.4.7 Prudential borrowing costs

Enter expenditure incurred in repayment of loans under paragraph 2(a) of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023.

PFI costs should be delegated through the funding formula.

1.4.8 Fees to independent schools without SEN

Include expenditure pursuant to section 18 of the 1996 Act in making any grant or other payment in respect of fees or expenses (of whatever nature) which are payable in connection with the attendance of pupils without SEN at a school which is not maintained by any local authority and is not an academy.

This does not include fees to independent schools providing alternative provision (AP) or hospital education, or to independent AP institutions, which should be shown in lines 1.2.6 or 1.2.7 as appropriate.

Include planned expenditure on post-16 students without SEN in independent schools.

1.4.9 Equal pay – back pay

Include centrally retained provision for meeting the cost of equal pay settlements in schools.

1.4.10 Pupil growth

Include:

expenditure incurred due to a significant growth in pupil numbers as a result of the local authority’s duty under section 13(1) of the 1996 act to ensure that sufficient primary education and secondary education are available to meet the needs of the population in their area
expenditure to be incurred prior to the opening of new schools to fund the appointment of staff and to enable the purchase of any goods and services necessary in order to admit pupils

This includes pre- and post-opening funding for new schools (including academies) built to meet basic need.

1.4.11 SEN transport

Only include expenditure that has been offset by savings to the schools budget and has been approved by the schools forum (paragraph 2(d) of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023)

1.4.12 Exceptions agreed by the Secretary of State

Include centrally retained schools budget expenditure approved by the Secretary of State and falling outside the classes or descriptions of planned expenditure in Schedule 2 of the 2023 regulations. Schools forum approval is required on an annual basis for historic or new commitments if it is to continue. This excludes expenditure on licences, which should be under 1.4.14.

1.4.13 Infant class sizes

Include expenditure incurred in order to make provision for extra classes in compliance with the School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012.

1.4.14 Other items

Include expenditure on:

a) Copyright licences which are negotiated centrally by the Secretary of State for all publicly funded schools - for 2023 to 2024 these are:

the Copyright Licensing Agency licence
the School Printed Music licence
the Newspaper Licensing Agency Schools licence
the Educational Recording Agency licence
the Public Video Screening licence, including a new digital element
the Motion Picture Licensing Company licence
the Performing Rights Society licence
the Phonographic Performance licence
the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society licence
the Christian Copyright Licensing International licence

b) remission of boarding fees payable in connection with the attendance of pupils at maintained schools and academies

c) any funding for additional costs covered from the DSG arising from the increase in the employer’s contribution rate on 1 September 2019 for members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme that are employed by the local authority and not employed to work in maintained schools, that does not fit within any other line of section 1. The regulations (paragraph 24 of Schedule 2) allow authorities to charge to the Schools Budget 30.5% of the total employer contribution to the pension costs for such teachers. Many of these teachers’ salaries will be funded from the Schools Budget (e.g., in line 1.2.5) and in that case the full cost of the teacher should be entered in that line; but where the teacher’s salary would appear in section 2, or would not appear on this form at all, the chargeable pension cost contribution should appear in this line.

Question 19

Central provision within schools budget (former ESG retained duties)

Accepted Answer

From 2017 to 2018 the part of the ESG which related to retained duties (those that apply to both maintained schools and academies) was added to the DSG. This provision now falls within the schools budget, provided it is funded out of DSG (see section 2.0 for provision not funded out of DSG). Additional lines have been provided in section 1 for the purpose of recording it.

1.5.1 Education welfare service

Include:

functions in relation to the exclusion of pupils from schools, excluding any provision of education to excluded pupils (paragraph 20 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023)
school attendance (paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023)
responsibilities regarding the employment of children (paragraph 18 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023)

1.5.2 Asset management

Include:

management of the local authority’s capital programme including preparation and review of an asset management plan, and negotiation and management of private finance transactions ([paragraph 14 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023])(https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/59/schedule/2/paragraph/14/made)
general landlord duties for buildings owned by the local authority, including those leased to academies

1.5.3 Statutory/regulatory duties

Include expenditure on:

Question 20

Central provision funded through maintained schools budget

Accepted Answer

The general duties part of ESG (that part relating to maintained schools only) ceased from September 2017. Local authorities are able to deduct funding from maintained schools’ budgets (with the consent of maintained school members of the schools forum) in much the same way as for existing de-delegated items in order to fund these services. Provision funded in this way should be recorded in this section. For provision not funded from DSG, see section 2.0.

1.6.1 Central support services

Include expenditure on:

1.6.2 Education welfare services

Include expenditure on inspection of attendance registers (paragraph 80 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023).

1.6.3 Asset management

Include expenditure on general landlord duties for all maintained schools (paragraph 78 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023), (section 542(2) Education Act 1996; School Premises Regulations 2012) to ensure that school buildings have:

appropriate facilities for pupils and staff (including medical and accommodation)
the ability to sustain appropriate loads
reasonable weather resistance
safe escape routes
appropriate acoustic levels
lighting, heating and ventilation which meets the required standards
adequate water supplies and drainage
playing fields of the appropriate standards

You should also include:

general health and safety duty as an employer for employees and others who may be affected (Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974)
management of the risk from asbestos in community school buildings (Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012)

1.6.4 Statutory/regulatory duties

Include expenditure on:

1.6.5 Premature retirement costs/redundancy costs (new provisions)

Include expenditure on dismissal or premature retirement when costs cannot be charged to maintained schools (paragraph 79 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023).

1.6.6 Monitoring national curriculum assessment

Include expenditure on monitoring of national curriculum assessments (paragraph 76 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023).

1.6.7 School improvement

School improvement covers any school improvement activities provided for maintained schools by the local authority. With effect from 2022 to 2023, this line can cover activities that were within the scope of the separate local authority grant for school intervention and improvement (see line 2.0.3). The grant covered activities in relation to intervening in underperforming maintained schools, monitoring maintained schools in order to identify those at risk of becoming eligible for intervention and the commissioning of support for them.

This line has been moved from section 1.1 to section 1.6 since funding can now be deducted from maintained special schools and PRUs, as well as maintained primary and secondary schools (paragraph 53 of Schedule 2 to the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2023).

Question 21

Other items

Accepted Answer

4.0.1 Capital expenditure from revenue (CERA) (Non-schools budget functions and children and young people’s services)

Include expenditure commonly known as CERA, which is capital expenditure that a local authority expects to charge to a revenue account of the authority within the meaning of section 22 of the Local Government Act 2003.

5.0.1 Total schools budget and other education and community budget (excluding CERA)

Sum of lines 1.8.1 and 2.5.1.

5.0.2 Total children’s and young people’s services and youth justice budget lines (excluding CERA)

Sum of lines 3.0.5 + 3.1.11 + 3.2.1 + 3.3.4 + 3.4.6 + 3.5.3 + 3.6.1.

6. Total schools budget, other education and community budget, children and young people’s services and youth justice budget (excluding CERA)

Sum of lines 5.0.1 + 5.0.2.

7. Capital expenditure (excluding CERA)

Enter here all capital expenditure, being expenditure:

a) which the authority proposes to capitalise in their accounts in accordance with proper practices, being those accounting practices -

i. which the authority is required to follow by virtue of any enactment, or

ii. which, whether by reference to any generally recognised published code or otherwise, are regarded as proper accounting practices to be followed in the keeping of accounts of local authorities, either generally or of description concerned, but in the event of any conflict in any respect between the practices falling within (i) above and those falling within (ii) above, only those falling within (i) above are to be regarded as proper practices; and

b) which does not fall within note 4.0.1 (capital expenditure from revenue).

Except in the case of permitted spend on prudential borrowing, capital charges should not appear in the table in any form.

