Sections · PESA departmental group
Education
The Department for Education and the bodies in its group, including academy trusts. Maintained schools are counted in Local Government. In 2025-26 the bodies in this section spent £50.5bn on services. £46.5bn of it (92.1%) can be followed to who received it, and at most 123.1% counting payees who are named but can't be identified yet.
- Reached an identified organisation
- Reached a recipient the publisher did not name
- Reached people, counted by benefit
- Reached staff (pay) or holders of government debt (interest), followed as one published total
- Named payee, not yet identified (may be another public body)
- Not followed
How far it is followed, and why the rest can't be
- Academy trusts' own spending
Academy trusts are part of central government, so their spending is counted here. No source listing their payments one by one has been collected. The department's payments to them are passed on, and many academy payees are still awaiting review as proposed matches.
- Below the publication threshold
Payments under £25,000 (central government and the NHS) or £500 (councils) are not published one by one. Some publishers list every payment anyway; most do not.
- Pay: followed to staff as one total£35.8bnmeasured
Wages are never published person by person, and must not be. The staff costs of the 12 bodies in this section, from HM Treasury's OSCAR database (2025-26, provisional outturn), are counted as followed to their staff.
Where the records come from
Each publisher's 2025-26 payment records, and where their money went. "Identified" means matched to a registered company, charity or other organisation outside government; "named only", a payee named in the record but not yet matched; "passed on", paid to another public body.
| Publisher | Months | Records | Identified | Named only | Withheld | Passed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Department for Education | 12 | 307,314 | £10.8bn | £15.7bn | £0 | £93.7bn |
The largest payees not yet identified
Payees paid £5m or more. Named in the records as shown, but not yet matched to a registered organisation or a public body. Some may be public bodies; until they are matched they are counted as followed by name only.
| Payee, as published | 2025-26 |
|---|---|
| VARIOUS | £721m |
| STUDENT LOANS CO LTD INVEST TO SAVE | £362m |
| NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES | £213m |
| STUDENT AWARDS AGENCY FOR SCOTLAND SAAS | £181m |
| DEPARTMENT FOR THE ECONOMY | £158m |
| NEWCASTLE COLLEGE GROUP | £130m |
| KIER CONSTRUCTION EASTERN | £89m |
| HCUC | £85m |
| EAST KENT COLLEGE | £76m |
| N/A - RISK PROTECTION ARRANGEMENT (RPA) MEMBER | £74m |
What PESA says this section spends on
| Function | 2025-26 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Education | £49.4bn | 98% |
| Social protection | £1.2bn | 2% |