Core schools budget grant (CSBG) 2025 to 2026 for special schools and alternative provision
Allocations and guidance for schools and local authorities for the core schools budget grant (CSBG) for 2025 to 2026
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This guidance is for:
- local authorities
- special school and alternative provision (AP) leaders, governing bodies and their representatives
It relates to local authorities, their maintained special schools and pupil referral units, special and AP academies (including free schools), non-maintained special schools, independent special schools, hospital schools and other providers of hospital education.
The 2025 to 2026 CSBG totalling about £480 million will provide special schools and AP schools with a continuation of:
- the 2024 to 2025 teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG)
- the 2024 to 2025 teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) and
- the 2024 to 2025 CSBG
This funding is combined into a single CSBG for special schools and AP for 2025 to 2026, covering all the above, and will continue to support these schools in meeting the additional staff costs arising from the teachers’ pay awards in 2023 and 2024, and the teachers pension employer contribution increase and support staff pay increase from April 2024.
Methodology
This document sets out information on how we will calculate and allocate 2025 to 2026 CSBG funding for special and AP schools, including how local authorities will be required, under the conditions of grant, to pass that funding on to those schools.
The equivalent previous grant funding for mainstream primary, secondary and all through schools has been incorporated into core budget allocations for 2025 to 2026, by being rolled into the schools national funding formula for that year.