Question 22

Reconciliation of schools budget (before academy recoupment)

Accepted Answer

1.9.1 Estimated dedicated schools grant for 2023 to 2024 (before academy recoupment), excluding high needs place funding for 16-19 academies and free schools and FE colleges and independent learning providers

The local authority’s estimated DSG for the purposes of setting the schools budget. This is the DSG as notified in December 2022, including post-16 high needs place funding in maintained schools and academies, adjusted by the subsequent deductions from the high needs block of place funding for colleges and other post-school institutions which will be paid directly by ESFA, and by the local authority’s estimate of future changes in the early years block. Funding for school business rates (National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) continues to be part of DSG and should be included here.

Any funding the authority expects to receive under the Safety Valve programme should also be included.

Please note, the way in which local authorities account for DSG deficits has been altered by the Local Authorities (Capital Finance and Accounting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, which require DSG deficits to be held in a separate reserve. This does not alter the way in which local authorities should fill in the section 251 forms. DfE still requires local authorities to record the net position on DSG, adding up deficits and surpluses across all years up to and including 2022 to 2023 for line 1.9.2, and further adding any expected deficit or surplus in 2023 to 2024 for line 1.9.3.

1.9.2 Dedicated schools grant brought forward from 2022 to 2023

The total amount of all DSG reserves brought forward from previous years, as estimated at 31 March 2023. Reserves should be entered as a positive number and deficits as a negative number. These will result from carry forward from financial years before 2022 to 2023, plus:

the difference between the final DSG in 2022 to 2023 and earlier estimates of DSG on which the schools budget was based
an expected under or overspend in 2022 to 2023 against the central elements of the schools budget

1.9.3 Dedicated schools grant carry forward to 2024 to 2025

Any amount which the authority decided after consultation with the schools forum to carry forward to 2024 to 2025 from the 2023 to 2024 DSG, or from DSG carried over from earlier years, rather than distribute in 2023 to 2024. A negative number represents a positive sum being carried forward, and a positive number indicates a deficit being carried forward.

1.9.4 Grant for maintained school sixth forms

Grant supporting post-16 education in maintained schools, including schools becoming academies on or after 1 April 2023.

If 2023 to 2024 data is not received in time, local authorities will need to forecast the income for 2023 to 2024 based upon the 2022 to 2023 figures and information about 2023 to 2024 arrangements issued by ESFA.

1.9.5 Local authority additional contribution

This includes any additional funding provided by the local authority to support the schools budget. If the local authority had an overall DSG deficit as at the end of the financial year 2022 to 2023, a contribution from non-DSG sources requires the consent of the Secretary of State.

1.9.6 Total funding supporting the schools budget (lines 1.9.1 to 1.9.5)

This line records the total sources of income to the schools budget, taking into account balances brought forward from 2022 to 2023 and those it intends to carry forward to 2024 to 2025, as well as any additional funds provided by the local authority. This line is expected to equate to the net position on line 1.8.1.

1.10.1 Academy recoupment from the dedicated schools grant of schools block funding

Enter here any amount which the local authority expects to be recouped from its gross DSG allocation for 2023 to 2024 for academies. Exclude any high needs place funding for special and AP academies, and for special units and resourced provision in primary and secondary academies. These amounts should be included in line 1.10.2.

This line needs to include recoupment estimates for all academies which are funded by recoupment, and which have become academies before 1 April 2023.

No recoupment estimates should be included for schools which are expected to become academies on or after 1 April 2023.

Recoupment from the DSG should be shown as a negative figure.

1.10.2 Academy recoupment from the dedicated schools grant of high needs place funding shown under line 1.0.2

Enter here any high needs place funding amount which the local authority expects to be recouped from its gross DSG allocation for 2023 to 2024 for special and AP academies (including those in receipt of hospital education place funding), and for special units and resourced provision in primary and secondary academies.

Do not include place funding for 16 to 19 academies and free schools, and FE colleges and independent learning providers.

Local authorities should use the recoupment figures from the March 2023 DSG publication, as these take account of the academic year changes following the annual place change notification process.

This line needs to include recoupment estimates for all academies which are funded by recoupment, and which have become academies before 1 April 2023. Also add in any recoupment of place funding for AP free schools that is included in line 1.2.7 rather than line 1.0.2.

No recoupment estimates should be included for schools which are expected to become academies on or after 1 April 2023.

Recoupment from the DSG should be shown as a negative figure.

Question 23

Other education and community budget

Accepted Answer

Subject to what is said below in relation to specific grants, administrative costs and overheads attributable to a particular category of expenditure should be included under the appropriate item head. Similar treatment will apply to expenditure in relation to support for IT systems.

The lines in section 2.0 relate to functions formerly funded from ESG. They should be used to record provision for those functions that are not funded from DSG in 2023 to 2024, and instead are funded from other council sources of funding. They are therefore not part of the schools budget.

2.0.1 Central support services

Includes expenditure on:

pupil support: provision and administration of clothing grants and board and lodging grants, where such expenditure is not supported by grant
music services: expenditure on the provision of music tuition or other activities which provide opportunities for pupils to enhance their experience of music
visual and performing arts (other than music): expenditure which enables pupils to enhance their experience of the visual, creative and performing arts other than music
outdoor education including environmental and field studies (not sports): expenditure on outdoor education centres, field study and environmental studies and so on, but not including centres wholly or mainly for the provision of organised games, swimming or athletics

2.0.2 Education welfare service

Record education welfare service and other expenditure arising from the local authority school attendance functions. Where Education Welfare Officers are directly involved in issues related to the Children Act 1989, the relevant expenditure should be charged to line 3.3.2.

Also record expenditure in connection with powers and duties performed under Part 2 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933(Enforcement of, and power to make bylaws in relation to, restrictions on the employment of children).

2.0.3 School Improvement

Include expenditure incurred by a local authority in respect of action to support the improvement of standards in the local authority’s schools, in particular expenditure incurred in connection with functions under the following sections of the Education and Inspections Act 2006:

section 60 (performance standards and safety warning notice)
section 60A (teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice)
section 63 (power of local authority to require governing bodies of schools eligible for intervention to enter into arrangements)
section 64 (power of local authority to appoint additional governors)
section 65 (power of local authority to provide for governing bodies to consist of interim executive members) and Schedule 6
section 66 (power of local authority to suspend right to delegated budget)

2.0.4 Asset management – education

Include expenditure in relation to:

the management of the local authority’s capital programme
preparation and review of an asset management plan
negotiation and management of private finance transactions and contracts (including academies which have converted since the contracts were signed)
landlord premises functions for relevant academy leases
health and safety and other landlord premises functions for community schools

This line does not include payments made by the local authority to a PFI provider and any capital expenditure or income. Such expenditure should not appear anywhere on the form.

2.0.5 Statutory/regulatory duties – education

This line should not include any expenditure or income relating to sold services to schools. Include expenditure on education functions related to:

2.0.6 Premature retirement costs/redundancy costs (new provisions)

Any budget for payments to be made by the local authority in respect of the dismissal, or for the purpose of securing the resignation, of any member of the staff of the school, after 1 April 2023 under section 37, Education Act 2002.

This line is meant to be for new costs in the financial year, in this case 2023 to 2024. For old costs please record in line 2.3.3 (Pension costs, includes existing early retirement costs).

2.0.7 Monitoring national curriculum assessment

Record expenditure on monitoring national curriculum assessment arrangements required by orders made under section 87 of the Education Act 2002.

2.1.1 Educational psychology service

All expenditure on educational psychology services should be entered here.

The cost of educational psychology (EP) services should not be apportioned elsewhere unless an educational psychologist is specially appointed to undertake an alternative function (for example, managing the behaviour support service).

Expenditure on EP bespoke/commissioned work in behaviour support should go into line 1.1.2 Behaviour support services.

