Expenditure per pupil for primary and secondary school education: FOI release

Information requested

Could I please have the data supplied to ScotGov last month on spend per pupil in education, secondary and primary, for each individual council area in Scotland for fiscal year 2023-2024.

Response

Local authority expenditure on education is currently being collected from local authorities (LAs) as part of the Local Financial Return 2023-24 data collection. A total of 24 LAs submitted data in October 2024. We are currently undertaking quality assurance of the data to ensure it is fit for publication. Education expenditure is collected in LFR 01.

Your request is specifically for spend per pupil in each council area. Pupil statistics are published at Pupil census supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and this gives the number of pupils in primary and secondary schools for each local authority. We’ve used the pupil census 2023 supplementary statistics.

Combining the unvalidated local authority expenditure information from LFR 01 with the pupil census statistics, average gross expenditure (£) per pupil is detailed in the table below. (NA = not available).

Local Authority	Primary	Secondary
Aberdeen City	6,953	8,838
Aberdeenshire	7,028	9,099
Angus	7,123	8,937
Argyll & Bute	9,913	12,543
City of Edinburgh	6,676	8,524
Clackmannanshire	NA	NA
Dumfries & Galloway	NA	NA
Dundee City	7,097	8,646
East Ayrshire	7,524	9,003
East Dunbartonshire	NA	NA
East Lothian	7,085	8,573
East Renfrewshire	6,961	9,116
Falkirk	7,200	8,792
Fife	7,384	8,597
Glasgow City	7,110	9,343
Highland	NA	NA
Inverclyde	NA	NA
Midlothian	7,840	9,225
Moray	7,165	9,167
Na h-Eileanan Siar	NA	NA
North Ayrshire	8,520	9,890
North Lanarkshire	7,277	8,750
Orkney Islands	11,647	14,388
Perth & Kinross	7,992	10,329
Renfrewshire	7,462	8,859
Scottish Borders	7,655	10,451
Shetland Islands	11,350	13,958
South Ayrshire	NA	NA
South Lanarkshire	NA	NA
Stirling	8,143	9,718
West Dunbartonshire	8,567	9,660
West Lothian	7,531	8,919

Please note this is based on unvalidated LFR 01 data. Figures may change between now and publication in February 2025. A Scotland figure is unavailable due to the eight missing authorities.

Expenditure information will be published as part of Scottish Local Finance Statistics 2023-24 and this has been pre-announced for publication in February 2025. In line with the Code of Practice for Official statistics (T3.1), the exact publication date will be announced at least four weeks in advance of publication and will be notified at: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

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