DfE Section 251 Budget and Outturn Statements

DfE Section 251 Budget and Outturn Statements

Under the Government's School Standards and Framework Act 1998, Local Authorities are required to prepare a Budget Statement before the beginning of each Financial year ie by 31 March. After the end of that Financial year they are then required to prepare an Outturn Statement.

These two Statements are primarily intended to:

  • Provide schools, parents and others with details about schools and Local Authority funding and expenditure on education and schools. These statements are the means of informing schools and the public in general about the funding plans of the LA
  • Inform Government policy making and inform the Treasury for monitoring purposes
  • Inform Parliament in its role of monitoring the Government’s accountability for public funds. MPs ask about school and authority expenditure via the mechanisms of Parliamentary Questions or through Education Select Committees.

The Section 251 Statements provide a clear picture of the authority's planned and actual spending on education and schools. They show:

  • Each individual maintained school’s budget & how the local formula works to produce budget shares for each school within the LA’s area
  • The level of expenditure and value of unspent carry forward balances for each school within the LA’s area
  • How much the LA intends to spend, and has spent, on LA education services
  • How much the LA is proposing to retain, and has retained, for school services ie funding not directly allocated to schools but spent on support services for schools.

These Statements allow Schools Forums and others to compare funding and methodology between different LAs, to inform debate about budget levels and such issues as the balance of funding between nursery, primary, secondary and special schools. The information in the Outturn Statement on school’s carry forward balances has informed recent national debate on the effectiveness of schools’ use of the funding allocated.

Here you are able to download the Section 251 Budget and Outturn Statements for the current and previous financial years.

 

Click here to access the individual school budget statements

 

Budget Statements

Outturn Statements

For further information, please contact Andrew Redding (01274 432678)

 

Back to the Introduction Page

Page owned by Andrew Redding, last updated on 23/12/2025. This page has been viewed 29,559 times.