The Department meets regularly with trade unions to discuss a wide range of issues, including school funding.

The November 2022 Autumn Statement announced additional funding of £2 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25, over and above totals announced at the 2021 Spending Review, and matching what unions told us was needed in their open letter last year.

The Department recognises that inflation continues to impact schools, as it does in other sectors. In July 2023, the Department announced an additional £525 million this year to support schools with the teachers’ pay award, and £900 million in 2024/25.

This means funding for mainstream schools and high needs is over £3.9 billion higher in 2023/24 alone, compared to 2022/23, in addition to a £4 billion cash increase last year. That’s a 16% increase in two years. Next year, school funding will be more than £59.6 billion, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil, as measured by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The Department recognises teachers’ invaluable work in shaping future generations. This is why last year teachers were given the highest pay award in 30 years, up to 8.9% for new teachers, alongside a 5% award for experienced teachers and headteachers.

Looking to the next academic year, pay rises for teachers in 2023/24 must strike a careful balance between recruiting and retaining the best teachers and recognising their vital importance, alongside considering both affordability for schools and the wider economic context. On 21 February 2023, the Department published its written evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body, giving its views and inputs to help them form their recommendations for teachers’ pay this year.

The Government provided funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, including the additional funding announced at the Autumn Statement 2022, which is £3.5 billion higher in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. This will total £58.8 billion in 2024/25, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil. The Government provided these increases to school revenue budgets so that schools can cover cost increases in the year ahead, including teacher pay.

The Department knows challenges to recruitment and retention vary from subject to subject based on the demand in each area. Therefore, in addition to pay, there are several measures in place to tackle this, including: bursaries worth up to £27,000; scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key subjects such as chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics; £20,000 tax-free bursary for biology trainees in 2023/24; reintroduction of a £15,000 tax-free bursary for English trainees in 2023/24 and a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 tax-free for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools.

The Government’s education reforms gave schools freedom to make their own decisions about budgets. For most staff, including teaching assistants, schools have the freedom to recruit according to their own circumstances and set pay and conditions.

Many schools pay teaching assistants according to Local Government pay scales. These are set through negotiations between the Local Government Association, which represents the employer, and Local Government trade unions (UNISON, Unite, and the GMB), which represent the employee. Central Government does not have any formal role in these matters.

The Department recognises the cost pressures that some schools and suppliers may be facing. The Department is holding regular meetings with other Government Departments and with food industry representatives, covering a variety of issues including public sector food supplies.

Following the 2022 Autumn Statement, schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. The core schools’ budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including schools’ energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals (FSM), has risen from £49.8 billion in 2021/22 to £53.8 billion in 2022/23 and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25. By 2024/25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. These increases provide support to schools to deal with the impact of inflation on their budgets.

The Department is continuing to review funding to ensure that schools continue to be able to provide healthy and nutritious meals in schools. The funding for the FSM factor is increasing by 2.4% for 2023/24, in line with the latest available Gross Domestic Product deflator forecast when the National Funding Formula was published in July 2022.

Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) are funded through a direct grant to schools. In June 2022, the Government announced an increase to the per pupil meal rate in UIFSM to £2.41. This was backdated, recognising the cost pressures schools and some suppliers may be experiencing.

The standards for school food are set out in the requirements for school food regulations 2014 and are designed to ensure that schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need throughout the school day. Schools also have flexibility under the Standards to substitute food and regularly update and change menus. They may make changes if ingredients or meals are not readily available.

Schools are responsible for the provision of school meals and most contract with private sector caterers to manage this on their behalf. It is for schools and caterers to decide what is an appropriate portion and to balance the food served across the school week. Guidance to accompany the School Food Standards includes guidance on portion sizes and food groups.

The Department recognises the cost pressures that some schools and suppliers may be facing. The Department is holding regular meetings with other Government Departments and with food industry representatives, covering a variety of issues including public sector food supplies.

Following the 2022 Autumn Statement, schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. The core schools’ budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including schools’ energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals (FSM), has risen from £49.8 billion in 2021/22 to £53.8 billion in 2022/23 and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25. By 2024/25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. These increases provide support to schools to deal with the impact of inflation on their budgets.

The Department is continuing to review funding to ensure that schools continue to be able to provide healthy and nutritious meals in schools. The funding for the FSM factor is increasing by 2.4% for 2023/24, in line with the latest available Gross Domestic Product deflator forecast when the National Funding Formula was published in July 2022.

Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) are funded through a direct grant to schools. In June 2022, the Government announced an increase to the per pupil meal rate in UIFSM to £2.41. This was backdated, recognising the cost pressures schools and some suppliers may be experiencing.

