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Dan Bates: the wider impact of DSG deficit balances

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Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficits are often reported as being ‘off balance sheet’. This is not the case; they might be harder to find, tucked away in unusable reserves, but they are very much there and add up to the biggest risk to local government financial resilience.

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The statutory override, extended to March 2027, temporarily protects usable revenue reserves from the impact of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) overspends but

While upper tier authorities are seeing significant pressures and are relying on external borrowing, district councils are so far not yet showing the same degree of balance sheet stress, finds Room151’s head of research Dan Bates.

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