2.1.2 SEN administration, assessment, co-ordination and monitoring

Include here expenditure on identification and assessment of children with SEN and disability; information about the local offer to children with SEN; and the making, maintaining and reviewing of education, health and care (EHC) plans under section 36 to 45 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Include the cost of responding to SEN complaints, including appeals to Tribunal.

Include the cost of strategic management and planning of services to support the inclusion and attainment of children and young people with SEN, preparing relevant strategic plans, SEN administration, planning and co-ordination.

Monitoring of SEN provision:

Include expenditure on the monitoring and accountability functions of the SEN core teams and support services, including support for school self-evaluation. Also include the proportion of time devoted to SEN and other inclusion activities by inspectors and advisers in the local authority’s school improvement team.

Monitoring of individual EHC plans and annual reviews should be included here.

2.1.3 Independent advice and support services (parent partnership), guidance and information

Include expenditure in connection with the provision or commissioning of information, advice and support services (IASS), parent partnership services and related guidance and information to the parents and carers of children, and to young people, who have special educational needs and disability.

Also include arrangements made by the local authority with a view to providing mediation services and avoiding or resolving disagreements with the parents of children with special educational needs and disability.

2.1.4 Home to school transport (pre-16): SEN transport expenditure

Include expenditure on:

travel between home and school for children of compulsory school age where the travel is agreed for reasons of the child’s SEN or disability
transport to qualifying schools as set out in the home to school travel and transport guidance
the cost of passenger assistants provided to support children with SEN or a disability when travelling between their home and a qualifying school
any travel provided to enable children below compulsory school age to attend an early years setting named in their EHC plan

2.1.5 Home to school transport (pre-16): mainstream home to school transport expenditure:

Include expenditure on:

travel between home and school for children of compulsory school age where travel is agreed for reasons other than SEN/disability
transport to qualifying schools as set out in the home to school travel and transport guidance
the cost of passenger assistants provided to support children when travelling between their home and a qualifying school

2.1.6 Home to post-16 provision: SEN/LLDD transport expenditure (aged 16 to 18)

Include all gross expenditure, income, and net expenditure incurred by local authorities for transporting learners with SEN aged 16 to 18, and those with an EHC plan aged over 19 who started their course before their nineteenth birthday, to post-16 education and training provision including:

school sixth form
sixth form college
FE college
independent specialist providers
apprenticeships
other work-based learning provision

Your return should include, as a minimum, the expenditure on:

transport provided by local authority owned vehicles
provision of independent travel training
taxi fares
local authority contracted vehicles
subsidies or a financial contribution to travel passes
fuel allowances for parents

2.1.7 Home to post-16 provision: SEN/LLDD transport expenditure (aged 19 to 25)

Include all gross expenditure, income, and net expenditure incurred by local authorities for transporting learners with SEN aged 19 to 25, who started their course after their nineteenth birthday, to post-16 education and training provision including:

school sixth form
sixth form college
FE college
independent specialist providers
apprenticeships
other work-based learning provision

Your return should include, as a minimum, the expenditure on:

transport provided by local authority owned vehicles
provision of independent travel training
taxi fares
local authority contracted vehicles
subsidies or a financial contribution to travel passes
fuel allowances for parents

2.1.8 Home to post-16 provision transport: mainstream home to post-16 transport expenditure

This line includes home to post-16 provision transport other than for learners with SEN. Include all gross expenditure, income, and net expenditure incurred by local authorities for transporting learners aged 16 to 18 (including those who become 19 during their course) to post-16 education and training provision, including:

school sixth form
sixth form college
FE college
apprenticeships
other work-based learning provision

Your return should include, as a minimum, the expenditure on:

transport provided by local authority owned vehicles
taxi fares
local authority contracted vehicles
subsidies or a financial contribution to travel passes and moped/scooter schemes

Do not include expenditure on home to learning transport for young people with SEN in this line.

2.1.9 Supply of school places

Include expenditure on planning and managing the supply of school places including the local authority’s functions in relation to the establishment, alteration or discontinuance of schools pursuant to Part 2 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Education and Inspections Act 2006.

2.2.1 Other spend not funded from the schools budget

Local authorities have pointed out to us that because some of the lines in section 1.4 of this form require schools forum approval, local authorities may incur expenditure funded from outside the schools budget under these headings that cannot be recorded in section 1. We are therefore providing an additional line in section 2 for recording expenditure on lines in section 1.4 that are not funded out of DSG. This will apply to lines 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 1.4.8 and 1.4.14(b).

2.3.1 Young people’s learning and development

This includes 16 to 18 provision other than schools and FE and covers non-advanced direct provision on 16 to 18 apprenticeships and entry to employment.

This line also includes:

14 to 19 reform
education business links
learning agreement pilots
statutory duties for tracking and supporting young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)
increasing flexibility for 14 to 16 year olds
young apprenticeships (key stage 4 for 14 to 15 year olds)
14 to 19 fighting funds (for example, support learning and development initiatives)
16 to 18 structural support which has not been included within the lines above

This line relates to the education service.

2.3.2 Adult and community learning

Include adult/community education and ‘lifelong learning’ programmes. Some authorities operate adult, community and youth work as a whole. Items appropriate to this part are:

adult education
community education—that is education offered primarily for the purpose of enhancing the capacities of communities rather than the aspirations of individuals
family learning
other community services (but not youth work)

Income from ESFA should be shown in the income box.

2.3.3 Pension costs – includes existing early retirement costs

The budget for expected expenditure for commitments for former school and local authority staff should be included under this heading. Also, residual pension liability (such as FE, careers service and so on), ex-FE college staff; ex-career service staff; ex-teacher training institute staff; and the London Pensions Fund Authority levy are included here.

This line covers any on-going commitment incurred in previous years. For new costs please record in line 2.0.6 (Premature retirement costs/redundancy costs (new provisions), or in line 1.6.5 where the costs are funded out of DSG.

2.3.4 Joint use arrangements

Expenditure in pursuance of a binding agreement, where the other party is a local authority or the other parties include one or more local authorities, in relation to the operation of a facility provided partly, but not solely, for the use of schools.

2.3.5 Insurance

Include any expenditure on insurance relating to education other than for liability arising in connection with schools or school premises.

Do not include other children’s services.

2.4.1 Other specific grants

Other specific grants, whether devolved or not devolved to schools. Include Delivering Better Value (DBV) expenditure and grant.

Do not include:

any grants relating to childcare
any ring-fenced grants such as the dedicated schools grant
any element of the pupil premium grant, which should not be entered anywhere on the form
sixth form funding

Note that the early years pupil premium is part of the Early Years block budget and not part of the pupil premium grant and is to be included on the form under 1.0.1.

COVID-19 related grants should also be excluded.

Where this line is used both the grant and the expenditure funded by the grant should be entered, so that the line nets to zero in all circumstances (local authorities should be planning to spend all of the grant, since the grant cannot be used for any other purpose).

2.5.1 Total other education and community budget

This formula calculates the aggregate of the entries in lines 2.0.1 to 2.4.1.

Question 24

Children and young people’s services

Accepted Answer

We have established some general principles to guide local authorities when completing the following sections under children and young people’s services.

The aim of this section is to capture, as far as possible, all budgeted spend on children and young people’s services. Our aim is to make what is collected as accurate as possible so the data can be used with confidence.

Where relevant, complete the income column including:

income derived from any charges to parents for services
charges to other centre users (for example rental of rooms)
any other grant income

Central government grants should not be recorded as income, instead they should be recorded as expenditure against the intended expenditure reporting line (if applicable, including the central government COVID-19 grant funding).

