PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Pupils: Essex (5 March 2019)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the funding per pupil at (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in (i) Brentwood and Ongar constituency and (ii) Essex in (A) 2016-17, (B) 2017-18, (C) 2018-19, (D) 2019-20 and (E) 2020-21.

Asked by:
Alex Burghart (Conservative)

The table below shows the per pupil funding allocated to Essex through the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for 2018/19 to 2019/20:

	Primary	Secondary	Total schools block allocation
2018/19	£3,777	£4,976	£837.9 million
2019/20	£3,843	£5,018	£855.8 million

Prior to 2018/19 schools block allocations were not calculated at phase level. The table below shows the total and per pupil schools block funding that Essex received in 2016/17 and 2017/18.

	Per pupil	Total schools block allocation
2016/17	£4,392	£814.7 million
2017/18	£4,347	£819.5 million

Since 2018/19, schools block allocations have been calculated through the national funding formula (NFF), based on individual schools’ characteristics. The following table outlines notional NFF allocations per pupil for Brentwood and Ongar schools in 2018/19 and 2019/20. These figures include the premises and mobility factors so are not directly comparable to the local authority figures provided above. Constituency level per pupil funding data prior to this is not held centrally.

	Primary per pupil	Secondary per pupil
2018/19	£3,821	£4,871
2019/20	£3,892	£4,886

The Department is unable to provide figures for 2020/21 as spending plans beyond 2019/20 will be set at the next Spending Review and these decisions cannot be pre-empted.

In addition to funding through the schools block of the DSG, schools also receive funding from separate funding streams and additional grants, such as the high needs blocks of the DSG and the Pupil Premium.

To provide stability for schools, local authorities will continue to be responsible for designing the distribution of funding in their areas in 2018/19 through to 2020/21. Because of this, the actual amount that schools receive may be different to the amount they are attracting through the national funding formula. Local authorities set their local formula in consultation with schools.

Answered by:
Nick Gibb (Conservative)
11 March 2019