2021-22 local financial returns (LFRs) - guidance notes

6. LFR 01: Education

All expenditure and income relating to the education service, regardless of which department provides the service, should be recorded in LFR 01. Exceptions are:

• any Social Work component of local authority residential schools or childcare expenditure – these should be recorded in LFR 03;
• childcare provision for primary / secondary age children funded from centrally managed budgets, including after school clubs, holiday clubs and play schemes – these should be recorded in LFR 02: Other Recreation & Sport;
• School Crossing Patrols – these should be recorded in LFR 05.

For Education, SeRCOP divisions of service are requested in two different formats. Data should be allocated to the subservices within the LFR as follows:

By school type (Columns C to K)

• Pre-Primary Education, including:
• individual school budgets devolved to pre-primary school head teachers;
• centrally held school budgets relating to pre-primary education;
• an appropriate apportionment of:
• schools without devolved budgets;
• schools strategic management;
• non-devolved school grants;
• facilitating school improvement;
• school and pupil support.

In line with the SeRCOP guidance, this column should include all traditional education activity, including nursery schools and any expenditure on childcare for under-5s.

Please note, where pre-primary education settings fall under a budget devolved to a primary school head teacher, the amounts relating to the pre-primary setting should be allocated to Pre-Primary, rather than Primary. This is to ensure consistent recording of pre-primary expenditure and income across local authorities with different school set-ups and budgets.

• Primary Education, including:
  • individual school budgets devolved to primary school head teachers;
  • an appropriate apportionment of:
    • schools without devolved budgets;
    • schools strategic management;
    • non-devolved school grants;
    • facilitating school improvement;
    • school and pupil support.
• Secondary Education, including:
  • individual school budgets devolved to secondary school head teachers;
  • an appropriate apportionment of:
    • schools without devolved budgets;
    • schools strategic management;
    • non-devolved school grants;
    • facilitating school improvement;
    • school and pupil support.
• Special Education, including:
  • individual school budgets devolved to special school head teachers;
  • centrally held school budgets relating to Supporting Special Education Needs (SEN), irrespective of where delivered;
  • an appropriate apportionment of:
    • schools without devolved budgets;
    • schools strategic management;
    • non-devolved school grants;
    • facilitating school improvement;
    • school and pupil support.

Please note that references within the SeRCOP guidance to SEN should be considered to cover all Additional Support for Learning (ASL) needs. The latter term is concurrent with language used in the Additional Support for Learning (Scotland) Act 2009.

In line with the SeRCOP guidance, please ensure that any ASL provision that is funded by an individual schools' budget is included under the relevant school type. For example, expenditure for an ASL unit attached to a primary school that is funded from the primary schools' own budget would be included within the Primary column, rather than the Special Education column.

• Community Learning
• Non-school Funding, including:
  • strategic management of non-school services;
  • support for students;
  • home to college transport (16 to 18 years).

By devolved and centrally managed (Columns P to R)

• Devolved, including all individual school budgets devolved to the pre-primary, primary, secondary and special school head teacher
• Centrally managed, including:
  • schools without devolved budgets;
  • all centrally held school budgets.

6.1 Additional Information

Note that double counting between rows is permitted within the additional information for LFR 01. For example, Other Employee Costs associated with Additional Support for Learning should be counted in both the 'Employee Costs – All Other Employees' and 'Additional Support for Learning' lines. Double counting is not permitted between columns or in the core LFR 01 table.

Revenue Contributions to Capital (RCC) (Row 36): Record here any RCC relating to Pre-Primary Education (Column C); Primary Education (Column D); and Secondary Education (Column E) only. This information collected specifically for use in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) and so is only required for subservices which are reflected in LGBF finance indicators.

Employee Costs - All other employees (Row 40): Record here gross expenditure on employees other than teachers. This includes, but is not limited to, classroom auxiliaries, laboratory technicians, school librarians, school bursars, school welfare officers, receptionists, clerks, janitors, cleaners, welfare attendants, nurses, therapists, other medical staff and educational psychologists.

School Transport incurred under Section 50-51 (Row 41): Record here gross expenditure on taxis, buses and any other transport costs arising from the transport of children from home to school incurred under Section 50-51 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. Non-statutory transport costs, such as transport to sporting events, should not be included.

School Meals – Term time (Row 42): Record here gross expenditure relating to the provision of school meals, including any general fixed costs, during term time. This should include any costs associated with the provision of meal alternatives to pupils studying remotely whilst self-isolating due to COVID-19, including direct payments, vouchers, food parcels or food collection.

Hardship grants paid to children in receipt of free school meals should not be included here, even if the grant may have been used to pay for meals.

School Meals – Holidays (Row 43): Record here gross expenditure relating to the provision of meal alternatives to pupils living in low-income families during school holiday periods, including direct payments, vouchers, food parcels or food collection.