Question 25

Sure start children’s centres and other spend on children under 5

Accepted Answer

This section of the return is designed to show total local authority spending on Sure Start children’s centres, including:

how much of this is devolved to individual children’s centres
how much is used to pay for local authority provided or commissioned services
how much is used for local authority management costs related to children’s centres

When completing this section for Sure Start children’s centres:

include salary costs of any staff with qualified teacher status or early years professional staff employed by children’s centres
do not include other early education funding (including funding through the free entitlement, as that is covered in the early years proforma)
do not include the cost of services provided in-kind by other statutory providers (for example, health services or Jobcentre Plus)

3.0.1 Funding for individual Sure Start children’s centres

Include details of devolved revenue to children’s centres for the delivery and management of the children’s centre and its services. This includes both children’s centres managed directly by the local authority, where budgets are delegated internally, and those commissioned to another body under a contract or service level agreement, including school governing bodies.

Do not include funding on early education (including early years funding through the free entitlement).

3.0.2 Funding for local authority provided or commissioned area-wide services delivered through Sure Start children’s centres

Include any discrete services to be delivered across the local authority area that are centrally commissioned by the local authority and are part of the children’s centre programme, such as a centrally commissioned outreach service for children under 5 and their families.

Do not include the money/budget for individual children’s centres to deliver services or commission services at a centre level, this should be recorded in 3.0.1.

3.0.3 Funding of local authority management costs relating to Sure Start children’s centres

This refers to the total amount the local authority plans to use to meet the central costs of managing the children’s centre programme.

It includes the costs of local authority organisational management and support, data collection, commissioning, and improvement support.

3.0.4 Other spend on children under 5

This is intended to cover any other money (non-dedicated schools grant) spent to support and develop early years provision (for 0 to 5 year olds). Activities likely to be included are improvement/sustainability support, implementing your sufficiency action plan and local workforce development.

3.0.5 Total Sure Start children’s centres and other spend on children under 5

This formula calculates the aggregate of the entries in lines 3.0.1 to 3.0.4.

Question 26

Looked-after children

Accepted Answer

Include the costs of looking after children for continuous periods of more than 24 hours.

Include any central government grants as expenditure under the line in which they will be spent, e.g., the Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children Home Office grant.

3.1.1 Residential care

Include expenditure on residential care in voluntary children’s and registered children’s homes as defined in Children Act 1989. This includes:

associated independent visitor costs and relevant contact payments under sections 20/34 of the Children Act 1989
homes where education is provided, but does not attract education department funds
boarding schools—include the social care share of the costs of community homes with education provision and the social care element of accommodating children with special education needs in schools where the education element is met by the education department (note that the funding of the children’s education is recorded in the education lines of the table)

Exclude expenditure costs for:

short breaks for looked after disabled children
mother and baby homes (include in 3.1.5 Other Children Looked After Services)
youth detention accommodation (include in 3.1.5 Other Children Looked After Services)
respite care for those children not meeting the definition of children looked after

3.1.2a Fostering services (excluding fees and allowances for local authority foster carers)

Include all in-house provision, fostering services purchased externally and the costs of social worker and other support staff who support foster carers.

Include:

Exclude:

fees and allowances paid to foster parents
remand fostering (Youth Justice)
foster care placements with a relative or friend (children placed with family and friends)
social work costs related directly to the fostered children (social work)
short breaks (respite) for looked after disabled children

3.1.2b Fostering services (fees and allowances for local authority foster carers)

Include all the fees, allowances, and financial payments made to the approved foster carers of the local authority.

Please note, the budget collection now separately identifies fees and allowances for local authority foster carers. Previously, all fostering service expenditure was captured under 3.1.2 only.

3.1.3 Adoption services

Include staff and overhead costs associated with adoption including the costs of social workers recruiting and assessing new prospective adopters and supporting existing prospective adopters. Also include costs related to adoption support, such as the cost of therapeutic services.

Adoption services are defined as:

financial support
services to enable groups of adoptive children, adoptive and birth parents or former guardians of an adoptive child to discuss matters relating to adoption
assistance, including mediation services, in relation to contact between an agency adoptive child and birth parents, siblings, former guardian or a related person
therapeutic services for the agency adoptive child or inter-country adoptive child
assistance for the purpose of ensuring the continuance of the relationship between an adoptive child and his or her adoptive parents, (includes training for adoptive parents to meet any special needs of the child and respite care)
assistance where disruption of an adoptive placement, or of an adoption arrangement following the making of an adoption order, has occurred or is in danger of occurring, including:
- making arrangements for the provision of mediation services
- organising and running meetings to discuss disruptions in such placements or arrangements
counselling, advice and information

Refer to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 the Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005 and the statutory adoption guidance for further information.

Provision of adoption support is based on assessed needs. Financial payments are made depending on the needs of the child and are means-tested.

Children are placed with approved prospective adopters under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the Adoption Agencies Regulations 2005. This is the provision of care and accommodation of children placed for adoption under the Adoption Agencies Regulation 2005. It also covers payments made, in accordance with the Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005, to a family after an adoption order has been made.

Exclude the costs of children placed for adoption (see fostering services) and social work costs directly relating to the adopted children (see social work).

3.1.4 Special guardianship support

Include financial support paid to special guardianship families under the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 and other staff and overhead costs associated with special guardianship orders.

3.1.5 Other children looked after services

Include support to looked after children and young people:

3.1.6 Short breaks (respite) for looked after disabled children

Include all provision for short breaks (respite) services for disabled children who are deemed looked after. Include:

short breaks using a residential setting
family based overnight and day care short break services, including those provided through contract and family link carers
sitting or sessional short break services in the child’s home, or supporting the child to access activities in the community

Exclude any break exceeding 28 days continuous care and costs associated with providing disabled children’s access to residential universal services.

Please note, by definition a child must be provided with accommodation for a continuous period of more than 24 hours before that child can be defined as being a looked after child (LAC) under the Children Act 1989 Section 20 and 21. If the provision period is under 24 hours, then that child is not a LAC, and the associated costs should be recorded in the ‘Family Support Services’ section.

3.1.7 Children placed with family and friends

Where looked after children do not live with their birth parents it is not uncommon for them to be placed with family or friends foster carers. Include expenditure on the local authority’s functions in relation to looked after children placed with family or friends foster carers under the Children Act 1989.

3.1.8 Education of looked-after children

Include expenditure on the services provided to promote the education of the children looked after by your local authority (for example, looked after children education service teams, virtual school head and training for designated teachers).

Exclude any funding delegated to schools for looked after children.

3.1.9 Leaving care support services

Include the staff and overhead costs associated with the authority’s leaving care support team and services. Including, for example:

functions carried out by personal advisors (PAs), including assessments of need, preparation of pathway plans, and participation in reviews of pathway plans
costs relating to the training and supervision of PAs
costs associated with providing and maintaining relevant children in suitable accommodation, including ‘staying put’ arrangements
costs of other forms of accommodation for relevant children which may be necessary in emergency situations
all forms of financial assistance paid by the authority to care leavers, including financial support to participate in education, such as higher education (HE) bursaries
costs involved in developing and disseminating the local authority’s policies around support to care leavers
advising, befriending, and giving assistance to persons qualifying for advice and assistance

Exclude the social worker costs in preparing and reviewing pathway plans prior to young people ceasing to be looked after (such as when they are ‘eligible children’) or any other social worker costs in supporting ‘relevant’ or ‘former relevant’ children (see social work (including local authority functions in relation to child protection)).

3.1.10 Asylum seeker services children

Include planned expenditure relating to asylum seeking children that are looked after that have not been recorded in other lines (for example, 3.1.1 Residential Care).

Exclude planned expenditure for children who are not looked after which is covered by the Home Office grant funding for refugees.

3.1.11 Total children looked after

This formula calculates the aggregate of entries in lines 3.1.1 to 3.1.10.

Question 27

Other children and family services

Accepted Answer

3.2.1 Other children and family services

Include other budgeted spend that cannot be placed under another specific heading but contributes to your overall spending on children and young people’s services.

Also include budgeted spend previously captured here:

grants to voluntary organisations that cannot be specifically placed under another children’s heading
counselling services
generic services in support of children that abuse substances not included in the division of service above

Please keep a record of the kind of spending that you have included in this category, as the DfE may get in touch with some local authorities to request this information to aid their understanding and analysis of the data.