The standards for school food are set out in the requirements for school food regulations 2014 and are designed to ensure that schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need throughout the school day. Schools also have flexibility under the Standards to substitute food and regularly update and change menus. They may make changes if ingredients or meals are not readily available.

Schools are responsible for the provision of school meals and most contract with private sector caterers to manage this on their behalf. It is for schools and caterers to decide what is an appropriate portion and to balance the food served across the school week. Guidance to accompany the School Food Standards includes guidance on portion sizes and food groups.

The Government and the education trade unions, the Association of School and College Leaders, National Association of Head Teachers, NASUWT and the National Education Union (NEU), took part in a period of intensive talks between 17 March and 23 March 2023, when an in principle offer was made by the Government. This offer comprised a package of pay and non-pay related measures.

The offer included an average consolidated pay increase over this year and next year that is over 10%, with 5.4% this year compounded by the 4.5% offered for next, as well as a non-consolidated additional £1,000 for this year. The pay offer was above the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast for inflation at the end of this calendar year, which is 2.9%, with inflation forecast to fall further in 2024. The Government also committed to increasing the starting salary for new teachers by 7.1% to £30,000.

It is disappointing that the education trade unions have rejected this offer, which was fully funded. The issue of teacher pay will now revert to the independent pay review body, the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), who will put forward its recommendation for what teachers’ pay for next year should be. It is hoped that the independent process will break the deadlock and lead to a resolution as soon as possible. As usual, it will not look at any changes to the pay award for this year, 2022/23.

The Department will continue to engage regularly with teaching and leadership unions on policy developments as usual.

NEU has also announced further strikes on 27 April and 2 May. These strikes will only cause further disruption for students and parents, at a crucial period in the school calendar when many students will be preparing for important exams which will affect their long-term prospects.

Schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years as a result of the 2022 Autumn Statement. The core schools budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including schools’ energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals, has risen from £49.8 billion in 2021/22 to £53.8 billion in 2022/23 and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25. By 2024/25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. These increases provide support to schools to deal with the effects of inflation on their budgets.

In September 2022, the Government announced unprecedented support to protect households and businesses from high energy prices. The Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Discount Scheme, the successor to the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, are supporting millions of households and businesses.

The Department is clear that school uniforms should be affordable. No school uniform should be so expensive that pupils or their families feel unable to apply to or attend a school of their choice. In November 2021, the Department issued statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms to ensure the cost of school uniforms is reasonable. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms/cost-of-school-uniforms. Governing boards should be compliant with much of the guidance by September 2022 and fully compliant by summer 2023.

The Government has announced further support, worth £26 billion, for next year. This is designed to target the most vulnerable households and families. This is on top of the £37 billion cost of living support provided by the Government this year.

The 2022 Autumn Statement announced significant additional investment in schools. The core schools budget will increase by £2 billion in both 2023/24 and 2024/25. This is over and above totals announced at Spending Review 2021. This year, schools' funding is £4 billion higher than last year, rising by another £3.5 billion in 2023. Taken together, that means a 15% increase in funding in two years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that this additional funding will fully cover expected increases in school costs up to 2024, and will take per pupil spending back to at least 2010 levels in real terms.

The additional funding will enable head teachers to continue to concentrate funding in the areas that the Department knows has a positive effect on educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the children who need it most, as well as help schools to manage higher costs, including higher energy bills and staff pay awards

The Department also provides a range of school resource management tools, designed to help schools get the best value from their resources, and help direct funding towards improving outcomes for their pupils.

The Department understands that each school’s circumstances are different. Where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their Local Authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

The Department continues to monitor the consequences of the rising cost of living and is working with other Government Departments to provide support. The Department will continue to keep free school meal (FSM) eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them. In setting a threshold, the Government believes that the current level, which enables children to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one.

The latest published statistics show that around 1.9 million pupils are claiming benefits-related FSM. This equates to 22.5% of all pupils, up from 20.8% in 2021. Together with a further 1.25 million infants supported through the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy, 37.5% of school children are now provided with FSM.

The Department is in regular communication with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on all matters related to schools. The Chancellor announced in the 2022 Autumn Statement that core schools funding will increase by net £2 billion in 2023/24 and 2024/25. This increase in funding, on top of the funding awards previously announced at the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, means total schools funding will increase by 15% between 2021/22 and 2023/24 from £49.8 billion to £57.3 billion, nationally. These increases will deliver additional support to schools, helping to deliver on the Government’s commitment to levelling up education across the country.

Schools are also being supporting with energy costs over the winter months. From October 2022 to 31 March 2023, schools will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This will provide a price reduction to protect them from high energy bills over the winter period.