Hardship grants paid to children in receipt of free school meals should not be included here, even if the grant may have been used to pay for meals.

Additional Support for Learning (ASL) (Row 44): Following an amendment in 2009 to The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, Scottish Ministers have a duty to collect and publish a range of information from Education Authorities on additional support needs, including cost of provision.

This line collects the cost of provision of additional support needs. These costs should be allocated to columns as per the relevant SeRCOP and LFR guidance, i.e. Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Education columns should only contain the costs for ASL provision that is funded by the schools' devolved budget and all centrally funded ASL provision should be included in the Special Education column.

Cost of provision of Additional Support Needs should include the following:

• Establishments: The cost of running ASL establishments, for example, special schools or units making provision for:
• Moderate or complex learning difficulties;
• Autism;
• Physical impairment;
• Emotional and behavioural needs;
• Sensory impairments (Hearing and Visual Impairments);
• Other additional support needs.
• Services: The cost of running centralised services which support the provision of additional support for learning but which may be local authority wide, such as:
  • Assessment centres;
  • Dyslexia services;
  • Bilingual services;
  • EAL services;
  • Sensory Impairment Teams;
  • Audiology services;
  • Any other services.
• Psychological Services: The cost of running a psychological service to support identification and provision for additional support for learning:
  • Educational psychologists – salary plus on costs;
  • Educational psychology service, including mainstream schools.
• Transport: The cost of providing transport for pupils with additional support needs. This includes buses and any associated contracts; taxis and any associated contracts; and any other costs of transport.
• Placements: The cost of purchased placements for pupils with additional support needs. This includes placements in another authority area that are wholly funded by education authorities, and placements where funding is shared by the education authorities and other services (whole costs where possible).
• Staffing: Cost of ASL teachers and support staff in both ASL and mainstream establishments, such as Pupil Support Assistants and Support for Learning teachers. This should include the cost of absence cover.

Youth Work (Row 46) and Adult Learning (Row 47): Data from these lines will be used by Scottish Government Community Learning & Development policy to:

• understand the investment being made in these areas at local authority level;
• support the commitment to deliver the Community Learning & Development Regulations;
• feed in to the National Youth Work and National Adult Learning Strategy when these are published.

These lines should reflect youth work / community-based adult learning services and provision linked to the Community Learning and Development Plan. Further details of specific expenditure to be recorded against each row is provided below.

Where an estimate has had to be provided for any of these rows, please advise this in the comments box at the bottom of LFR 01, along with any comments on the accuracy of the estimates. Further, if elements of these services are provided by an ALEO, please also note this in the comments box for information.

Please note that these lines are distinct categories. The validation check at Cells M46:M47 will fail if the sum of Cells H46 & H47 is greater than the total gross expenditure for Community Learning shown in Cell H13.

Youth Work (Row 46): Record here gross expenditure relating to youth work. Specifically, expenditure relating to:

• measures to provide education for citizenship through youth work;
• youth information services;
• direct provision of youth activities and facilities; and
• educational support for individuals and groups by youth workers or youth work services.

Adult Learning (Row 47): Record here gross expenditure related to the delivery of community-based adult learning and adult literacy and numeracy. Specifically, expenditure relating to:

• provision of adult literacies services;
• provision of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services;
• provision of generic community-based adult learning services.

School Meals - Customer and Client Receipts only (Row 50): Record here all customer and client receipt income generated from school meals. This should be in line with School Meals income provided in prior years.

COVID-19 Specific Grants (Row 51): Record here the amount of COVID-19 specific grants that have been applied to each subservice. A full list of COVID-19 Specific grants is provided in Annex B.

Number of Free School Meals – Term time (Row 57): Record here the actual, unrounded unit number of free school meals provided during term time.

This figure should include any meal alternatives provided to pupils studying remotely whilst self-isolating due to COVID-19, including direct payments, vouchers, food parcels or food collection. Where more than one days' meal alternatives was provided in a single package, for example a food parcel, payment or voucher to cover a week or more, please provide the number of days per individual pupil these packages were intended to cover.

Number of paid for School Meals – Term time (Row 58): Record here the actual, unrounded unit number of paid for school meals provided during term time.

Number of School Meals – Holidays (Row 61): Record here the actual, unrounded unit number of meal alternatives provided to pupils living in low-income families during school holiday periods, including direct payments, vouchers, food parcels or food collection. Where more than one days' meal alternatives was provided in a single package, for example a food parcel, payment or voucher to cover a week or more, please provide the number of days per individual pupil these packages were intended to cover.

Delivery method for School Meal - School holidays (Row 63): Record here the method of delivery for school holiday meals using the dropdown list provided. Where a mix of delivery methods has been used, please select 'Other'.

Where 'Other' has been selected, please provide a brief note of the delivery method used in the comments box at Row 65.

The validation check in Cell M63 will fail if no delivery method has been selected but a number of school holiday meals delivered has been recorded in Row 61.