Today, my Department has published provisional schools and high needs funding allocations for 2023-24, helping schools to plan their future funding.

We remain firmly committed to delivering a world class education system for every child, regardless of where they live or their personal circumstances. To achieve this, we are continuing to provide year-on-year increases to school funding, so that the total core school budget, for England, will rise to £56.8 billion by 2024-25; a £7 billion cash increase compared with 2021-22. This investment will give schools the resources they need to raise attainment, provide the right support to all pupils and students, increase teacher pay, and continue to rise to the challenges of Covid response and recovery.

Overall, core schools funding is increasing by £1.5 billion in 2023-24, building on the £4 billion increase we have provided this year. You can find the full provisional national funding formula allocations for each local authority at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tab….

Schools’ national funding formula allocations will also be available to view on a user-friendly tool today: https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/national-funding-formula/
You can also find out what this means for your constituency by using the attached spreadsheet. This allows you to see the increases that mainstream schools in your constituency area are attracting – demonstrating how this investment benefits all schools across the country.

Funding for mainstream schools through the schools national funding formula is increasing by 1.9% per pupil compared to 2022-23. Taken together with the funding increases seen in 2022-23, this means that funding through the schools national funding formula will be 7.9% higher per pupil in 2023-24, compared to 2021-22. The formula will distribute this funding based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. The main features in 2023-24 are:

• The core factors in the formula (such as basic per-pupil funding, and the lump sum that all schools attract) will increase by 2.4%.
• Funding that is targeted to disadvantaged pupils will see greater increases – with funding for two deprivation factors in the formula increasing by 4.3% compared to their 2022-23 values. This targets additional funding by the number of pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point over the last six years, and by the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) factor which measures the relative deprivation between local areas.
• The funding floor will ensure that every school attracts at least 0.5% more pupil-led funding per pupil compared to its 2022-23 national funding formula allocation, regardless of its circumstances.
• The minimum per pupil funding levels will increase by 0.5% compared to 2022-23. This will mean that, next year, every primary school will receive at least £4,405 per pupil, and every secondary school at least £5,715.

In 2022-23, alongside the national funding formula, we provided a schools supplementary grant, worth £1.2 billion, to help schools meet the costs of the Health and Social Care levy, and other cost pressures. This has now been rolled into the schools national funding formula, ensuring that this additional funding forms part of schools’ core budgets, securing this support in future years.

As a result of these decisions, we will be targeting a greater proportion of the schools national funding formula towards deprived pupils than ever before: 9.8% of the formula will be allocated through deprivation factors in 2023-24. This will help schools in their vital work to close attainment gaps and level up educational opportunities. In 2023-24, the schools serving the most deprived communities will, on average, attract the largest per-pupil funding increases.

High needs funding – support for children with the most severe special educational needs and disabilities – is increasing by a further £570 million, or 6.3%, in 2023-24 – on top of the £2.6 billion increase over the last three years. This brings the total high needs budget to over £9.7 billion. All local authorities will receive at least a 5% increase per head of their 2-18 population, compared to their 2022-23 allocations, with some authorities seeing gains of up to 7%. Alongside our continued investment in high needs, the Government remains committed to ensuring a financially sustainable system where resources are effectively targeted to need. The consultation on the Special Educational Needs and Alternative Provision Green Paper closes on 22 July, and the Government will confirm the next steps in implementing our reform programme later this year.

In 2023-24 local authorities will continue to be responsible for setting funding formulae to determine the distribution of national funding formula allocations to schools. However, it will also be our first year of transition to the “direct” schools national funding formula, as we ensure full fairness and consistency in funding by funding every mainstream school in England through the same national formula, without adjustment through local funding formulae. In 2023-24, local authorities will be required to move their local funding formulae at least 10% closer to the national funding formula, unless their local formula “mirrors” the national formula, as 74 authorities have already chosen to do. We have published an analysis of the impact of this movement of local funding formulae towards the national funding formula in the policy document available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for….

The Barnett formula has been applied in the normal way at Spending Review 2021 so the funding increase for schools in 2023-24 is already reflected in the Devolved Administrations’ Barnett-based block grant funding.

Yours sincerely,

Rt Hon James Cleverly MP
Secretary of State for Education