Question 28

Safeguarding children and young people’s services

Accepted Answer

A number of changes have been made to this section following our more detailed consultation. Budgeted spending on child death review processes is now included in the line on multi-agency working. Spending on social work (including functions in relation to child protection) has been separated out from commissioning.

This line applies to social workers who are directly involved with the care of children and with the commissioning of services for children.

Include most of the direct social work costs (except those detailed below), including the processes for assessing need, determining and defining the service to be provided and reviewing the quality of, and continued relevance of, that care for children. Also include:

child protection costs
field social work costs (include hospital social workers)
occupational therapy services to children
relevant support staff costs

Exclude social work costs in support of foster carers and adoptive families as these are captured elsewhere in the return.

Also include budgeted spending on local authority functions in relation to child protection. This includes all planned expenditure on carrying out the local authority’s functions in relation to child protection under the Children Act 1989 and under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 and other functions relating to child protection.

3.3.2 Commissioning and children’s services strategy

Include budgeted spending on overall commissioning within children and young people’s services, such as the cost of a central commissioning function.

Include any additional expenditure on services that are bought in from outside the local authority to support the central commissioning function. Where joint commissioning units have been set up, such as between the local authority and the primary care trust, the overall costs of maintaining the joint unit should be given.

Exclude the costs of the actual services commissioned, as well as any social worker costs related to commissioning, as these will be captured elsewhere in the return. Also exclude costs of commissioning services specifically for Sure Start children’s centres as these will be captured in line 3.0.3.

For the children’s services strategy element, include partnership costs for multi-agency working, such as contributions from the local authority to partnership manager and other costs. Do not include pooled budget contributions for specific front-line services. Also include spending on statutory and regulatory duties related to children’s services that are not included in the line on statutory and regulatory duties related to education (line 2.0.5), or in the equivalent lines in section 1 when the expenditure is funded from DSG.

3.3.3 Local safeguarding children boards

Include budgeted spending on the authority’s local safeguarding children board functions under the Children Act 2004 and the Local Safeguarding Children Boards Regulations 2006.

Include child death review processes. This will include expenditure on the local authority’s functions under the Children Act 2004 (as set out in chapter 5 of Working Together 2015). This includes any local authority funded activity in connection with the process of reviewing child deaths in the local authority area (usually under the management of a Child Death Overview Panel); to respond to, enquire into and evaluate each unexpected death of a child, and to review all child deaths in the local authority area (and other areas, if relevant) to determine trends and patterns to avoid future deaths.

3.3.4 Total safeguarding children and young people’s services

This formula calculates the aggregate of entries in lines 3.3.1 to 3.3.3.

Question 29

Family support services

Accepted Answer

Some changes have been made to this section to help improve the quality of the data collected. Planned expenditure previously captured in this section should continue to be recorded here, split across services for disabled children (lines 3.4.1 to 3.4.3) and targeted/universal family support and targeted services (lines 3.4.4 and 3.4.5).

This section includes statutory services provided to children in need and their families and voluntary aid to other children.

3.4.1 Direct payments

Exclude expenditure on direct payments for SEN and disability as this is captured above in line 1.2.11.

Include here any other spending on direct payments.

3.4.2 Short breaks (respite) for disabled children

Include all provision for short breaks (respite) services for disabled children in need but not looked after. Include the costs of:

short breaks using a residential setting, including overnight stays, day care and sessional visits to the setting
family based overnight and day-care short break services, including those provided through contract and family link carers
sitting or sessional short break services in the child’s home, or supporting the child to access activities in the community

Exclude:

short breaks for looked after disabled children (see 3.1.6)
any break exceeding 28 days continuous care
costs associated with providing disabled children’s access to universal day services such as formal childcare, youth clubs, or extended school activities

3.4.3 Other support for disabled children

Include children’s services contribution to equipment and adaptations such as:

adaptations to homes to help children remain at home
disability equipment for children, including wheelchairs
special telephones for the use of children
other communications and community equipment
stores, delivery and other associated costs

Exclude contributions by the housing service, adult social care service and local NHS services.

3.4.4 Targeted family support

Targeted family support services are those focused on specific vulnerable families, including, but not limited to, families receiving support through the Supporting Families programme.

Do not record the Supporting Families grant as income but as budgeted expenditure here.

Include budgeted spending in the following areas that were previously captured under separate lines in this data collection:

Contribution to health care of individual children

This is expenditure where there is a need to support a child. This includes non-statutory innovative initiatives such as family nurse partnerships. These could be initiatives to be funded privately by the local authority or jointly by local authority or primary care trust.

Home care services

This is home care provided to help carers look after a child at home. For example, home helps, domiciliary care assistants, support or payments to voluntary workers/ organisations providing home care services. Also include the costs of administration of home care for children.

Intensive family interventions

Include the expenditure for providing intensive family interventions which underpin the programme led by the Supporting Families team to ensure vulnerable families get access to the early, coordinated whole family support they need to help them overcome their problems before they escalate. Common characteristics include each family having access to a dedicated practitioner who delivers support and co-ordinates the work of other agencies, ensuring that a support/ care plan is in place, which outlines actions and timescales. These interventions commonly include pre- and post-measurements of how circumstances for the family have changed. Other areas of spend that could be included in this line are:

payments or gifts in kind to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need
community support workers (peripatetic support staff who supervise children at risk, children in need, learning in the community and liaise with other agencies, community psychiatric nurses and so on) outreach workers, family support or aid workers
expenditure on support for carers rather than clients (including young carers) that is not included in any of the other divisions of service
family contact supervision
residence orders paid for

Exclude home care services provided for short breaks for disabled children (which will be included in line 3.4.2 above).

3.4.5 Universal family support

Universal family support is open to all, regardless of their family circumstances or perceptions of vulnerability.

This includes support provided in the community for children who do not have an identified particular need (but who may be in a disadvantaged group), such as home-school liaison services funded by the local authority; peer to peer support services such as Home-Start and relationship support.

3.4.6 Total family support services

This formula calculates the aggregate of the entries in lines 3.4.1 to 3.4.5.

Question 30

Services for young people

Accepted Answer

Planned expenditure on substance misuse services and teenage pregnancy services will already be included in lines 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 above and should also be included as separate categories in the following lines. These lines are not included in the total spending figures to avoid double counting.

8a.1 Substance misuse services (drugs, alcohol, and volatile substances) (included in 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 above)

These may include:

targeted drug and alcohol information
advice and education to support informed choices
motivational interviewing
substance misuse brief interventions
substance misuse specific family support
substance misuse screening and assessment as part of a wider assessment process

Include all expenditure on targeted services focused on supporting early interventions to manage substance misuse-related risk of harm and reduce the likelihood of young people becoming future drug or alcohol users.

Exclude spending on activities such as specialist substance misuse interventions funded by the public health grant and reported through the public health grant return.

8a.2 Teenage pregnancy services (included in 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 above)

Include all expenditure wholly focused on implementing and coordinating local teenage pregnancy strategies to reduce under-18 conceptions and to improve outcomes for teenage parents and their children reflecting the DfE planning guidance.

Exclude spending on activities funded by the public health grant and reported through the public health grant return.

Question 31

Youth justice

Accepted Answer

3.6.1 Youth justice

Include the costs of services related to young offenders including youth offending teams. This includes:

costs of providing or purchasing secure accommodation (except remand foster care in other youth justice services) for children who pose a risk to themselves, to others or have a security requirement placed on them for youth justice reasons under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933
all other remand facilities for a young offender (for example, under section 97 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998)
costs of social services staff and support facilities for youth offender teams under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
community services costs
remand fostering costs, that is payments to carers and supervision costs where a court has made an order that an alleged young offender should be held securely in the community rather than being placed in an institution
bail support schemes
other youth justice costs

Question 32

Memorandum

Accepted Answer

A memo line is an extraction of figures which have been included as planned expenditure in the lines above.

