Section 52 Budget Statements

Purpose of financial statements

We are required under section 52 of the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998 to prepare a budget statement for each financial year (April 1 to March 31). After each financial year, we are required to prepare an outturn statement for which separate regulations and guidance apply.

The size of the schools budget and the amounts to be allocated to each factor depends on the budget decisions taken by Southwark in consultation with the schools forum before the beginning of each financial year. The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) state that section 52 budget statements are the means of informing schools and the public in general about our funding plans.

The copy of the statement that schools receive for the forthcoming year is intended to provide a clear picture of our planned spending.

How much of the whole Children's Services budget the local authority intends to spend on items outside the schools budget
How much the local education authority is proposing to retain centrally within the school budget for school services
How the formula is working to produce budget shares for each school in the borough

The DCSF believe it is important that schools and others can compare funding and methodology between different local education authorities, so as to inform debate about budget levels and such issues as the balance of funding between primary and secondary schools. It is therefore essential that all statements are prepared to a common format and to meet this requirement the DCSF have largely prescribed the format of the section 52 budget statements.

Description of the tables

Table 1

Shows the total planned Children's Services spending. This gives, at local education authority level, an overall picture of Southwark’s planned spending on educational provision (both school and non-school). The DCSF state that information provided in this table enables a comparison to be made between the funding being allocated direct to schools and the amount being spent other than on schools, for example retained centrally or devolved by Southwark.

Central expenditure limit annex to table 1

This is the central expenditure of Southwark within the schools budget; the annex is designed to demonstrate that Southwark is complying with the limit on central spend within the school's budget.

Youth service annex to table 1

This is a breakdown of Southwark's planned net expenditure on its youth service.

Early Years Annex to table 1

This table, introduced by the DCSF for the first time in 2007/08, shows in detail the planned expenditure of Southwark on the free entitlement to early years as recorded in the Schools Budget on Table 1. The DCSF state that this table is intended to collect data to monitor the roll out of the single formula in light of recent funding reforms and to provide transparent comparative data or benchmarking purposes.

Table 2

A list of schools’ budget shares for the financial year. Table 2 is linked to table 3 - it summarises the main formula funding elements and lists the budget share and the per pupil or per place share in each school.

Table 3

Shows how Southwark's formula - described in table 4 - has been applied to each school to calculate its budget share, including all the relevant factors and lump sums, and the numbers of pupils in each school year used to allocate pupil-led funding. It has been split into two parts to aid understanding with mainstream nursery, primary and secondary schools included in table 3a and special schools included in table 3b.

Table 3a

Shows the calculation of each school’s budget share.

Table 3b

This displays the calculation of each special school’s budget share.

Table 4

Describes Southwark's allocation formula. This sets out the detail of every formula factor, to enable a school to be able to relate its own budget share back to the items set out in this part. The table includes a complete list of all the factors and values in their formula and details of the funds allocated across all schools according to each factor. It also provides a cross reference to the appropriate fair funding regulation.

To view all the documents below, you will need Adobe Acrobat.

Contact Us

Education finance team
Tel: 020 7525 5050
educationfinance@southwark.gov.uk
Children's Services
John Smith House
144-152 Walworth Road
London
SE17 1JL

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader to view PDF documents