LA and school expenditure
Financial year 2024-25

Description

This document describes the data included in the School Finance in England National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the  Open Government License (opens in a new tab) (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for  Open Data (opens in a new tab) (https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-government-and-its-services/supporting-pages/releasing-data-in-open-formats).

The  methodology document (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/school-workforce-in-england-methodolgy) should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

The Statistical Publication: ‘LA and School Expenditure’ provides the latest information at national, regional and local level on the expenditure on schools, education and children's and young people's services by local authorities. Alongside the local authority spending, the release also provides a detailed breakdown of income and expenditure by schools, with aggregations to the local authority, regional and national level. The publication summarises the information that was collected via the summer 2025 Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) and S251 Outturn collections. It supersedes the December 2024 data release.

The CFR data is also available at an individual school level via the Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool (opens in a new tab) (https://financial-benchmarking-and-insights-tool.education.gov.uk/) website.

This publication includes information on:

- Local authority spending on schools and other education- time-series giving the detailed breakdown of spending by local authorities split by school-phase and overall spending area (e.g. individual schools budget, expenditure on free school meals, SEN support etc).
- Local authority spending on children's and young people's services- time-series giving the detailed breakdown of spending by local authorities split by provision sector (e.g. own, private, voluntary) and spending area (e.g. sure start centres, family services, youth justice etc).
- Schools' income and expenditure- time-series giving the detailed breakdown of LA maintained schools income and expenditure by school phase and financial area (e.g. staff, estates and buildings, etc)
- Schools' revenue balances- time-series giving the overall financial balance data for LA maintained schools and overall numbers of schools in surplus and deficit.

Data files

Income of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

Filename: cfr_income_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2015-16 to 2024-25
Content summary: This file contains unrounded data on income of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name       |  Variable description
------------------  |  ---------------------------------------
income              |  Income
income_description  |  Category of Income
income_per_pupil    |  Income per pupil
school_phase        |  Phase of school - Filter by school type

Footnotes:

1. There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
2. Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year.


Expenditure of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

Filename: cfr_expenditure_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2015-16 to 2024-25
Content summary: This file contains unrounded data on expenditure of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name            |  Variable description
-----------------------  |  ---------------------------------------
expenditure              |  Expenditure
expenditure_description  |  Category of expenditure
expenditure_per_pupil    |  Expenditure per pupil
school_phase             |  Phase of school - Filter by school type

Footnotes:

1. There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
2. Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year.
3. Expenditure per pupil is based on the number of pupils on roll as at the January 2025 School Census. PRUs see more variation in pupil numbers through the course of the year than other school types. Funding for PRUs is based on number of available places.


Revenue reserves of LA maintained schools - unrounded data

Filename: cfr_revenue_reserve_la_regional_national_data.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2015-16 to 2024-25
Content summary: This file contains unrounded data on revenue reserves of local authority maintained schools. It includes local authority, regional and national data. It was collected via the Consistent Financial reporting data collection

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name                                   |  Variable description
----------------------------------------------  |  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
average_revenue_balance                         |  Average revenue balance per school
committed_revenue_balances                      |  Committed revenue balances (B01)
community_focussed_school_revenue_balance       |  Community-focused school revenue balances (B06)
devolved_formula_capital_balance                |  Devolved formula capital balance (B03)
number_schools                                  |  Number of schools making a Consistent Financial Reporting (CFR) return
number_schools_with_deficit                     |  Number of schools with a negative revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus                     |  Number of schools with a surplus revenue balance
number_schools_with_surplus_over_threshold      |  Number of schools with a surplus over the threshold
opening_capital_balance                         |  Opening capital balance (OB03)
opening_community_focussed_revenue_balance      |  Opening community-focused revenue balance (OB02)
opening_pupil_focussed_revenue_balance          |  Opening pupil-focused revenue balance (OB01)
other_capital_balances                          |  Other capital balances (B05)
outstanding_balance_of_capital_loans_to_school  |  Outstanding balance of capital loans to schol (B07)
pc_schools_with_deficit                         |  Percentage of schools with a negative revenue balance (deficit)
pc_schools_with_surplus                         |  Percentage of schools with a surplus revenue balance
pc_schools_with_surplus_over_threshold          |  Percentage of schools with a surplus over the threshold
revenue_balance_as_pc_total_income              |  Revenue balance as a percentage of total income
school_over_threshold_av_per_school             |  Average surplus per school for schools over the threshold
school_phase                                    |  Phase of school
school_surplus_over_threshold                   |  Total surplus of schools over the threshold
total_income                                    |  Total income
total_revenue_balance                           |  Total revenue balance
total_revenue_reserve_schools_deficit           |  Total revenue balance of schools with a deficit
total_revenue_reserve_schools_surplus           |  Total revenue balance of schools with a surplus
uncommitted_revenue_balances                    |  Uncommitted revenue balances (B02)

Footnotes:

1. There are a small number of local authorities with no LA maintained secondary schools, all are academies. There are also authorities returning no nursery schools, primary schools, pupil referral units or special schools.
2. Includes schools making a part year return as they converted to academies part way through the financial year.


LA expenditure on schools, other education and community - unrounded data

Filename: s251_alleducation_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2015-16 to 2024-25
Content summary: This file contains information on expenditure on education made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name                           |  Variable description
--------------------------------------  |  --------------------------------------------------------
category_of_expenditure                 |  Category of expenditure - Filter by expenditure category
early_years_establishments              |  Spend on early years establishments
gross_expenditure                       |  Total gross expenditure
income                                  |  Income
net_expenditure                         |  Total net expenditure
net_per_capita_expenditure              |  Per pupil net expenditure
post_16                                 |  Spend on post 16 establishments
primary_schools                         |  Spend on primary schools
pupil_referral_units_and_alt_provision  |  Spend on pupil referal units and AP
secondary_schools                       |  Spend on secondary schools
sen_and_special_schools                 |  Spend on special schools


LA expenditure on children's services - unrounded data

Filename: s251_childrens_young_peoples_services_la_regional_national.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2015-16 to 2024-25
Content summary: This file contains information on expenditure on education made by local authorities. Data is at local authority, regional and national level and is unrounded. Data was collected via the S251 Outturn return made to the department in autumn 2025.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name                  |  Variable description
-----------------------------  |  --------------------------------------------------------
description_of_expenditure     |  Category of expenditure - Filter by expenditure category
grants_inside_AEF              |  Grants inside of aggregate external finance
grants_outside_AEF             |  Grants outside of aggregate external finance
income                         |  Income
net_current_expenditure        |  Total net current expenditure
net_revenue_expenditure        |  Net revenue expenditure
other_public_sector_provision  |  Spend on other public sector provision
own_provision                  |  Spend on LAs own provision
per_capita_net_current_spend   |  Per capita net current expenditure
private_provision              |  Spend on private provision
total_expenditure              |  Total gross expenditure
voluntary_provision            |  Spend on voluntary provision