Question 33

Special schools/pupil referral units/hospital schools

Accepted Answer

This table only collects data on maintained schools. The delegated budget for special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) will consist of place funding only. The total place funding amounts should be included in line 1.0.2. The schools’ and PRUs’ top-up funding is shown in line 1.2.1.

Special school and other SEN places will receive £10,000 per place; AP places in PRUs and other settings will also receive £10,000 per place; and hospital education places will be funded on the same per place amount as in 2022 to 2023, unless the authority has decided to increase the amount. Funding for places that are intended for, or occupied by, 16 to 19-year-old pupils should be included. Nursery places in special schools should also be included.

Some institutions provide more than one of these types of education and the form therefore provides 3 columns that can be used for each institution. Local authorities should classify each institution under its formal designation as a special school, PRU or hospital school (a type of special school serving a hospital), which will normally indicate its predominant type of place.

Please note, the funding amount in the columns should be calculated by using the rate per place and multiplying it by the number of places. However, if the place numbers planned for April to August and September to March are different, then a pro rata calculation has to be carried out. Part year per place amounts should be calculated on a pro rata basis for five-twelfths and seven-twelfths respectively.

16 to 19 providers follow an academic year running from August to July. Where there are changes to the place numbers for 16 to 19 year olds between academic years, funding should be calculated by multiplying the place numbers by one-third and two-thirds respectively.

Question 34

Special units and resourced provision in mainstream schools

Accepted Answer

A new section was added to this table from 2018 to 2019 for local authorities to show the number of places and total place funding for special units and resourced provision attached to mainstream nursery, primary and secondary schools. These are the amounts included within the schools’ delegated budgets.

Include nursery places if they are funded from the local authority’s high needs budget. Include places for 16 to 19 year olds in special units and resourced provision only. The total place funding amounts should be included within line 1.0.2. The schools’ top-up funding for pupils in the special units or resourced provision is shown in line 1.2.1.

Special units and resourced provision receive £6,000 per place for places occupied by pupils on the roll of the school and £10,000 per place for other places. The funding amount in the columns should be calculated by using the rates per place (£6,000 or £10,000) and multiplying those by the appropriate number of places. The total funded place numbers are determined locally for maintained schools or through the place change process for ESFA funded institutions. Information provided by local authorities through the APT is then used to inform the number of places funded at £6,000.

If the total place numbers planned for April to August and September to March are different, then a pro rata calculation must be carried out. Part year per place amounts should be calculated on a pro rata basis for five-twelfths and seven-twelfths respectively.

Question 35

School name

Accepted Answer

The names of all mainstream schools with special units/resourced provision, special schools, PRUs and hospital schools maintained by the authority before the start of the financial year will be pre-populated by DfE.

Local authorities are able to add or remove schools where required.

Question 36

DfE number

Accepted Answer

DfE will enter the school’s number opposite the name of each school.

Question 37

School or unit opening/closing in year?

Accepted Answer

The drop-down section allows you to indicate opposite the name of a school whether it (or its unit or resourced provision) is closing or opening during the financial year. There is the option to otherwise leave blank. If, for example, 2 schools were merging to form one new school, there would be 3 entries, 2 for each of the closing schools and one for the new school being opened.

Full-year data should be provided for schools converting to become academies.

Question 38

Date opening/closing

Accepted Answer

Enter the date that the maintained school or its unit is intended to close or open in the format: DD/MM/YYYY.

Question 39

Places

Accepted Answer

The number of places entered in the following columns should be the number of places to be funded in the academic year 2022 to 2023 (for the period April to August 2023), and to be funded in the academic year 2023 to 2024 (for the period September 2023 to March 2024). These are the full-year place numbers and are not to be pro-rated for the part of the year that falls in the 2023 to 2024 financial year.

Where there are changes to the place numbers between academic years, in calculating the total funding for the financial year multiply the annual place number for each academic year by the appropriate place value calculated using the five-twelfths plus seven-twelfths split.

Question 40

Special educational needs (SEN) places

Accepted Answer

For April 2023 to August 2023 and September 2023 to March 2024

Include the number of places for pupils with EHC plans, funded at £10,000 per place per annum. In special units or resourced provision attached to mainstream schools, the funding per place is either £6,000 or £10,000 per place per annum.

SEN place funding April 2023 to March 2024

This is the total cost of the places in the previous columns. For all places except those in special units and resourced provision attached to mainstream schools, this should be £10,000 multiplied by the number of places in the previous columns. The only exception is where the place amount is reduced because the school is opening or closing during the financial year. When the place numbers change in September 2023, multiply the place number for the period April to August 2023 by £4,167 (five-twelfths of £10,000), and the place number for the period September 2023 to March 2024 by £5,833 (seven-twelfths of £10,000) to get the total for the financial year April 2023 to March 2024.

For places in special units and resourced provision attached to mainstream schools, the total cost of the places should be £6,000 multiplied by the number of places funded at that rate, and £10,000 multiplied by the number of places funded at that rate. The only exception is where the place amount is reduced because the unit or resourced provision is opening or closing during the financial year. When the place numbers change in September 2023, multiply the place number for the period April to August 2023 by £2,500 (five-twelfths of £6,000) or £4,167 (five-twelfths of £10,000), and the place number for the period September 2023 to March 2024 by £3,500 (seven-twelfths of £6,000) or £5,833 (seven-twelfths of £10,000) to get the total for the financial year April 2023 to March 2024.

Question 41

Alternative provision (AP) places

Accepted Answer

For April 2023 to August 2023 and September 2022 to March 2023

Include the number of places to provide alternative provision for pupils at £10,000 per place per annum.

Question 42

AP place funding

Accepted Answer

April 2023 to March 2024

This is the total cost of the places in the previous columns. Multiply the place number for the period April to August 2023 by £4,167 (five-twelfths of £10,000), and the place number for the period September 2023 to March 2024 by £5,833 (seven-twelfths of £10,000) to get the total for the financial year April 2023 to March 2024. The only exception to this calculation is where the place amounts are reduced because the school is opening or closing during the financial year.

Question 43

Hospital education places

Accepted Answer

For April 2023 to August 2023 and September 2023 to March 2024

Hospital education places must be funded at the same per place amount as in 2022 to 2023, unless the authority has decided to increase the amount. Hospital education is defined as where the child is being provided with such education by reason of a decision made by a medical practitioner (as opposed to by an educationalist).

The funding for the number of hospital education places in special schools (including so-called hospital schools) or PRUs (sometimes known as medical PRUs) is the amount which must be included in line 1.0.2. It should exclude expenditure on hospital education services that are not funded as places at these providers, which should instead be included in line 1.2.6. Please note that there should be no duplication of hospital education place funding included in the high needs places table and the amounts in line 1.2.6 of the local authority table, as the place funding should be included in line 1.0.2.

Where appropriate, the funding for hospital education places should also include any high needs funding paid to maintained special schools and PRUs providing hospital education, for teachers’ pay and pensions (employer contributions) costs, under the additional condition of grant attached to local authorities’ DSG (section 3.6(7)).

Question 44

Hospital education place funding

Accepted Answer

April 2023 to March 2024

Total cost of the places in the previous column. This should be the amount per place multiplied by the number of places in the previous columns. See above for how to work out the amount for the financial year April 2023 to March 2024 if the place number changes in September 2023.

Question 45

Total Place funding net

Accepted Answer

April 2023 to March 2024

Total place funding for the institution (the sum of the columns for SEN place funding, AP place funding and hospital education place funding).

