This tracks whether a council's schools-budget debt has been growing or shrinking year by year since 2015-16. It matters because the direction of travel tells you whether the pressure from rising costs of supporting children with special educational needs is getting better or worse. A rising trend means the council is falling further behind each year; a flat or falling trend means it is holding steady or recovering.
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hampshire | county | 213,147,730 | 1st worst of 23 |
| Surrey | county | 141,890,320 | 2nd worst of 23 |
| Norfolk | county | 131,890,646 | 3rd worst of 23 |
| Devon | county | 125,670,000 | 4th worst of 23 |
| West Sussex | county | 123,205,742 | 5th worst of 23 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | unitary | 113,256,491 | 1st worst of 61 |
| Cheshire East | unitary | 112,149,048 | 2nd worst of 61 |
| Worcestershire | county | 98,139,169 | 6th worst of 23 |
| Suffolk | county | 97,637,705 | 7th worst of 23 |
| Kent | county | 97,482,511 | 8th worst of 23 |
| Council | Class | Value | In its class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | metropolitan | -55,253,350 | 1st best of 36 |
| Bradford | metropolitan | -24,628,736 | 2nd best of 36 |
| Camden | london | -18,931,045 | 1st best of 33 |
| Coventry | metropolitan | -16,130,057 | 3rd best of 36 |
| Nottingham | unitary | -16,123,202 | 1st best of 61 |
| Portsmouth | unitary | -11,126,264 | 2nd best of 61 |
| Lambeth | london | -10,669,885 | 2nd best of 33 |
| Barnet | london | -9,188,143 | 3rd best of 33 |
| Sheffield | metropolitan | -8,314,477 | 4th best of 36 |
| Southend-on-Sea | unitary | -7,097,531 | 3rd best of 61 |
| name | dsg_deficit_trend |
|---|---|
| dataset | 05-dsg-send-deficits |
| kind | constructed |
| type | time series |
| unit | GBP per year |
| grain | local authority (series over financial years) |
| role | feature |
| source | Series of dsg_deficit_cum per LA, 2015-16 to 2024-25 |
| period | 2015-16 to 2024-25 (2016-17 missing) |
| missingness | 2016-17 missing for all LAs; series breaks c.2023 for Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset due to local government reorganisation |
| score_note | Trajectory separates recovering from deteriorating councils, but is a repackaging of dsg_deficit_cum. |
| calculated | calculated/dsg-deficit-trend.csv |
| calculated_rows | 1366 |
| calculated_periods | 2015-16 to 2024-25 (2016-17 missing) |
| calculated_date | 2026-08-13 |
| peer_group | unitaries (n=63), metropolitan boroughs (n=36), London boroughs (n=33), counties (n=26) — scored within each class against its median/IQR |
The trajectory of each council's accumulated DSG deficit since 2015-16, under the corrected sign convention (positive = deficit). Interpret with care: LGR breaks the series around 2023 for reorganised counties, and Safety Valve/DBV injections flatten or reverse trends for participating LAs without reflecting underlying pressure.