Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of (a) primary and (b) secondary schools (i) are eligible for and (ii) receive the full amount of funding under the sparsity element of the national funding formula; and what the average amount was that each eligible school received in the latest period for which data is available.
The table below shows the number and proportion of mainstream schools in England that received sparsity funding in 2018-19.
| Primary | Secondary |
Number of schools | 16,758 | 3,109 |
Number eligible for sparsity funding1 | 992 | 112 |
Proportion eligible for sparsity funding1 | 5.90% | 3.60% |
Number eligible for maximum sparsity funding1 | 234 | 18 |
Proportion eligible for maximum sparsity funding1 | 1.40% | 0.60% |
Average sparsity funding for eligible schools (£)2 | 14,766 | 34,625 |
[1] Schools are only counted as eligible for sparsity funding if the local authority has included the factor in their funding formula. The maximum amount of sparsity funding under the national funding formula is £25,000 for primary schools and £65,000 for secondary schools.
[2] This is the mean value for schools receiving sparsity funding where the local authority has included the factor in their funding formula.