UK secondary School Spending Data for 2010 - Who Spent What?

On Wednesday 12 January 2011 the Department for Education published schools’ spending data for 2009-10. This data comes from their Consistent Financial Reporting returns and is grouped into categories of income and expenditure.

We’ve conducted a detailed analysis of the data to see if there are any interesting comparisons, correlations or other features. Of course, we’re also interested to get some perspectives on the size of our target market (spending on learning resources and professional curriculum development). We’ll upload to this page any interesting data or analysis which we think may be of interest to colleagues.

Notes: the calculations are based on the DfE spending data tables. These are for 2009/10 and exclude all independent schools and Academies.

We calculate that the total spend on learning resources in 2009/10 was £976.8 million, of which £221.5m was spent on ICT-related resources. The average ICT spend per pupil across the 2,868 institutions for which data has been made available was £74.8.

Spending on Learning Resources by Local Authority
School-Resource-Spending-LEA-Analysis.pdf

In this analysis, we have calculated the total spend by each local authority on learning resources. That total is split between ICT-related and non-ICT related resources. We have then calculated a per capita figure (spend per FTE pupil). The table data is sorted in descending order of spend per pupil on ICT learning resources.

One striking feature is that the spend per pupil at the top of the table (Tower Hamlets) is over ten times the spend at the bottom of the table (Cambridgeshire).

Spending on Learning Resources - by School Admissions Type
School-Resource-Spending-Admission-Analysis.pdf

Comprehensives make up the significant majority of the institutions analysed here and their average spend per pupil on learning resources is £327.2 (of which £73.7 is ICT-related).

Pupils at selective schools seem to enjoy an advantage in terms of their resource provision. The average spend per pupil was £367.3 - that’s £40 more per pupil (approx 11%) more than pupils at comprehensives.

Spending on Learning Resources - by Individual School
School-Resource-Spending-ITResources-By-School.pdf

This analysis is a 38-page monster, but interest nonetheless. It lists the reported spend on learning resources by everyone of the 2,868 schools for which DfE data is provided. We’ve ordered the list in descending order of spend on ICT-related resources. If anyone would like an alphabetical listing, or one for your LEA, just let us know.