PRESS RELEASE : Schools in England to benefit from major funding boost [April 2023]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 26 April 2023.

State schools to receive extra cash in May following additional £2 billion investment.

Every state school in England is to receive a cash boost, as primary and secondary schools are allocated extra funding for the next academic year.

The additional cash is part of a £2 billion injection of new funding for schools – being made in both this year and next year – topping up budgets to help headteachers manage higher costs like energy bills and teacher pay. This sits alongside the Prime Minister’s promise to halve inflation.

A typical primary school will receive approximately £35,000 and a typical secondary school approximately £200,000, with the first payments by the 10th May. The majority of this funding is allocated on a per-pupil basis, and disadvantaged pupils attract additional funding to their school. The allocations also factor in differences in wage costs between areas.

Schools can choose how to invest the extra funding, however it is primarily expected to support salary uplifts for teachers and teaching assistants and help with increased running costs, school trips and learning materials.

The boost means that schools budgets are rising by £3.5 billion next year, and funding will be at the highest ever level in real terms per pupil by the next academic year, as measured by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

It also means school funding is set to rise faster than forecast inflation in both 2023/24 and 2024/25.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said:

I am hugely grateful to all our fantastic teachers, school leaders and support staff for all their incredible work and the immeasurable impact they have on the lives of children every day.

Teachers must continue to have the resources they need, and this extra cash will make sure that they do.

With school funding set to be at its highest ever level next year, even accounting for inflation, parents everywhere can be confident schools are being supported to let teachers get on and do what they do best – teach.

The remainder of the £2 billion funding boost will be used to increase Pupil Premium funding rates, which are rising by 5% in 2023-24, to support disadvantaged pupils and local authorities’ high needs budgets which support special schools.

The Department for Education is also today responding to a consultation on the National Funding Formula (NFF) which is used to allocate school funding, considering a range of factors such as the number of pupils, their needs and the school site.

Among the changes being introduced, and in recognition of falling pupil numbers across some areas of the country, is the removal of a requirement for schools to be Ofsted rated good or outstanding in order to be eligible for additional funding to help manage a significant decline in pupil numbers. Schools will need to show that places will be required within five years.

Councils will also be set expectations around the minimum funding they must provide to support schools seeing a significant increase of pupil numbers. Schools with more than one site will also now receive funding on a consistent national basis to go towards the additional costs they face due to the need to duplicate services, like caretaking, across sites.

The consultation response sets out changes to the formula from 2024-25 and reconfirms the Department’s commitment to move to a ‘direct’ NFF, in which funding for individual schools will be set by a single, national formula – rather than each local authority having its own local formula to allocate funding for individual schools. The changes will make the system fairer, more efficient and predictable.