Expenditure on School Education in Scotland, 2005

Description	Local authority spending on school education 2002-03 & 2003-04 plus spending devolved to schools.
ISBN	1479-7569
Official Print Publication Date
Website Publication Date	January 18, 2005

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Statistics Publication Notice
Education Series	ISSN 1479-7569

EXPENDITURE ON SCHOOL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND, 2005

18 ^th January, 2005

A Scottish Executive National Statistics Publication

This document is also available in pdf format (152k)
The tables are also available in Excel format (176k)

This document gives figures for local authority spending on school education. This year's publication provides two new years of data, 2002-03 and 2003-04, as well as new information on spending devolved to schools.

The main findings are :-

Gross revenue expenditure in 2003-04 on primary education was 1.4 billion, or 3,537 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of twelve per cent from 2002-03, or 389 per pupil.
Gross revenue expenditure in 2003-04 on secondary education was 1.6 billion, or 5,058 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of nine per cent from 2002-03, or 401 per pupil.
Gross revenue expenditure in 2003-04 on special education was 390 million, or 53,749 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of fifteen per cent from 2002-03, or 6,944 per pupil.
Pre-school education and other revenue expenditure of about 440 million resulted in a total local authority education expenditure in 2003-04 of 3.9 billion. This was a ten per cent increase from 2002-03.
Capital expenditure not funded from revenue in 2003-04 on primary and secondary schools was 154 million, or 213 per pupil. This was an increase per pupil of eight per cent from 2002-03, or 16 per pupil. This does not include PPP projects.
Capital expenditure not funded from revenue in 2003-04 on special schools was 3.1 million, or 404 per pupil. This was a decrease per pupil of twenty-one per cent from 2002-03, or 106 per pupil. This does not include PPP projects.
2.4 billion of expenditure was devolved to head teachers in 2003-04, a nine per cent increase on 2002-03

BACKGROUND NOTES

The expenditure figures set out in this publication 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. Section 5 gives net figures rather than gross.
The totals include "revenue contributions to capital" (RCC) and "support services". These are single items for the whole education budget which are apportioned by local authorities to each of the sub-services (primary, secondary, etc.). RCCs are revenue funding used to contribute to capital expenditure and support services are the costs of administration support to the education department from the council's central administration e.g. by providing office space or payroll administration.
These figures are also being published in a slightly different form by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting (CIPFA) Scotland in the Rating Review Actuals 2003-04.
In Tables 2.1 to 4.8 there is an adjustment to the Scotland total to account for inter-authority and intra-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. Similarly individual education services recharge some costs to other accounts of the local authority. This avoids double counting but has not been apportioned to each of the spend categories, as it is supplied as a single figure.
Increases have been shown on a nominal basis, not taking into account inflation.

Central administration

When recording service expenditure, local authorities follow guidelines set out by CIPFA. From 1 April 2002, the Best Value Accounting Code of Practice (BVACoP) was implemented across Scotland for Education expenditure analysis. Under this new guidance central administration costs, which were previously reported as a separate item, are now reported under the various sectors and services which rely on them. This means that figures for 2002-03 and 2003-04 are not comparable with previous years.
PPP projects
PPP projects are initially funded by the private sector, with local authorities financing them over future years. The initial cost of building projects funded in this way will therefore not appear in the capital expenditure figures in this publication, but will lead to an increase in the revenue spend in future years.
Devolved to schools
As a result of the implementation of the new code of practice for 2002-03 (see Note 2) outturn expenditure from 2002-03 onwards is classified as either (a) devolved to head teachers (Individual School Budgets), or (b) centrally held and managed by local authorities. Data are published in table 5.2.
The Executive and local authorities are currently developing appropriate guidance stating, for the purposes of the Partnership Agreement, which categories of expenditure can reasonably be devolved to head teachers. Table 5.1 however contains all categories of expenditure, and therefore the percentage obtained by simply dividing Table 5.2 by Table 5.1 will underestimate the measure relevant to the Partnership Agreement target. Non-audited estimates on the basis set out in the draft guidelines are currently provided to the Executive by local authorities.
Executive spending on education
The Executive does not set the amount to be spent on school education, but funds local authorities who set their own service budgets. Local authority expenditure on schools is funded mainly from the Executive's Revenue Support Grant (RSG), but also from business rates and their own council tax receipts. The Executive calculates GAE (generally speaking, a formula-based allocation of funding proportional to need), and this is met from RSG, council tax and redistributed business rates. However GAE, while having an education element in its calculation, is not ring-fenced. Local authorities can decide themselves how much they wish to spend on education, and also have the option of raising more council tax than that assumed in the calculation of RSG. The Executive also funds other aspects of education through direct grants, much of which is also included in these figures as it is spent by local authorities.
Budgeted School Running Costs
In previous years the Executive has also published figures for budgeted school running costs. These data are a different set of figures, described in School Boards (Financial Information) (Scotland) Regulations 1990. However, due to increasing difficulties with these data because of changes in financial practices, these data have been removed from the scope of National Statistics, and are no longer published here.
Enquiries
Statistical tables are available through the following link http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00389-00.asp
The team responsible for producing this document were
Mal Cooke, Debbie Hall, Colin Gallacher.
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.

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

Michael Bargeton: 0131 244 2087
Statistical Publication Notice

18 ^th January, 2005

Summary Statistics 1.1 Gross Revenue Education Expenditure, 1998-99 to 2003-04
1.2 Gross Revenue Expenditure on Schools, by sector
Chart 1 Gross Revenue Expenditure on Schools
1.3 Capital Expenditure, actual gross payments
Chart 2 Capital Expenditure, Primary and secondary schools
Chart 3 Capital Expenditure, Special schools

Devolved Spending
5.1 Net expenditure, 2002-03 & 2003-04
5.2 Devolved spending, 2002-03 & 2003-04

Capital Expenditure
6.1 Capital Expenditure, 2002-03
6.2 Capital Expenditure, 2003-04

Page updated: Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Scottish Government