Twenty-First Report - School Funding

Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee HC 183 22 October 2021
Report Status Government responded
Conclusions & Recommendations 38 items (11 recs)
Source View on Parliament website
Government Response (AI assessment · 34 of 38 classified)
Accepted 11
Accepted in Part 1
Acknowledged 5
Deferred 9
Not Addressed 3
Rejected 5
Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-First report from Session 2021-22 · published 14 Dec 2021
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Recommendations & Conclusions

5 results
3 Recommendation Rejected
It is not possible to tell whether individual academy schools are receiving the government’s guaranteed...
Recommendation
It is not possible to tell whether individual academy schools are receiving the government’s guaranteed minimum per-pupil funding levels. In 2018–19, the Department introduced minimum levels of schools block per-pupil funding for all schools in England. In January 2020, the … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the recommendation, stating it does not collect this information and it would not be practicable to do so. It suggests existing data on the Schools Financial Benchmarking website is sufficient for analysis.
HM Treasury
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13 Conclusion Rejected
In 2018–19, as part of the national funding formula, the Department introduced minimum per-pupil funding...
Conclusion
In 2018–19, as part of the national funding formula, the Department introduced minimum per-pupil funding levels for all schools in England in support of the government’s aim of ‘levelling up education funding’.17 In January 2020, the Prime Minister guaranteed that … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagreed with an implicit recommendation to collect information on minimum per-pupil funding levels from academy trusts, stating it does not collect such data and it would not be practicable. It instead pointed to the Schools Financial Benchmarking website as the best source for analysing academy expenditure.
HM Treasury
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14 Conclusion Rejected
Local authorities can apply local funding formulae in deciding funding for maintained schools and academy...
Conclusion
Local authorities can apply local funding formulae in deciding funding for maintained schools and academy trusts. However, the Department limited the extent of local authorities’ discretion from 2020–21 by requiring them to include the minimum per- pupil funding levels in … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagreed with an implicit recommendation regarding multi-academy trust funding distribution, stating it does not collect information on how trusts provide minimum per-pupil funding to their schools, and it would not be practicable. It advised using the Schools Financial Benchmarking website for expenditure analysis.
HM Treasury
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15 Conclusion Rejected
We asked why multi-academy trusts had more freedom in how they distributed funding.
Conclusion
We asked why multi-academy trusts had more freedom in how they distributed funding. The Department replied that academy trusts and local authorities had different roles: local authorities were responsible for distributing funding between schools, whereas academy trusts had direct responsibility … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagreed with an implicit recommendation regarding multi-academy trust funding freedoms, stating it does not collect information on how trusts distribute funding to their schools in this form, and it would not be practicable. It advised using the Schools Financial Benchmarking website for expenditure analysis.
HM Treasury
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16 Recommendation Rejected
We asked how the parent of a child in an academy school could establish whether...
Recommendation
We asked how the parent of a child in an academy school could establish whether the school was receiving the minimum per-pupil funding levels that they were promised. The ESFA said that the most accessible source of information was the … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government rejects the recommendation to publish specific per-pupil funding details for academy schools, stating it is not practicable to collect this information but will continue to review the Schools Financial Benchmarking website for transparency.
HM Treasury
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