Schools budget support grant (SBSG)

This guidance is for:

• local authorities
• school leaders
• school teachers
• governing bodies and their representatives

It relates to local authority-maintained mainstream schools, mainstream academies (including free schools), mainstream schools and academies with special units or resourced provision (SURPs), and local authorities employing centrally employed staff (CES) in England.

Background

The government has announced additional funding alongside the 2025 teacher pay award and is providing £615 million to support schools with the cost of pay awards in the 2025 to 2026 financial year. Of this, we will provide over £470 million for mainstream schools, in respect of their 5 to 16 provision, as well as over £10 million for CES through the new schools budget support grant (SBSG).

We will provide over £80 million for special and AP schools through the existing core schools budget grant (CSBG). We will provide over £30 million for schools with 16 to 19 provision through 16 to 19 funding allocations. Over £15 million will be provided in respect of early years provision in schools.

This new funding provided alongside the teacher pay award is in addition to the £3.2 billion in funding already delivered for schools for 2025 to 2026.

Methodology

This document sets out the methodology for the SBSG. It includes information on how we will allocate funding for:

• mainstream schools (for the 5 to 16 year-old age range)
• mainstream schools with SURPs
• local authorities with CES

We are aware that the full impact of the teacher pay award is felt across financial years 2025 to 2026 and 2026 to 2027. In financial year 2026 to 2027, we will be taking into account the full year costs of the 2025 teacher pay award when considering schools funding for 2026 to 2027.

Conditions of grant and allocations

We expecthave topublished publishfor the 2025 to 2026 SBSG:

• conditions of grantgrant;
• school andlevel allocations inincluding thefunding autumn.for Thatmainstream willschools includewith indicativeeligible schoolSURPs, leveland indicative allocations for new and growing schools.
  schools
• LA allocations for their CES

We will confirm SBSG allocations for mainstream schools opening in September 2025 in February 2026.

Grant funding announced alongside the 2025 teacher pay award which is outside of 5 to 16 provision and the SBSG

In addition to this SBSG funding for 5 to 16 provision in mainstream schools, we will also allocate the following funding alongside staff pay awards:

• Over £80 million will be provided to support special schools and alternative provision with staff pay costs – this funding will be allocated through the CSBG in 2025 to 2026
• Over £15 million for early years provision through early years National Insurance contributions and teachers’ pay grant (EY NTPG)
• Over £30 million for schools with 16 to 19 provision through core 16 to 19 funding allocations for the 2025 to 2026 academic year. We will provide further details in due course