National Insurance contributions (NICs)
19 March 2025
National Insurance contributions (NICs) Support Package
Today we are announcing the National Insurance contributions (NICs) support package across Department for Education (DfE) workforces. We are providing over £930m of additional funding for schools (for 5 to 16 year olds) and high needs settings, £25 million in respect of schools with early years provision, and £155 million for post-16 schools and academies and further education colleges. Taken together, this is an increase of over £1 billion in financial year 2025 to 2026.
For the first time, we are providing additional grant funding for mainstream schools with special units and resourced provision (SURPs) as part of this grant. This funding will reflect the higher staffing costs that schools with SURPs typically face.
Funding for mainstream schools will be incorporated into the National Funding Formula from 2026 to 2027. We will ensure that the usual appropriate arrangements are in place for academies, to cover the period April to August 2026, given their funding cycle follows the academic year.
The high needs portion of the additional NICs grant funding, amounting to £125 million, will be delivered through the core schools budget grant (CSBG) in financial year 2025 to 2026. This aligns with the objective to simplify the grant funding for special and alternative provision (AP) schools.
We will ensure that the published allocations are transparent regarding what funding is being provided through the consolidation of the 2024 to 2025 grants (TPAG, TPECG and CSBG) and what is new funding for the NICs increase.