Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans are in place to reduce the deficit in local authority maintained schools, including nurseries, special schools and Pupil Referral Units in Lancashire in 2019-20.

The Department has developed a range of support and benchmarking tools for all schools and local authorities to help schools manage resources effectively. Details of these can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-excellent-school-resource-management/supporting-excellent-school-resource-management.

Local authorities are responsible for the oversight of financial management in maintained schools, the Department continues to work closely with them to support them in this work.