THE amount of money each East Lancashire school will be able to spend in the next academic year is set to rise.

Lancashire County Council has published a its draft of the schools budget for 2016/17 which sees the main source of income for schools increasing from more than £692m to more than £701m.

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The figures are sent to the Educational Funding Agency (EFA), which is responsible for distributing money for state education.

The money is part of the ‘schools block’ section of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

Primaries, secondaries, free schools and academies get their biggest funding through the schools block.

According to the proposals, the money for the early years will rise to £47.395m and the funds for students with special needs will increase to £101.578m. However, the overall budget is set to drop from £861.255m to £857.813m after ‘funding adjustments’ were made by the EFA to the ‘higher needs block’.

Richard Jones, head teacher at St Christopher’s CE High School in Accrington, said: “These are extremely difficult times financially for all schools .”

Lancashire Schools Forum is to meet on January 14, to consider the 2016/17 budget.

Schools are expected to be told the confirmed details of the budget by February 29, after county councillors have had their say.

Xavier Bowers, head at Mount Carmel RC High School, Accrington, said: “School budgets have decreased over the last few years because of things like National Insurance and pension contributions. I think our next budget will be 10- 12 per cent down on last year.”

The amount spent on each pupil in Lancashire will rise by £3.35 to £4,481.89.