Guidance

Teachers’ pay additional grant 2023 to 2024: methodology

Updated 14 March 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

In July 2023 we announced £525 million to support schools with the September 2023 teachers’ pay award, with a further £900 million in 2024 to 2025. This funding is being split between mainstream schools, special schools and alternative provision (AP), early years, and 16 to 19 provision. The split reflects relative pupil numbers, and core funding amounts, across these different types of provision.

This guide explains how we will allocate the funding for mainstream schools (for the 5 to 16-year-old age range), and special and AP schools in 2023 to 2024.This funding will be allocated through the teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG).

In 2023 to 2024, funding through TPAG covers the 7 month period from September 2023 to March 2024.

TPAG will continue for the whole of the financial year 2024 to 2025. Allocations for 2024 to 2025 will therefore be calculated using twelve sevenths of the funding rates in 2023 to 2024.

We will pay mainstream academies an additional allocation to cover April to August 2025 because their funding cycle follows the academic year – this will represent five-twelfths of academies’ 2024 to 2025 allocations.

We will publish further details shortly on how we will allocate additional funding for eligible early years providers. Following the 13 July announcement we have published how increases for 16 to 19 funding will be applied.

2. Eligibility for the grant

Mainstream schools

TPAG will fund the following mainstream school providers, for the 5 to 16-year-old age range:

• primary and secondary maintained schools
• primary and secondary academies and free schools
• all-through maintained schools
• all-through academies
• city technology colleges

Special schools and AP schools

TPAG will fund the following special schools and AP schools:

• maintained special schools
• special academies and free schools
• pupil referral units (PRUs) maintained by a local authority (pre-16 provision only)
• AP academies and free schools (pre-16 provision only)
• maintained hospital schools and the equivalent academies
• non-maintained special schools (NMSS)

3. Paying the grant

In 2023 to 2024 we will pay TPAG for September 2023 to March 2024.

For the 2024 to 2025 financial year, we will pay TPAG as a separate grant to cover the whole of that financial year.

Mainstream schools

We will pay the grant in:

• October 2023 for local authorities
• November 2023 for academies

Schools will receive one payment to cover the 2023 to 2024 financial year. New and growing schools will receive their TPAG payment later in the financial year as explained in the new and growing schools section.

We have published school level allocations of the mainstream schools’ portion of TPAG for the 2023 to 2024 financial year.

We will pay the funding:

• for maintained mainstream schools to local authorities, who will be required to pay it to individual schools at the published rates
• at the published rates directly to mainstream academies

We will continue to pay this additional funding as a separate grant for mainstream schools in 2024 to 2025. We aim to incorporate the grant into core budget allocations for 2025 to 2026 as part of the schools national funding formula.

We will pay mainstream academies an additional allocation of TPAG to cover April to August 2025 because their funding cycle follows the academic year. This payment will cover the period before we move the grant into academies’ core budget allocations through the national funding formula. We will allocate this using the same rates and pupil numbers as the 2024 to 2025 allocation grant and it will, therefore, represent five-twelfths of their 2024 to 2025 allocations. This is the same approach we will take for the mainstream schools additional grant (MSAG) in 2024 to 2025.

Special schools and AP schools

Local authorities will receive 2 payments for their special schools and AP schools in 2023 to 2024.

We will confirm local authorities’ first allocations of TPAG funding for special schools and AP schools in August 2023. This allocation will be based on place numbers as reported to ESFA by July 2023. This first payment will be made to local authorities in October 2023.

Local authorities will receive a second allocation of TPAG funding for special schools and AP schools in March 2024, using updated place number data as set out in the allocations section.

We will allocate funding for local authorities to pass onto individual schools as listed in the eligibility section, except for NMSS who will be funded directly by ESFA.

Local authorities will have flexibility in how they pass on the funding allocations for special schools and AP schools to individual providers. This flexibility recognises that the teachers’ pay costs faced by special schools and AP schools vary considerably between individual providers, depending in part on the complexity of the pupil needs that they serve. Local authorities must however comply with the following requirements in setting their local methodologies for how they will pass on the additional funding to schools they currently maintain, academies they previously maintained and free schools located in their area.

Local authorities must, except for NMSS:

• pass on 100% of TPAG funding to individual schools as listed in the eligibility section
• ensure that all eligible schools receive a funding allocation through TPAG in 2023 to 2024
• have transparent criteria to distribute funding to individual schools, treating academies and mainstream schools the same
• consult with eligible schools before deciding their methodology for allocating TPAG funding

As local authorities will already know place numbers for the 2023 to 2024 academic year, they should seek to swiftly confirm the allocations for individual special schools and AP schools to provide institutions with the earliest possible certainty over their budgets.

We will continue to pay this additional funding as a separate grant for special and AP schools until 2024 to 2025. We aim to incorporate the grant into allocations for 2025 to 2026 as part of the high needs national funding formula.

