HC Deb 03 December 2003 vol 415 c92W
Mr. Hoban:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what formula is used to determine the formula spending share for each school. [140980]

Mr. Miliband:

The funding for each school will depend on a number of factors covering both central and local government responsibility. Central Government uses the Education Formula Spending Share formula to allocate education funding for each local education authority. This formula comprises a basic entitlement for each pupil plus top-ups for deprivation and where it costs more to recruit and retain teachers, using data from the New Earnings Survey. The deprivation measures used are (i) children in families in receipt of Income Support; (ii) children in families in receipt of Working Families Tax Credit; (iii) proportion of primary children with English as an additional language and (iv) proportion of secondary children in low-achieving ethnic groups. The primary sub-block and LEA central functions sub-block also include a sparsity factor.

Local education authorities, in consultation with their schools and in accordance with regulations, then decide how much funding to put into the Schools Budget and what factors to use in the local fair funding formula, which allocates funding to individual schools.