To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will assess the effect on the budget of Warrington Borough Council of the removal of the Educational Services Grant.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will assess the effect which the removal of the Education Services Grant in 2017 will have on the ability of (a) local authorities and (b) Warrington Borough Council to carry out their statutory duties relating to education.

As announced at the Spending Review, we plan to save £600m from the Education Services Grant (ESG) by phasing out the general funding rate from 2017-18.

Local authorities will continue to receive ESG funding in 2016-17. They will also receive transitional ESG funding from April 2017 to August 2017 inclusive.

We recognise that local authorities, including Warrington Borough Council, will need to use other sources of funding to pay for education services they carry out for pupils in maintained schools once the general funding rate has been removed from September 2017. This is why we are amending regulations to allow local authorities to retain some of their maintained schools’ Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) to cover the statutory duties that they carry out on behalf of their maintained schools.

The remaining ESG funding will be used to fund local authorities for the duties they hold in relation to all pupils. In 2017-18, this will be paid to local authorities through the DSG.