The Government is prioritising further funding for schools. The 2022 Autumn Statement has provided an additional increase in the core schools budget, including funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, of £2.3 billion in both 2023/24 and 2024/25. After adjusting to take account of the removal of the compensation for employer costs of the Health and Social Care Levy, this brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in 2024/25, £2 billion greater than published at the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021.

Schools' funding is £4 billion higher this year than last year. It will rise by another £3.5 billion, on top of that, next year. This means a 15% increase in funding in two years. This significant increase in funding will help schools to meet increased pay awards for both teaching and non-teaching staff, wider inflationary costs such as energy costs, and enable schools to meet their White Paper commitments, including the minimum 32.5-hour school week.

These increases will deliver significant additional support to pupils and teachers, helping to deliver on the Government’s commitment to level-up education across the country.

The Department knows that every school’s circumstances are different. If schools are in serious financial difficulty, the Department encourages them to contact their Local Authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency, who can provide advice and, in exceptional circumstances, financial support.

Schools pay for the provision of Free School Meals (FSM) from their core funding allocations. Overall, core schools funding, including funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, is increasing by £4 billion in 2022/23 compared to the previous year. This is a 7% increase in cash terms per pupil.

The core allocations that schools attract through the National Funding Formula (NFF) include funding in respect of Free School Meals. This is intended to broadly reflect the costs schools face in providing school meals. Following extensive consultation when the NFF was first introduced, schools attracted £440 per pupil through Free School Meals in 2018/19 and 2019/20. Each year, we set the NFF factor values to be used in the forthcoming funding year. Since the introduction of the NFF, the per pupil FSM rate has increased in line with forecast inflation in every year, as measured by the latest GDP deflator at the time.

The FSM factor is worth £470 per eligible pupil in 2022/23. This will increase to £480 in 2023/24. The factor values for each year are published on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for-schools-and-high-needs. In reviewing future FSM rates, many factors will be taken into consideration, including cost of living pressures and inflation.

The Department also spends around £600 million on Universal Infant Free School Meals each year. The per meal rate has been increased from £2.34 to £2.41, and backdated to 1 April 2022, in recognition of increased costs.

The Department continues to keep FSM eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them.

The Department’s home-to-school transport policy aims to ensure that no child is unable to access education because of a lack of transport. Local authorities must provide free home-to-school transport for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school and cannot walk there due to distance, route safety, or as a result of special educational needs, disability or mobility problems. There are additional rights to free transport for low-income families aimed at helping them exercise school choice. These are known as extended rights. Guidance for local authorities on home-to-school transport is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance.

Local authorities must also publish a transport policy statement each year that sets out the travel arrangements they consider it necessary to make to support young people of sixth form age to attend post-16 education or training. It is for local authorities to decide on the exact level of post-16 transport support in their area, based on local circumstances and priorities. Some young people may be eligible for support from the 16-19 Bursary Fund. Further information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/1619-bursary-fund.

Most central government funding for home to school transport is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) administered by the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities. The LGFS made £54.1 billion available to local authorities in the financial year 2022/23, an increase of up to £3.7 billion on 2021/22. This is the largest cash-terms increase in grant funding provided through the settlement in the past 10 years. The Department also provides grant funding to local authorities as a contribution towards the cost of extended rights transport. This amount is £43.3 million in the 2022/23 financial year.

Since its introduction in 2011, the Pupil Premium has provided additional funding for state-funded schools in England to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. Pupil Premium funding rates are increasing by 2.7% in the 2022/23 financial year, taking total pupil premium funding to over £2.6 billion. Rates for the 2023/24 financial year will be announced in due course.

In addition, £1 billion of recovery premium funding is being provided to state funded schools across the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years, to deliver evidence based approaches to support educational recovery of disadvantaged pupils.

To give pupils access to the best evidenced support with this funding, the Department has re-endowed the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) with £137 million. Building on their work over the past decade, the EEF will use this funding to build the Department’s understanding of what works to raise disadvantaged pupils’ attainment. From the start of the 2022/23 academic year, schools must use their funding in line with the Department’s published ‘menu of approaches’, which draws on EEF evidence to ensure they are focused on raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.

Since the introduction of Pupil Premium in 2011, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers generally narrowed until 2019, before the disruption to education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the widening of the gap. The Department is committed to helping schools achieve the best possible outcomes for this funding by ensuring approaches are rooted in evidence of effective practice. The Department constantly reviews and assesses the effectiveness of the Pupil Premium to make sure it is supporting pupils facing the most disadvantage.

Teachers’ pay is based on recommendations from the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). Before making their recommendations, the STRB considers evidence from all of its statutory consultees, including economic and financial data from the Government.