Core schools budget grant (CSBG) 2025 to 2026 for special schools, special post-16 institutions and alternative provision
Guidance for local authorities, schools and colleges on the core schools budget grant (CSBG) for 2025 to 2026. CSBG allocations and conditions of grant will be published here in due course.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This guidance is for:
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local authorities
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special school and alternative provision (AP) governing bodies and their representatives
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leaders and their representatives of special post-16 institutions and independent training/learning providers with high needs placements
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, special post-16 institutions (SPIs) and independent training/learning providers (ITPs/ILPs) who make provision for students with high needs.
The 2025 to 2026 CSBG will total about £605 million. This comprises:
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£480 million to 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.
- £125 million to reflect the additional costs of the employer national insurance contributions (NICs) increase that employers will face from April 2025.
Methodology
This document sets out information on how we will calculate and allocate 2025 to 2026 CSBG funding for local authorities, including how local authorities will be required, under the conditions of grant, to pass that funding on to eligible settings. This includes information on how funding for NICs costs will be allocated.
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.
Conditions of grant
We expect to publish the conditions of grant for this grant in May 2025, alongside allocations.
Allocations
We expect to publish allocations in May 2025, for payments in May and September 2025, with updated allocations and final payments in March 2026.
Updates to this page
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We have updated the page and methodology to include information on National Insurance contributions, which sets out the block of funding included in the 2025 to 2026 CSBG to support high needs providers with the additional costs of the employer National Insurance contributions increase from April 2025.
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First published.