Teaching unions backtrack over dire warning of funding cuts

Teaching unions have backtracked over their dire warnings of funding cuts and now admit that schools will not lose out next year.

The School Cuts coalition had claimed that the Government had ‘broken its promise’ to schools and accused the Department for Education of failing to protect per-pupil funding.

It said this week that ‘for 2018/19 schools in England have on average been allocated less per pupil in real terms than in 2017/18’. The group, including the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders and the National Education Union, calculated that schools had been given an average of £4,630 per pupil, which was £59 less in real terms.

A coalition of teaching unions was forced into a u-turn after admitting the government had not broken its commitment for school funding

The School Cuts coalition admitted it had got its sums wrong when attacking the government

The School Cuts coalition admitted it had got its sums wrong when attacking the government

But it now admits that its sums were wrong as it had not factored in £450million of the Central School Services Block (CSSB) funding – which the Government gives to local authorities.

Revised estimates show school funding per-pupil remains ‘broadly stable’, the coalition confirmed yesterday.

But speaking on behalf of the coalition, Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, still claimed that ‘huge numbers’ of schools are still receiving less funding in ‘real terms’. ‘We withdrew our press release once we realised it was in error because we’re very proud of the accuracy of our figures,’ he said yesterday.

‘Overall, school funding is broadly stable compared with last year, but there have been huge cuts running up to last year and there are still huge effects where some schools are having real terms cuts compared with last year because there are redistributive effects going on. So there are huge numbers of schools where funding is less in real terms than last year.’

The DfE had angrily hit out at the coalition’s original figures on Wednesday, saying they were ‘completely false’.

A spokesman said: ‘We are – in no uncertain terms – protecting funding in real terms, per pupil. In fact, independent analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows that real terms per pupil funding in 2020 will be more than 50 per cent higher than it was in 2000.

‘In addition, funding for the average primary school class has increased by £8,000 to £132,000 in the last decade, and for secondary schools it is a £10,000 rise to £171,000 – all in today’s prices.’

However, the public accounts committee’s annual report yesterday said the DfE is ‘on a par’ with the Department for Health and Social Care ‘in terms of strains on funding and doubts over its long-term sustainability’.

Committee chairman, Labour’s Meg Hillier, claimed that the Government was ‘unrealistic in its saving expectations’ and has ‘little in the way of contingency planning’ if they ‘threaten the quality of education and pupil performance’.

Some schools are facing year-on-year ‘efficiency savings’, expected to rise to £3billion by 2019-20, despite the Government announcing more money being given to schools after the general election.

Miss Hillier said many schools are considering reducing hours to save money while others are reducing the curriculum and setting up Amazon wishlists to ask parents to pay for what she says are basic resources.

Last July, former Education Secretary Justine Greening promised that an additional £1.3billion of investment in schools would mean that per-pupil funding would be maintained in real terms in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The money was being raised by cuts elsewhere in the education budget.

 



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