Indicative school funding allocations

The school's national funding formula (NFF) calculates an allocation for each school. 

These school-level allocations are added up to create a total allocation for each local authority (LA). 

Local authorities then set their own local formula to distribute their total allocation between all the schools in their area. 

This means that schools receive their budget allocation based on their local authorities formula. 

Therefore, a school’s final allocation may be different to its NFF allocation published on GOV.UK. 

The data we use in your NFF allocations

The NFF is calculated well in advance of when schools receive their allocations. This means that the NFF notional per pupil allocations, have been calculated from pupil data in the school census from the previous year. 

For this reason the NFF uses pupil data from the October 2019 school census to calculate notional allocations for 2021 to 2022, and it is these numbers that are displayed on the website. 

We have labelled these pupil counts as “the 2020 to 2021 pupil count” because they are the pupil numbers that determined each school’s 2020 to 2021 funding.

The difference between NFF allocations 

By the time local authorities finalise their budgets, using the notional allocations as reference, they will have access to updated pupil data. 

Schools’ final budgets for 2021 to 2022 will be calculated based on the funding formula set by their local authority, and using 2020 pupil numbers.

NFF guidance resources

Additional NFF published guidance information:

• National funding formula
• Academies funding allocations
• National funding formula tables for schools and high needs

Minister Gibbs written statement setting out the key aspects of the schools, high needs and central school services national funding formulae (NFF) for 2021 to 2022.

Provisional 2021 to 2022 NFF allocations have been published, along with the NFF policy document detailing changes and the NFF technical notes. 

We have written to our contacts at local authorities to let them know that we have published the schools operational guide for 2021 to 2022.

Need support?

You can find NFF allocations for all schools in the NFF publication tables at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2021-to-2022.

If you have any queries not covered by the guidance above please send a query to us via the enquiry form and include any relevant information.