Scottish Government funding provided to Education: FOI release

Information requested

Information noted below for the years 2018-2019; 2019-2020; 2020-2021; and 2021-2022.

1. How much funding did the Scottish Government allocate each local authority for the following years?
2. How much funding did the Scottish Government allocate/hypothecate/ringfence for spending on Education for each local authority, in the following years?
3. How much funding did the Scottish Government allocate/hypothecate/ringfence for spending in each local authority on counselling services for children and young people in educational establishments in the following years? (Please outline the spend broken down by primary and secondary sectors.)
4. How much funding did the Scottish Government allocate/hypothecate/ringfence for spending in each local authority on Additional Support Needs in educational settings in the following years? (Please outline the spend broken down by primary and secondary sectors.)

Response

1. The information you have requested is available from the Local Government Finance Settlement.

• 2021-2022: Local government finance circular 5/2021: settlement for 2021-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2020-2021: Local government finance circular 4/2020: settlement for 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2019-2020: Local government finance circular 2/2019: settlement for 2019-2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2018-2019: Local government finance circular 4/2018: settlements for 2018-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In addition, some funding is provided to Local Government outwith the core settlement. This is captured within the Scottish Budget for each year and is available at the links below:

• 2021-2022: Table 5.15: Local Government Funding outwith Core Settlement, Scottish Budget 2021-2022
• 2020-2021: Table 6.15: Local Government Funding outwith Core Settlement, Scottish Budget 2020-2021
• 2019-2020: Table 6.15: Local Government Funding outwith Core Settlement, Scottish Budget 2019-2020
• 2018-2019: Table 10.20: Funding Outwith the Local Government Finance Settlement, Scottish Budget 2018-2019

2. The vast majority of the funding provided to local authorities is by means of a block grant. This includes most of the funding for education but as it included in the block grant it is not hypothecated. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including any funding for education, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.
   
   Within the local government finance settlement there are a number of hypothecated education-related specific grants. There are estimated individual local authority allocations for each of those grants within the local Government finance settlement as set out below:

• 2021-2022: Annex E: Estimates of Ring-Fenced Grant Revenue Funding for 2021-22, Local government finance circular 5/2021: settlement for 2021-2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2020-2021: Annex E: Estimates of Ring-Fenced Grant Revenue Funding for 2020-21, Local government finance circular 4/2020: settlement for 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2019-2020: Annex F: Estimates of Ring-Fenced Grant Revenue Funding for 2019-20, Local government finance circular 2/2019: settlement for 2019-2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2018-2019: Annex F: Estimates of Ring-Fenced Grant Revenue Funding for 2018-19, Local government finance circular 4/2018: settlements for 2018-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

3. As noted above, the vast majority of the funding provided to local authorities is by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including any funding for education, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.
4. Local Government spending on additional support for learning is included within the block grant. As noted above, it is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including any funding for education, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

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