School budgets

We're required under section 52 of the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998 to prepare and submit an education budget statement no later than 31 March each year for the prescribed period to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. The prescribed period for the last budget statement covers 2008-2009 to 2010-2011.

View the financial statements

You can view the financial statements for our schools dating back to the 2008-2009 financial year.

View our school financial statements

Purpose of financial statements

It's a statutory duty that local authorities must publish their budget statements as of and when prescribed by section 52 and section 230 Regulations.

The size of the School's Budget and the amounts to be allocated to each factor depend on budget decisions taken by the local authority before the prescribed period, so budget statements are the means of informing schools and the public in general about the funding plans of the local authorities. The 'Scheme for financing schools' provides more information.

Scheme for financing schools

What information schools receive

The copy of the statement that schools receive for that period is intended to provide a clear picture of our planned spending, including:

• How much we intend to spend on the local authority budget outside the Schools Budget
• How much we propose to retain centrally within the Schools Budget for school services
• How the local formula is working to produce budget shares for each school in our area

It's important that the school's forums and others can compare funding and methodology between different local authorities, so as to inform the debate about budget levels and such issues as the balance of funding between nursery, primary, secondary and special schools. It's therefore essential that all statements are prepared to a common format.

Content of financial statements

Budget statements must be presented in 8 parts, giving the following information for the year in question:

1. The Schools Budget summary table: this provides an account of the main sources of funding available to local authorities for their schools and any additional funding provided by the local authority.
2. Table 1 - this table provides an overall picture of the funding being allocated directly to schools, the amount being spent on education centrally and the amount being spent on children’s services provision.
3. Central Expenditure Limit Annex to Table 1 - this table is designed to demonstrate that the local authority is complying with the limit on increases in central expenditure within the Schools Budget.
4. Youth Service Expenditure Annex to Table 1 - this table provides a breakdown of the local authority’s planned expenditure on its Youth Service.
5. Early Years Summary Annex to Table 1 - this is a new table that provides details of the local authority's planned expenditure of how the free entitlement for early education for 3 and 4-year-old funding is allocated.
6. Table 2: School-level information summary - this table is linked to Table 3. It summarises the main formula funding elements and lists the budget share for each pupil or place share in each school. 
7. Table 3a: Detailed School level information - this table shows in detail how the local authority's formula (described in Table 4) has been applied to each school to calculate its budget share, including all the relevant factors and lump sums, and the numbers of pupils in each school year used to allocate pupil-led funding. 
8. Table 4: Funding Factors - we're required to set out the detail of every formula factor.  Each school must be able to relate its own budget share back to the items set out in this part. We must, therefore, include a complete list of all the factors and values in the formula and details of the funds allocated across all schools according to each factor.