Scottish Government

EXPENDITURE ON SCHOOL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND, 2003

2 ^nd December, 2003

A Scottish Executive National Statistics Publication

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A new publication on local authority spending on school education has been issued today by the Scottish Executive Education Department. It also contains the latest information on budgeted school running costs. Expenditure and budgeted running costs data are not comparable.

The main findings are :-

• Revenue expenditure in 2001-02 on primary education was 1.1 billion, or 2,700 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of nine per cent from 2000-01, or 223 per pupil.
• Revenue expenditure in 2001-02 on secondary education was 1.2 billion, or 3,900 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of nine per cent from 2000-01, or 340 per pupil.
• Revenue expenditure in 2001-02 on special education was 270 million, or 33,000 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of 13 per cent from 2000-01, or 3,781 per pupil.
• Other revenue expenditure of about 650 million resulted in a total local authority education expenditure in 2001-02 of 3.3 billion ( see table 1). This was an eight per cent increase from 2000-01.
• Capital expenditure not funded from revenue in 2001-02 on primary and secondary schools was 133 million, or 181 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of 12 per cent from 2000-01, or 20 per pupil.
• Capital expenditure not funded from revenue in 2001-02 on special schools was 2.3 million, or 280 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of 17 per cent from 2000-01, or 41 per pupil.
• The element of budgeted expenditure included in budgeted school running costs for primary schools for 2003-04 was 1.1 billion or 2,600 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of nine per cent from 2002-03, although figures are not directly comparable.
• The element of budgeted expenditure included in budgeted school running costs for secondary schools for 2003-04 was 1.2 billion or 3,800 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of seven per cent from 2002-03, although figures are not directly comparable.

Tables

Table 1: Gross Revenue Education Expenditure (000), 2001-02
Table 2: Gross Revenue Expenditure (000)
Table 3: Capital Expenditure, actual gross payments (000)
Table 4: Gross revenue expenditure on primary schools (000s), 2001-02
Table 5: Gross revenue expenditure on secondary schools (000s), 2001-02
Table 6: Gross revenue expenditure on special schools (000s), 2001-02
Table 7: Capital Expenditure (000s), 2001-02
Table 8: Budgeted school running cost per pupil, 1993-1994 to 2003-2004⁽¹⁾

BACKGROUND NOTES

Expenditure

1. The expenditure figures set out in this bulletin are defined as follows:

• This is total local authority gross expenditure, irrespective of whether the income is from central government grants, specific grants, sales, fees and charges (e.g. school meals) and lottery grants. It excludes loan charges payments.
• There is an adjustment to the Scotland total to account for inter-authority transfers i.e. the total spend in Scotland is slightly less than the sum of the 32 councils gross spend as some give money to other councils for the provision of services and both show it as an expenditure item. This means that the Scotland totals shown match with the figures already published in Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics 2001-02 and avoids double counting. This has not been apportioned to each of the spend categories, as it is supplied as a single figure.
• The totals include "revenue contributions to capital" (RCC) and "support service costs" (SSC). These are single items for the whole education budget which are apportioned relative to operating costs to each of the sub-services (primary, secondary, etc.). RCCs are revenue funding used to contribute to capital expenditure and SSCs are the costs of administration support to the education department from the councils central administration e.g. by providing office space or payroll administration.
• These figures have already been published in slightly different form by CIPFA in the Rating Review Actuals 2001-02, who do not apportion RCCs and SSCs to the level of 'primary schools', 'secondary schools' etc. but show it as a cost to the education service as a whole.
• Increases have been shown on a nominal basis.

Budgeted School Running Costs

2. Sources.

Annual budgeted running cost information is provided to The Scottish Executive by the education authorities, and managers of grant-aided and self-governing schools. The total budgeted running relates to the period 1 ^st April 2003 to 31 ^st March 2004, and similarly for previous years.

School roll information is provided to The Scottish Executive by schools each September as part of the annual School Census.

3. Coverage

This report does not provide information on costs in special schools, independent schools or pre-school establishments. The costs of schools with pre-school classes or both primary and secondary departments have been split into the appropriate sectors.

4. Definitions

The budget figures set out in this bulletin are defined as follows:

Total budgeted school running cost for the year 1 April to 31 March is defined by the School Boards (Financial Information) (Scotland) Regulations 1990. It includes:

Staff Costs including salary costs for permanent and temporary teachers and instructors, school-based administrative and support staff, janitors and manual grades and other costs related to employment of staff.

Premises Costs including rent and rates, insurance, repairs and maintenance, gas, electricity and other fuels, fixtures and fittings and the cleaning of school premises.

Supplies Costs including books, materials and educational equipment.

Transport Costs including leasing of vehicles for the school, repairs and maintenance of vehicles and equipment and running costs.

Examination Entry Fees.

School Board Related Costs including the cost of School Board administration, training and other related expenditure.

Other School Running Costs including the cost of school hostels and catering.

The overall cost figure is provided to each School Board annually. It may not necessarily include all the costs of running the school. Other costs relating to the school may also have been incurred during the period, for example, capital spending or a proportion of total education authority expenditure on services such as those provided by advisers and psychologists. These costs would not necessarily be included in the school running cost total provided to the School Board. Part or all of PPP payment may also be excluded.

Budgeted school running cost per pupil is obtained by dividing the total budgeted school running costs by the school roll. You should note that while the school roll used for the calculation for this year's figures is the roll as at September 2002, the budgeted school costs actually relate to the period from 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004. This period covers part of the 2002/2003 school session and part of the 2003/2004 school session. The corresponding periods for school roll and cost figures were used in previous years.

The national average is the average for local authority, grant-aided and self-governing schools in Scotland. National averages have been calculated separately for the primary and secondary sectors.

It should also be noted, however, that over the years, some authorities may have made changes to their policy on which costs are allocated to school level. Also, there may have been changes made to the way specific costs are allocated to schools.

Difference between expenditure and budgeted running costs

There are several reasons why the expenditure data published in table 1 differs from the budgeted running costs data published in table 8. The latter only includes those elements of the primary and secondary education rows of table 1 which are devolved to schools, and this differs between authorities. Examples of non-devolved costs for some authorities would include

PPP projects
centrally employed supply teachers
classroom assistants
staff funded through specific grants
revenue contributions to capital expenditure
support service costs.

Enquiries

Statistical tables are available through the following link http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00303-00.asp

Public enquiries (non-media) about the information contained in this News Release should be addressed to Mal Cooke, Statistician, Scottish Executive Education Department, Room 1-A, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh EH6 6QQ.

Telephone 0131 244 1689 or e-mail school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk .

Media enquiries about the information in this News Release should be addressed to:

Marion MacKay: 0131 244 3070
News Release

2 December 2003