Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the real term changes in funding for schools in Portsmouth South constituency between 2023-24 and 2024-25 on a) educational attainment of pupils b) classroom sizes and c) classroom resources.

This government is committed to providing a world-class education system for all children and has invested significantly in education to achieve that.

Nationally, funding for both mainstream schools and high needs, including additional funding for teachers’ pay, is over £1.8 billion higher in 2024/25, compared to 2023/24. The overall core school budget will total over £59.6 billion in 2024/25. This is the highest ever in real terms per pupil.

Through the schools National Funding Formula (NFF), the department calculates and publishes notional funding allocations for each mainstream school. These are aggregated at local authority level and, following an update in pupil numbers, are used to calculate each local authority’s Dedicated School Grant (DSG) allocations. Each local authority then determines individual schools’ final funding allocations through their own local formula.

Through the 2023/24 notional NFF, schools in Portsmouth South are allocated an average £5,814 per pupil. Through the 2024/25 notional NFF, schools in Portsmouth South are allocated an average £6,135 per pupil. This is a cash increase of 2.0% compared to 2023/24. This increase is after taking into account the mainstream schools additional grant (MSAG), which the department has rolled into the schools NFF in 2024/25, to ensure that this additional funding forms an on-going part of schools’ core budgets.

These constituency figures are based on an aggregation of school-level allocations. Schools’ actual allocations are based on local authorities’ funding formulae.

The figures do not include the additional funding the department is providing through the Teachers Pay Additional Grant (TPAG). Nor do they include other grants, such as the Pupil Premium.

The government provides these increases to school revenue budgets so that schools can cover cost increases in the year ahead. However, schools have autonomy over their own spending and should use this to raise attainment as well as to manage their classroom resources.