Correspondence

ESFA Update local authorities: 6 November 2024

Published 6 November 2024

Applies to England

Information: Summary policy note for schools and high needs national funding formula 2025 to 2026

The Budget announced an additional £2.3 billion for mainstream schools and young people with high needs in 2025 to 2026. This means that core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next financial year.

The Department for Education (DfE) is now in the process of calculating the schools and high needs national funding formula (NFF) for 2025 to 2026, to inform local authorities and schools of the funding they can expect to receive next year. We expect to publish the final NFF allocations and full schools operational guide by the end of November.

We have published an NFF policy note to support the sector with their planning ahead of the final NFF allocations. This document includes indicative schools NFF factor values, alongside information on the mainstream schools, high needs, and central school services funding for 2025 to 2026. It also includes details on the grants being rolled into the schools NFF from 2025 to 2026.

Information: The new financial benchmarking and insights tool is live

The new financial benchmarking and insights Tool (FBIT) is now live.

Thanks to sector feedback, the new tool replaces the ‘View my financial insights’ and the ‘Schools financial benchmarking’ website, combining the best elements of the two.

FBIT can be used by anyone working in a role relating to school resource management to:

• benchmark a school’s spending against other similar schools
• identify areas for improvement and share best practice with other schools
• produce a workforce deployment plan using our curriculum and financial planning tool
• easily access commercial resources, guidance and frameworks provided by the DfE
• build a report to share analysis with governors, trustees and senior leadership

The newest financial spend data for local authority-maintained schools has been released on the FBIT, relating to the 2023 to 2024 financial year.

The service has also been launched with a further 3 years of historic data, so schools can see trends in spending from launch.

Information: Updated high needs benchmarking tool

We have published an updated high needs benchmarking tool.

Local authorities can use this tool to assess levels of spend and pattern of provision against neighbouring local authorities (both geographically and statistically) and national trends.

Analysis of this data can help inform local authorities’ future plans around special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision and services, and prompt local discussion on how current spending patterns might need to change.

The tool now includes updated section 251 data (2022 to 2023 outturn and 2023 to 2024 budget) and special educational needs (SEN) data for January 2024. We have also removed data for 2017 to 2018.

If you have any questions, contact us using the customer help portal.

Reminder: 2025 to 2026 high needs place change process closes on Friday 8 November 2024

This is a reminder that the high needs place change process for 2025 to 2026 academic year closes on Friday 8 November 2024.

This process can be used to notify us of changes to high needs place numbers in ESFA-funded schools and colleges for the 2025 to 2026 academic year. In most cases, if no change is requested, the 2024 to 2025 academic year place numbers will be used.   

We have published guidance on the high needs place change process and how to complete the place change workbook.

You can also make requests for changes to hospital education funding through the workbook. The hospital education funding guidance explains the criteria for this. 

Your feedback: Tell us about your experience of our funding service

If you receive Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding, we want to hear about your experience of our service. Please complete this short survey by Friday 29 November 2024. It should take you 5 to 10 minutes to complete. 

We aspire to run an excellent education and skills funding service that gives providers as much certainty as possible. The survey asks whether we deliver:

• certainty on what we pay you and when
• clarity on how to comply with funding rules
• services that are accessible and easy to use
• answers when you have funding-related queries

We will keep your personal data confidential, and your feedback will help us to improve the service.

Webinar: Risk protection arrangements (RPA) Members only – flood / storm (resilience)

Thursday 21 November 2024, 10am to midday – Register online.

Webinar: Introduction to the financial benchmarking and insights tool

Various dates and times throughout November and early December: Register on Eventbrite.