Question 46

The early years collection and the proforma

Accepted Answer

This section of the return is designated to record the total local authority DSG spending on early years, including:

the 15 hours entitlement for disadvantaged 2 year olds
the universal 15 hours entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds
the additional 15 hours for eligible working parents of 3 and 4 year olds
supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools
any budget allocated for the early years special educational needs inclusion fund
the early years pupil premium
the disability access fund
any other DSG expenditure on early years

The planned budget information from section 251 will be used to monitor compliance with all the early years funding rules. Further details about the funding rules is available in the early years entitlements operational guide for local authorities.

The early years entitlement information recorded on COLLECT will be output into the early years proforma. The proforma is split into the:

early years single funding formula (EYSFF) for 3 and 4 year olds (for both the universal 15 hours and additional 15 hours)
EYSFF for 2 year olds
special educational needs inclusion fund (SENIF) top-up grant
contingency and centrally retained spending
early years pupil premium
disability access fund

Each section on EYSFF and SEN inclusion fund top-up grant is also split into provider types, giving data for maintained nursery schools, nursery classes and PVI settings.

DfE will publish the early years proforma for each local authority as part of the early years benchmarking information later in the year.

The proforma will make publicly accessible more detailed information on local authorities’ funding for early years. The proforma is intended to increase transparency in local authority funding decisions and enable providers and others to make comparisons between different areas. When completing the return, please provide a comprehensive breakdown as far as possible on base rates, supplements, hours above universal/additional 15 hours and central spend activities. This will enable local authorities, providers and DfE to better understand how local authorities are using their early years budgets.

Question 47

Pass-through rate for 3 and 4-year-old entitlements

Accepted Answer

All local authorities are required to plan to pass-through at least 95% of their 3 and 4-year-old funding from the government to early years providers.

We have included a field at the start of the early years proforma report to show your pass-through rate as you plan your budget. This row is calculated automatically so you can determine compliance and adjust your budget accordingly if needed. You can view the calculated pass-through rate when you download the early years proforma report in COLLECT.

To be compliant, the calculated pass-through rate must be at least 95.0% or more. That is, rounding up 94.9% will not be considered as meeting the requirement. The pass-through rate will be shown to one decimal place in the early years proforma.

The pass-through rate will be published when we publish the early years proforma.

Further details on how this is calculated is included in the early years entitlements operational guide.

Question 48

Early years single funding formula (3 and 4 year olds) base rates per hour by provider type

Accepted Answer

Description

In the description, please state your base rates for provider types you are delivering funded places through for 3 and 4 year olds. Please note all local authorities must use a universal base rate of funding for all providers.

Unit value

The amount entered for base rates must be an hourly rate. The unit value column is not fixed to hourly rate in COLLECT, therefore please make sure only the ‘per hour’ unit is entered.

Number of units

This is the total number of hours you expect to fund in the financial year. This has been split for the universal 15 hours and the additional 15 hours for base rate only (we do not require the number of units to be split between universal and additional 15 hours for the other formula factors). Whilst you should use the same hourly rate (unit value) for universal and additional 15 hours, you need to record the planned government entitlement hours to be delivered separately.

Please note, the total number of hours (for universal 15 hours and additional 15 hours) in the base line rate will be used for calculating the 95% pass-through funding to providers.

The unit value and the number of units is split by provider types:

PVI—include budget for private, voluntary and independent early years providers here, including childminders and academies
nursery school—include budget for maintained nursery schools (MNS) here which is defined in Section 22(9) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, as a nursery school which is maintained by a local education authority and is not a special school (a maintained nursery school is a school which is wholly or mainly used for the education of children aged 2 and over but under compulsory school age)
primary nursery class—include the budget here for maintained primary or secondary schools with nursery classes

Question 49

Supplements

Accepted Answer

Please provide, in written format, a short explanation of your supplement payments.

We expect local authorities to fund their providers in the same way for both the universal 15 hours and additional 15 hours for working parents, and not to distinguish between the two. This means you should use the same base rate and same supplements for both entitlements. For the early years proforma, we do not expect you to record the ‘number of units’ for supplements separately for universal and additional 15 hours. You can include the combined total ‘number of units’ for both sets of hours (we only need the hours recorded separately for the base rate).

We have included the mandatory supplement of deprivation for 3 and 4 year olds and other permitted discretionary early years supplements (quality, flexibility, rurality/sparsity and English as an additional language) in the proforma. Please note the quality supplement should only relate to funding to support workforce qualifications, to support some of the costs for which the Teachers Pay and Pensions Grants were intended and /or system leadership. If you do not use the other permitted supplements, please leave the relevant rows blank. If your EYSFF uses a lump sum factor for maintained nursery schools, please enter in the maintained nursery school (MNS) lump sums funding section (see below, line 3 of the early years table).

Description

In the description, please state what the qualifying criteria are for each of your different supplements. Please include all supplements for each of the factors (adding more lines if necessary). For example, if you have a quality supplement for recognising workforce qualifications or system leadership, and they are different for maintained and PVI provision, please use separate rows for each, with a brief summary of what they are paid for. The proforma is intended to be standalone, so descriptions of supplements should not make reference to other information not contained in the proforma (such as ‘same as school formula factors’).

Amount and unit

In the amount column please record the funding paid to providers and whether this amount is per hour, per child or a lump sum.

Percentage of funding provided through supplements

Please note, under the early years funding reforms, the total value of supplements used must not be more than 12.0% of the total value of planned funding to be passed through to providers for delivering the government entitlement hours. This row is calculated automatically so you can determine compliance on the 12% supplement funding cap. To be compliant, the funding provided through supplements cannot be more than 12%. That is, rounding down 12.4% will not be considered as meeting the requirement. The supplements funding percentage will be shown to 1 decimal place in the early years proforma. You can view the calculated supplements percentage when you download the ‘EY proforma table’ report in COLLECT.

Further details on how this is calculated is included in the early years entitlements operational guide.

Question 50

Maintained nursery school (MNS) lump sums (if applicable)

Accepted Answer

This column is only for maintained nursery schools. If your EYSFF uses a lump sum factor for maintained nursery schools, this should be included here. If you do not have additional lump sum budgets for MNSs, please leave this section blank.

Description

Please provide a brief description of what the MNS lump sums are paid for, adding separate rows if necessary.

Amount and unit

In the amount column please record the funding paid to MNSs and whether this amount is per hour, per child, or a lump sum.

Question 51

Hours above universal/additional 15 hours (if applicable)

Accepted Answer

This column is only for any extra hours that local authorities choose to fund in addition to the government’s 3 and 4-year-old entitlement hours.

Please record the number of hours which are funded over and above the universal/additional 15 hours entitlement for all settings (including maintained and PVIs), making sure to record for the different types of settings in separate lines.

This budget (line 4 of the early years table) will not be counted within the high pass-through rate funding calculation.

Technically, although hours above universal/additional 15 hours for PVI settings are classified as centrally retained funding, for the purposes of this data collection, you should record extra local hours for PVI settings here. In the early years proforma, the extra local hours for PVIs will be shown in the centrally retained spending section for accounting purposes.

Total funding for early years single funding formula (3 and 4-year-old)

This row is calculated automatically.

Question 52

Early years single funding formula (2-year-old) base rates per hour by provider type

Accepted Answer

Description

In the description, please state your base rates for the provider types you are delivering funded places through for 2 year olds.

Amount and unit

Please record here the total number of hours you expect to fund in the financial year for 2 year olds, split by provider type. The unit value entered for base rates must be an hourly rate. The unit value column is not fixed to hourly rate in COLLECT, therefore please make sure only the ‘per hour’ unit is entered.

Question 53

2-year  old supplements

Accepted Answer

Please provide a short explanation of your supplement payments. If you do not use supplements for 2 year olds, leave the relevant rows blank.

Description

In the description, please specify what each of the different supplements are paid for. Please include all supplements for each of the factors, including what the qualifying criteria are for each of your different supplements (adding more lines if necessary). For example, if the supplements differ for different providers, use separate rows for each provider with a brief description of what they are paid for.