4. Funding rates

2023 to 2024 financial year

Mainstream schools

We have based the TPAG funding rates on factors used in the MSAG for 2023 to 2024:

• a basic per-pupil rate with different rates for primary, key stage 3 and key stage 4
• a lump sum paid to all schools, regardless of pupil numbers
• a per-pupil rate for pupils who are recorded as having been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years (FSM6), with different rates for primary and secondary pupils

We apply an area cost adjustment (ACA) to the funding rates in table 1 because of geographical variation in labour costs. We have used the same ACAs as the schools national funding formula for 2023 to 2024 and we have published them in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula: technical note.

We will multiply the base funding rates in table 1 by the relevant ACA to calculate the school level allocations.

Table 1

The base funding rates for 2023 to 2024 financial year are:

• a basic per-pupil rate of £36 for primary pupils, including pupils in reception
• a basic per-pupil rate of £50 for key stage 3 pupils
• a basic per-pupil rate of £57 for key stage 4 pupils
• a lump sum of £1,345
• an FSM6 per-pupil rate of £31 per eligible primary pupil
• an FSM6 per-pupil rate of £45 per eligible secondary pupil

Special schools and AP schools

The funding rate for 2023 to 2024 financial year is £260 per place.

We apply an ACA to the funding rate because of geographical variation in labour costs. We have used the same ACAs as for the high needs national funding formula for 2023 to 2024 and we have published them in the area cost adjustment for national funding formula: technical note.

2024 to 2025 financial year

TPAG will continue as a separate grant for both mainstream schools and special schools and AP schools in 2024 to 2025.

We will calculate funding allocations using twelve-sevenths of the funding rates set out above. This is because TPAG for the 2024 to 2025 financial year is for the whole of the financial year.

We will use the updated schools and high needs ACAs for 2024 to 2025 when we calculate allocations and will publish further information on TPAG for 2024 to 2025 before we issue allocations.

5. Allocations

Mainstream schools

We have published school level allocations showing the total funding allocated for the 2023 to 2024 financial year and the conditions of grant.

We have calculated allocations by multiplying the relevant funding rates by the pupil count, and FSM6 pupil count, using data from the October 2022 census. The allocations also include the lump sum amount. We have applied ACAs to the funding rates.

We have used the same data sources as used to calculate the MSAG in 2023 to 2024. This means that we have calculated published allocations based on the school estate in April 2023. We will use different pupil data for new and growing mainstream schools as explained in the new and growing schools section.

We will pro-rata allocations for schools which are closing in the 2023 to 2024 financial year for the proportion of the year that they are open.

Special schools and AP schools

We will publish the first local authority level allocations and the TPAG conditions of grant relating to special schools and AP schools in August 2023.

We will calculate local authority level allocations by multiplying the per place funding rate (with ACA applied) by the confirmed place numbers for all the eligible schools at the time of this announcement, except for NMSS.

For the first allocation to local authorities we will use 2023 to 2024 academic year place numbers for special and AP academies (as provided in July 2023), and 2022 to 2023 financial year place numbers for maintained special schools and pupil referral units (as reported in 2022 section 251 budget returns).

ESFA will allocate funding directly to NMSS. ESFA calculates this funding by multiplying the per place funding rate (with the relevant ACA applied) by the number of places funded for the 2023 to 2024 academic year as confirmed to ESFA by July 2023.

We will publish the second local authority level allocations for the special schools and AP in March 2024. For this second allocation we will use 2023 to 2024 financial year place numbers for maintained special and AP schools (which were not available at the time of the first allocation), as well as updated data on 2023 to 2024 place numbers for academies and new special and AP free schools (as covered in the section below).

ESFA will allocate any additional funding for new places in non-maintained special schools directly. ESFA calculates this funding by multiplying the per place funding rate (with the relevant ACA applied) by the number of additional places opened between the time of this announcement and March 2024.

6. New and growing schools

Mainstream schools that have opened in the past 7 years and are still adding year groups in the 2023 to 2024 academic year

We will fund these schools based on their pupil numbers in the October 2023 census and so will confirm allocations in February 2024.

To help these schools with budget planning, we have published indicative TPAG school level allocations in July 2023, using pupil data from their local authority’s 2023 to 2024 authority proforma tool (APT). The February 2024 allocations for these schools will be different because they will use more recent pupil data.

Mainstream schools opening in September 2023

For mainstream schools that open in September 2023, we will confirm TPAG allocations in February 2024. We will calculate their allocations using pupil number data from the October 2023 census.

We have not published indicative funding allocations for these schools because school leaders can estimate their funding levels using the published per pupil funding rates.

New special and AP free schools that open between October 2023 and March 2024.

Any new special and AP free schools that opened before July 2023 had their 2023 to 2024 academic year place numbers included ESFA published data which we used to base the TPAG allocations for financial year 2023 to 2024.

Funding for any new special and AP free schools opening between July 2023 and February 2024 will be included in the second TPAG allocation to be made in March 2024. Local authorities will be aware of those special and AP free schools opening in their area and will wish to take them into account in consultations and decisions about the distribution of TPAG funding.

7. Contact us

If you have any questions after reading this guidance, please contact our customer service team.