Minister for School Standards (); Today the Department
for Education has published local authorities' allocations
through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) for schools, high needs
and early years for 2025-26.
Overall, core schools funding is increasing by £2.3 billion in
2025-26 compared to 2024-25. This means that overall core school
funding will total almost £63.9 billion next year, including a £1
billion increase in high needs funding for the costs of complex
SEND. The publications today confirm the funding increases that
each local authority will see in 2025-26.
The DSG allocations to local authorities consist of four blocks:
a schools block, a high needs block, an early years block, and a
central school services block. The DSG allocations are calculated
from the latest pupil numbers, and therefore update the
provisional national funding formulae allocations that were
recently published.
Nationally, mainstream school funding in the DSG is increasing by
2.15% per pupil in 2025-26, compared to 2024-25, bringing total
funding through this block of the DSG to £48.7 billion. This
includes funding to ensure that the 2024 pay awards are fully
funded at a national level in 2025-26, and further increases in
the schools national funding formula on top of this.
High needs funding will increase to £11.9 billion in 2025-26, a
9% cash increase compared to this year. The vast majority of this
will be allocated to local authorities through the high needs
block of DSG. Every local authority will receive an increase in
funding of at least 7% per head (of their population aged 2-18),
with some local authorities seeing increases up to 10%.
Alongside their DSG allocations, local authorities will also
receive a separate core schools budget grant in 2025-26 to pass
on to special schools and alternative provision to continue
helping with the costs of teachers' pay and pension increases,
and other staff pay increases, from 2024. This grant consolidates
the separate grants for pay and pensions that are allocated for
these settings in 2024-25. Further detail on the grant for
2025-26 is published at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-schools-budget-grant-csbg-2025-to-2026-for-special-schools-and-alternative-provision(opens
in a new tab)
Indicative allocations for the 2025-26 early years entitlements,
totalling more than £8 billion, have been published. On top of
over £8 billion through the core funding rates, we are providing
an additional £75 million grant for 2025-26 to support the sector
in this pivotal year to grow the places and the workforce needed
to deliver the final phase of expanded childcare entitlements
from September 2025.
The Dedicated Schools Grant allocations are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2025-to-2026(opens
in a new tab)
Pupil premium rates will be announced shortly in the new year.