Amount and unit

The amount for supplements can either be an hourly rate, a rate per child or a lump sum. In the amount column, please record the funding paid to providers and in the unit column, use the drop-down box to select whether this amount is per hour, per child or a lump sum.

Total funding for early years single funding formula (2 year olds)

This row is calculated automatically.

Question 54

Special educational needs (SEN) inclusion fund (top-up grant element)

Accepted Answer

All local authorities are required to establish an SEN inclusion fund for 3 and 4 year olds. For 2 year olds this is not a requirement, but local authorities may wish to use a similar system. The SEN inclusion fund is to resource and support the needs of individual children with low-level special educational needs.

The SEN inclusion fund can be used in the form of top-up grants to fund providers for supporting children with SEN; or used to support specialist local authority SEN services in the local area.

This column should only be used to record the top-up grant element of SEN inclusion funds paid to providers.

Please note, only the top-up grant element of the SEN inclusion fund will be considered within the high pass-through rate. Therefore, only include the planned budget for the top-up grant element here. Also, since the high pass-through rate only applies to 3 and 4 year olds, only the 3 and 4 year olds SEN inclusion fund top-up grant will be considered for the pass-through calculation. If you plan to use any of the SEN inclusion fund for providing in-kind SEN specialist support to providers, this should be budgeted under central spend (line 9 of the early years table).

Description

SEN inclusion fund should be recorded separately for 3 and 4 year olds and 2 year olds, with a description of what the qualifying criteria are for your local SEN inclusion fund, adding additional rows for different criteria if necessary.

Amount

In the amount column please record the planned budget for the SEN inclusion fund top-up grant to providers, split by provider type. Since local authorities can pool funding from either or both of their early years and high needs DSG funding blocks, please provide a breakdown of the amount set aside for the SEN inclusion fund from the 2 funding blocks – separate rows are included in early years table line 7 to record the amounts allocated from the different blocks.

The budget (line 7a of the early years table) for 3 and 4 year olds only will be counted within the high pass-through rate funding calculation.

Total funding for SEN inclusion fund (top-up grant element)

This row is calculated automatically.

Question 55

Early years contingency funding

Accepted Answer

Please briefly explain what you include in contingency funding for 2, 3 and 4 year olds and the amounts allocated to it. Contingency funding should be recorded separately for 2 year olds and 3 and 4 year olds, with a comprehensive breakdown as far as possible of what the contingency funding is intended to cover (add more lines if necessary).

This expenditure will also need to be included in line 1.3.1 – ‘Central expenditure on early years entitlement’.

Please note, contingency funding for 3 and 4 year olds will be counted within the high pass-through rate for providers.

Question 56

Early years centrally retained funding

Accepted Answer

This is intended to help providers and others understand how centrally retained funding is used by local authorities. This information will produce a national picture on how central early years spend is being used to help improve government-funded early education and support child development. Please briefly explain what elements are included in centrally retained spending and the amounts allocated to each of these.

If any of the SEN inclusion fund is used to provide in-kind specialist support for providers (for example, early years speech and language therapy services), that funding should be recorded here. Please add separate lines to record the support element of the SEN inclusion fund in the central spend budget line (rather than as a lump sum total in centrally retained spend).

Local authorities are required to secure schools forum approval for early years centrally retained spend, and the proforma could usefully include a headline summary of information made available to schools forums to secure this approval.

The proforma will display hours above universal/additional 15 hours in PVIs here, as these are technically centrally retained spending, but on COLLECT, these should be recorded in the hours above universal/additional 15 hours budget line (line 4) along with that for maintained provision.

Centrally retained funding should be recorded separately for 2 year olds and 3 and 4 year olds, with a comprehensive breakdown as far as possible on what the funding is intended to cover (add more lines if necessary).

Total funding for early years central expenditure

This row is calculated automatically.

This expenditure will also need to be included in line 1.3.1 – ‘Central expenditure on children under 5’ in the local authority table.

The total early years centrally retained spending in sections 8 and 9 of the early years proforma should match line 1.3.1 gross in the local authority table.

Question 57

Early years pupil premium

Accepted Answer

Please record your budget allocation for the early years pupil premium (EYPP) for 3 and 4 year olds here. Information relating to how allocation for EYPP is split by provider type is not required.

Please note, that this should be recorded separately from all other early years spend and should be recorded separately from information relating to the deprivation supplement.

Total funding for early years pupil premium

This row is calculated automatically.

Question 58

Disability access fund (DAF)

Accepted Answer

Please record your budget allocation for the DAF for 3 and 4 year olds here. You will only need to record your total planned budget for DAF. Information relating to how allocation for DAF is split by provider type is not required.

Total funding for early years disability access fund

This row is calculated automatically.

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Summary

Expiry or review date

Who this publication is for

Purpose of financial statements

Format and content of statements

Direct payments to academies

FRS17

Submitting the budget statement

Technical help with the COLLECT system

Revised statements

Publishing the budget statement

Main changes for 2023 to 2024

1.2.1 Top-up funding – maintained schools

1.2.2 Top-up funding – academies, free schools and colleges

1.2.12 Carbon reduction commitment allowances (PRUs)

1.7.1 Other specific grants

1.9.1 Estimated dedicated schools grant for 2023 to 2024 (before academy recoupment), excluding high needs place funding for 16 to 19 academies and free schools and FE colleges and independent learning providers

2.4.1 Other specific grants

Percentage of funding provided through supplements

Advice on the regulations and guidance

Notes on completing the local authority table

General principles

Early years column

Primary column

Secondary column

Special schools column

AP/PRUs column

Post-school column

Gross total of all the columns

Income column

Net column

Defining what is chargeable to the schools budget

Schools budget

1.0.1 Individual schools budget (before academy recoupment), including sixth form grant for maintained schools, but excluding high needs place funding

Free entitlements for 2 year olds, and 3 and 4 year olds

1.0.2 High needs place funding within individual schools budget (before academy recoupment), excluding funding for 16-19 academies and free schools and FE colleges and independent learning providers

1.0.1 and 1.0.2

De-delegated Items

1.1.1 Contingencies

1.1.2 Behaviour support services

1.1.3 Support to under-performing pupils from ethnic minority groups and bilingual learners

1.1.4 Free school meals – eligibility

1.1.5 Insurance

1.1.6 Museum and library services

1.1.7 Licences/subscriptions

1.1.8 Staff costs – supply cover (excluding cover for facility time)

1.1.9 Staff costs – supply cover for facility time

High needs budget

1.2.1 Top-up funding – maintained schools

1.2.2 Top-up funding – academies, free schools and colleges

1.2.3 Top-up and other funding – non-maintained and independent providers

1.2.4 Additional high needs targeted funding for mainstream schools and academies

1.2.5 SEN support services

1.2.6 Hospital education services

1.2.7 Other alternative provision services

1.2.8 Support for inclusion

1.2.9 Special schools and PRUs in financial difficulty

1.2.10 PFI/BSF costs at special schools, AP/ PRUs and post-16 institutions only

1.2.11 Direct payments (SEN and disability)

1.2.12 Carbon reduction commitment allowances (PRUs)

1.2.13 Therapies and other health related services

Early years budget

1.3.1 Central expenditure on early years entitlement

Central provision within schools budget

1.4.1 Contribution to combined budgets

1.4.2 School admissions

1.4.3 Servicing of schools forums

1.4.4 Termination of employment costs

1.4.5 Falling rolls fund

1.4.6 Capital expenditure from revenue (CERA)

1.4.7 Prudential borrowing costs

1.4.8 Fees to independent schools without SEN

1.4.9 Equal pay – back pay

1.4.10 Pupil growth

1.4.11 SEN transport

1.4.12 Exceptions agreed by the Secretary of State

1.4.13 Infant class sizes

1.4.14 Other items