School Budget Consultation 2027-28

Overview 

The provisional National Funding Formula (NFF) and Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocations for 2027-28 are being published by the Department for Education (DfE) in the Autumn term, with exact dates not yet confirmed. West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) are required to finalise and submit the individual schools budgets (ISBs) to Government in mid-January 2026 using the DfE's Authority Proforma Tool (APT) which is due to be released in mid-December. The budget principles set in the December Schools Forum will be informed by the results of this schools budget consultation and will be applied to the final settlement (also usually released in Mid-December) and input into the APT tool.

WNC will not receive the formula rates information in time to model schools indicative budgets for the Schools 2027-28 Budget Consultation. As a result, this year's consultation focuses largely on budget setting principles and will use examples from 2026-27 budgets to model impacts of proposed funding options for 2027-28. 

It is unlikely to be the case, but if the final settlement and APT tool provide any difficulties in terms of following the set principles, an extraordinary Schools Forum meeting will be called before the APT is submitted to the Government, The DfE confirmed in October that the 2027-28 schools NFF will use the same factors as the 2026-27 NFF. The DfE have confirmed that they will roll in previous grants. This includes schools budget support grant (SBSG) but will also reduce the rates to reflect the reduction in teachers pension contributions from April 2027.

As in prior years, the National Funding Formula (NFF) includes protection, these are the funding floor and the Minimum per pupil funding level (referred to as the funding floor). The rates for these have not yet been published. The Council's schools funding formula will closely mirror the DfE's NFF.

We want your views on:

• the transfer of funding between blocks, growth funding policy and budget, central budgets, falling rolls fund (top slices from academies and maintained schools) and
• de-delegations for trade union facility time and redundancy funding (top slices from maintained schools) and
• School improvement grant Education Function (top slice from maintained schools)

This consultation will be most relevant for primary and secondary mainstream schools. All of these schools are strongly encouraged to respond. 

The consultation does not include funding proposals for early years. We are currently consulting on this separately.

Related documents

How to provide your views 

You can tell us your views by completing this online questionnaire, you do not have to answer every question or give feedback on every section, but please note that the initial questions with your school and identity are required.

If you would like a copy of this questionnaire or the above documents in another format, or have any questions regarding the consultation, please email: SchoolConsultation@westnorthants.gov.uk 

This consultation closes midday Monday 30 November 2026.

For information about how your responses are managed please see the Consultation and Engagement Privacy Notice.

This consultation ends 30/11/2026