Somerset Schools Forum
6 October 2016
Education Services Grant
(ESG)
Ken Rushton
Service Manager - School Finance
ESG - Background
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ESG is paid to local authorities (LAs) and academies on a
per pupil basis as an un-ringfenced grant.
The purpose of the grant is to enable local authorities and
academies to fund their schools’ services.
Allocations are made as follows:
• Retained duties rate; this allocation is to meet the
obligations that LAs have to fulfil to both academies and
maintained schools. It is paid to LAs for every pupil, currently
£15 per pupil.
• General funding rate; paid to LAs for pupils in maintained
schools and direct to academies for their pupils.
Currently £77 per pupil.
National Changes
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In the 2015 Spending Review, the DfE announced a saving of
£600 million from the ESG by 2019 to 2020.
Local authorities will receive transitional ESG funding from
April 2017 to August 2017.
The general funding rate will then be removed from
September 2017 and this equates to £1.77m part year or £3m
per annum for the LA.
Some academies will have protection, depending on when
they converted and how much ESG they received upon
conversion. This would remove approximately £2.4m from
Academy budgets when the transitional protection ceases.
General Funding Grant
LA services currently funded by ESG general funding:
• HR duties
• Finance duties
• Health and Safety
• Equality
• Religious Education (SACRE)
• School Premises
• Redundancy costs
• Monitoring national curriculum assessment