School Funding (London)

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

Again, the hon. Lady takes the misleading figures from the National Union of Teachers, which is conflating the cost pressures that all of the public sector is incurring over this year and the next three years—amounting to 8% in total—with the national funding formula. The national funding formula is good for schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I hope very much that her local headteachers and she herself will support the new national funding formula, because it is fairer, and fairer for her schools.

[Mr David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Siobhain McDonagh.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (in the Chair)]

I am afraid, Mr Kane, that that is not a point of order for the Chair. The Minister is entitled to give way or not give way according to his own preference.

[Mr Gibb]

Thank you, Mr Hanson; I want to respond to all the points that were made in the debate.

We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and proposals for the overall design of the funding system. More than 6,000 people responded to that first stage of our consultation, with wide support for those proposals. I acknowledge the support that the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) has given to the principles of this formula.

We have just concluded a 14-week second stage consultation, covering the detailed proposals for the design of both the schools formula and the high needs formula. Our proposals will target money towards pupils who face the greatest barriers to a successful education. In particular, our proposals will boost the support for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and for those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not eligible for free school meals—those ordinary working families who are too often overlooked. We are also putting more money towards supporting those pupils in both primary and secondary schools who have fallen behind in their education to ensure that they have the support they need to catch up.

Overall, 10,740 schools would gain funding under our proposals, and the formula will allow those schools to see those gains quickly, with increases of up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and of 2.5% in 2019-20. Seventy-two local authority areas will quickly see an increase in their high needs funding, and no local authority will see a fall in its funding.

As well as providing those increases, we have listened to those who highlighted in our first stage consultation the risks of major budget changes for schools. That is why we have proposed to include significant protections in both formulae. No school would face a reduction of more than 1.5% per year or of 3% overall per pupil and, as I have said, no local authority will lose funding for high needs. The proposals will limit the otherwise quite large reductions that some schools, including many in London, would see as the funding system is brought up to date.

The real-terms protection of the core schools budget underpins these proposals. As a result, we are able to allocate some £200 million to schools in both 2018-19 and 2019-20, over and above flat cash per pupil funding. That will combine significant protection for those facing reductions with more rapid increases for those set to gain under the fairer funding formula. High needs funding will see an equivalent real-terms protection.

London will remain the highest-funded part of the country under our proposals. Schools in inner London will attract 30% more funding per pupil than the national average, which is right. Despite the city’s increasing affluence, London schools still have the highest proportion of children from a deprived background and the highest labour market costs, as has been acknowledged in the debate.

We are using a broad definition of disadvantage to target additional funding to schools, comprising of pupil and area level deprivation data, prior attainment data and data on English as an additional language. No individual measure is enough on its own. Each factor reflects different aspects of the challenges that schools face, and they work in combination to target funding. Where a child qualifies for more than one of those factors, the school receives funding for each qualifying factor. For example, if a child comes from a more disadvantaged household and they live in an area of socioeconomic deprivation, their school will attract funding through the free school meals factor and the area-level deprivation factor—the income deprivation affecting children index.

The additional needs factors in the formula are proxies for the level of need in the school. We are not suggesting that the funding attracted by an individual pupil must all be spent on that pupil, but that schools with high numbers of pupils with additional needs are more likely to need additional resources. Using the proxy factors helps us target funding on schools that are more likely to face the most acute challenges. I will give way to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who introduced the debate, if she wants to come in on that point. If not, I will press on.