School Funding

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Under the proposed formula on which we are consulting, London schools, purely because of the underlying cost pressures of running schools in London and the deprivation levels in their areas—although they have reduced, they are still comparatively high—will still receive, on average, 30% more. My hon. Friend will of course want to speak up on behalf of her community. This is about ensuring that we fund the right amount by using current data on deprivation, rather than data that are five or 10 years old.

We believe that the Department can work with schools to help them to make the best use of their resources. I want every single pound that we put into our schools system to be used efficiently to improve standards and have the maximum impact for pupils. We know that we can work with schools to ensure that they can use this record funding to make the maximum impact. Indeed, I would point to the situation in York. It has been one of the lowest funded authorities in the country, yet 92% of its schools are good or outstanding. We therefore know that we can make progress in education while making efficiencies.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much support what the Secretary of State is trying to do, since Wiltshire is one of the worst-funded education authorities in the country. However, will she look again at the sparsity factor, because school governors are currently crunching the figures, and some of them are saying that they worry about the viability of small schools in rural locations being undermined, which clearly will not be the intention of the Secretary of State?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, we looked at the formula to ensure that we did introduce a sparsity factor. Not all local authorities actually had a sparsity factor in their local formula, but we are now making sure that it is there for every single school. We have also introduced the lump-sum formula.

We got to the stage in developing the formula where the only way we could continue to improve it was to ask people what they thought about it, which is why the consultation is so important. It is important that we get the formula right, but I recognise that this complicated formula has to work for schools around the country that are in very different situations, which is why the debate is so important. Following the phase 1 consultation, it is right that we steadily take the time to hold a phase 2 consultation to help us to finalise a formula that can work and have real longevity.

We will work with schools to help them to improve their efficiency. We have already published a school buying strategy that sees us launching an efficiency website. We are putting in place national deals to help to ensure that schools get the best deals on things such as utilities. We are putting in place buying and digital hubs so that strong procurement teams are close to schools to give them advice when they need it. We are also setting up school business manager networks so that we work with the people who are driving efficiencies in schools to share best practice and improve performance. Over time, I believe that we really can take some steps forward on that.

We are making sure that record funding is going into our schools, we are making sure that our curriculum is stronger than ever before, and we are actually turning out young people with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful. That is not the only part of our education policy; we are also investing in apprenticeships and radically reforming technical education. We are going to make sure that this Government end up being able to say that every young person, wherever they grow up, is able to do their best and reach their full potential. I hope that, over the course of the debate, colleagues will recognise that that is the strategy that we will deliver.