The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that small and rural primary schools have difficulty accessing larger pots of funding; notes in particular that Scorton Church of England Primary School does not have a school hall, causing children to have to eat in their classrooms and walk down into the village to use the village hall for PE, causing more pressure on the school budget which is going into deficit; further notes that the school does not have its own kitchen and has to pay to have school meals brought in by taxi.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to recognise the unique difficulties small and rural primary schools have with accessing larger pots of funding and reallocate existing funds to provide support for these schools.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Cat Smith , Official Report, 31 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 314.]
[P002800]
Observations from the Minister for Schools (Nick Gibb):
We have allocated over £13 billion in capital funding since 2015 for maintaining and improving school facilities across England, including £1.8 billion committed this financial year—informed by consistent data on the school estate. This supports the Government’s priority of ensuring schools have well maintained facilities that support a high-quality education for pupils, whatever their background. We are also delivering on the promise of a 10-year school rebuilding programme, which will transform buildings at 500 schools, prioritising schools in poor condition and with potential safety issues. We have now announced 400 schools, including 239 in December 2022.
A large proportion of schools’ capital funding is delivered through annual allocations to local authorities (LAs) and larger multi-academy trusts (MATs) to maintain the condition of estates. Schools and those responsible for school buildings receive condition funding through different routes depending on their size and type. All schools receive funding to spend on their capital priorities through an annual devolved formula capital allocation. LAs, larger MATS and large VA school bodies receive a school condition allocation (SCA) to invest in priorities across the schools for which they are responsible. MATs and VA school bodies are eligible for SCA if they have five or more schools and at least 3,000 pupils. Smaller or stand-alone academy trusts, other VA schools and sixth form colleges, are able to bid to the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF).
In 2022-23, the Diocese of Blackburn received a school condition allocation of £5,239,198 to invest in their schools. The diocese is best placed to prioritise investment of this funding to meet local needs. Scorton Church of England Primary School should approach their diocese so that it can understand the issues and assess their priority as part of overall capital investment decisions for SCA funding.
On top of this capital funding, revenue funding for mainstream schools nationally is increasing by £2.5 billion in 2022-23, compared to 2021-22, and will increase by a further £2.5 billion in 2023-24, an average increase of 5.6% per pupil compared to 2022-23. This includes additional funding from the Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG) in 2023-24, worth an average 3.4% per pupil, which will be provided on top of the allocations based on the national funding formula (NFF) announced in July.
Scorton Church of England Primary School is attracting £387,000 in total in 2023-24, or £7,163 per pupil, through the schools NFF. This represents an increase of 7.2% per pupil for their pupil-led funding compared to 2022-23, based on current pupil numbers.
Schools’ actual allocations are based on local authorities’ local funding formulae.
On top of this funding through the NFF, Scorton Church of England Primary School will receive additional funding through the Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG). We have published a calculator tool for schools to accurately estimate their additional funding through the MSAG—this gives an indicative allocation of £12,066 MSAG funding for Scorton Church of England Primary School. Final school-level allocations will be announced in spring 2023.
The Government recognise the essential role that small schools play in their communities, and the schools NFF accounts for the particular challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the lump sum and sparsity factors.
All small schools are benefiting from a 6% increase to the lump sum in 2023-24, totalling £132,510 through NFF and MSAG allocations combined. The lump sum provides a fixed amount of funding that is unrelated to pupil numbers and has increased by over 20% since the introduction of the NFF in 2018-19. The lump sum is particularly beneficial to small schools.
Small and remote schools also attract additional support through the sparsity factor in the schools NFF. The sparsity factor recognises that some schools are necessarily small because they are remote and do not have the same opportunities to grow or make efficiency savings as other schools, and that such schools often play a significant role in the rural communities they serve.
The total amount allocated through the sparsity factor increased from £26 million in 2020-21 to £95 million in 2022-23—and increases again to £97 million in 2023-24. Changes to sparsity funding will continue to benefit small, remote schools in 2023-24. From 2022-23, we began measuring schools’ remoteness more accurately, by road distances. This led to a significant increase in the number of schools eligible for sparsity funding to over 2,500 schools attracting sparsity funding in total, including Scorton Church of England Primary School.