School Funding: Cheshire West and Chester

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school funding in Cheshire West and Chester.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Bailey. I start by declaring an interest: both of my children, who I normally do not like to mention, are of school age and attend schools in my constituency.

It is tempting to use hyperbole when describing the looming education situation in Cheshire West and Chester—phrases such as “black hole” or “cliff edge” come to mind—but I will try to avoid such a tone, such is the gravity of the situation that my local schools face. I start by paying tribute to Chester schools. We are lucky to have a group of schools in my constituency at both primary and secondary level that provide quality education, despite the current pressures they face, with a team of headteachers giving strong and clear leadership, both educationally and pastorally. It is no surprise to me that 90% of schools in the borough are rated good or outstanding.

There have been issues with performance in a couple of schools in the past, but the hallmark has always been collaboration and mutual support, either across the city and the borough or with more locally focused initiatives such as the Blacon Education Village project, where the primary schools and Blacon High School, in the most deprived part of my constituency, work together to raise standards and expectations across their combined patch. I say that to demonstrate that my local headteachers are sober and dedicated professionals who are absolutely committed to the vocation they love and not in any way head-banging hard-line political agitators. When they tell me and local parents that there is a problem and I hear phrases such as “cliff edge”, we can be sure they mean it.

We know that, in the context of the current financial climate, as identified by a National Audit Office report, the schools budget faces a £3 billion gap. Schools funding is protected, but that does not take account of other costs such as salaries, maintenance costs, inflation, the apprenticeship levy, national insurance and, critically, rising pupil numbers.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christian Matheson]

I give way to my next-door neighbour.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a problem with the 40 local authorities that are not fairly funded—the f40 group—which includes both Cheshire West and Chester, and Cheshire East?

[Christian Matheson]

I agree. The hon. Lady represents parts of Cheshire West and Chester, and Cheshire East, which is one of the few boroughs that is even worse off than Cheshire West and Chester. She has seen the harsh end of it, and I am sure she is fighting the corner for both boroughs.

The problem is that the situation was already tight before the new funding formula. Steve Williams, chair of governors at St Werburgh’s and St Columba’s Primary School, reminds me of the governors’ view nationally, which is that the £3 billion gap will lead to an effective 8% cut in school budgets on its own. They say:

“As far as budgets go we are now in the trenches. The new formula may mean pupils get a fairer portion but it will be a fairer portion of not enough.”

The Government then introduced the national fair funding formula.

In Cheshire West and Chester, we were already £400 per pupil below the national average, near the bottom of the pile. In 2015-16—coincidentally, a general election year—we received a £9.4 million uplift to bring us closer to the national average. The Government recognised we had a problem.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

[Christian Matheson]

Oh, go on then—just one more time.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am very grateful. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that £9.4 million was very hard fought for by members of the f40 and by a number of MPs. I certainly was fighting on behalf of my schools in Eddisbury to get that slice of funding, and we do not seem to see that coming forward in the current proposals from the Government.

[Christian Matheson]

The hon. Lady refers to the hard work that was undertaken, which is reflected in hard work being undertaken now, but the Government recognised a problem previously with the £9.4 million, whether that was because it was a general election year or not—who knows? I hope they now recognise that the structural problem remains, and that it needs to be addressed in the same way it was addressed just a couple of years ago.

We received the £9.4 million uplift to recognise that problem, so we have moved from the bottom of the pile to the top, but only in terms of suffering the biggest cuts. We stand to lose £4.2 million in the first year, rising to £6.4 million beyond that. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the damage that those cuts will make is to quote the headteachers’ public statements. Damian Stenhouse, head of Christleton High School, has said he faces a reduction in funding of £169,000, forcing him to reduce staffing, have larger class sizes, increase teacher loads, which runs the risk of increased sickness absence, and decrease support for more vulnerable pupils.

John Murray of the Catholic High School, Chester, has told parents that funding for his sixth-formers has dropped £200,000 since 2011 and that the school faces a further £54 cut per child next year, combined with £78,000 of local and national funding formula cuts, making increased class sizes much more likely. Paula Dixon, head of Upton-by-Chester High School, which is rated good with an outstanding sixth form, told parents:

“If the outcome of the NFF is to financially disadvantage schools like ours we will have little option but to further erode the breadth of our curriculum offer to our students at both Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 levels and increase our class sizes in order to generate sufficient staff savings to achieve the level required, as our non-teacher staffing expenditure has been cut to the bone already.”

Dave Wallace of St Oswald’s Primary School in Mollington has said that the cut of £429 per pupil will mean losing one of the 5.4 teachers he currently has, which will have, in his words,

“a significant impact on the standard of education in what is an oversubscribed village school.”

Marian Ryder, head of St Clare’s Catholic Primary School in Lache, another less advantaged area, joined the school when it required improvement and has been recognised with her staff by a positive Ofsted report for the improvements they are making. However, she tells us that the reduction of her budget means they will have to look at staffing structures.

At primary and secondary level, in the rural parts of the constituency, on the big estates and in the centre of my city, the story is the same: staff cuts, increased class sizes, fewer subjects offered, attainment levels likely to fall and support for the neediest pupils diminished. I am also fearful that areas such as sport and music will be the easiest options to cut. Those not only enrich our children’s lives but improve health. They get children active and used to being active, which continues into later life and has health benefits. Once again, short-term cuts lead to long-term damage; it is a false economy.

The Government’s response has been to call for greater efficiency savings, but I know that my schools are already running beyond maximum efficiency. One high-achieving local multi-academy trust, which includes Mill View Primary in my constituency and has twice been rated outstanding, is a case in point. It tells me that, since 2011, it has done everything possible to make cash stretch and cut costs, setting up businesses in catering and out-of-hours services, reducing the number of teaching assistants, turning off heating after lunch, limiting the amount of paper any member of staff is allowed to use, putting limits on photocopying and printing and asking to see a fully used Pritt Stick before a new one is issued. They still achieve top Ofsted marks because of their staff. However, staff cannot be expected to continue to achieve with ever dwindling resources.

This is back of the sofa stuff, scrabbling around for pennies, and that is before the new fair funding formula comes in. If we add to that the £57 million of Government cuts to the local council’s overall budget, there is no slack left. For the Government to tell the NAO that they expect schools to make savings through “better procurement”, and by using their staff “more efficiently”, wholly misjudges the scale and the nature of the problem, and is downright insulting to staff and parents at schools such as Mill View.

I note that several areas of the country have benefited from the funding formula. West Sussex gets an extra 1.9% and Hampshire gets 0.7%. Surrey gets an extra 1.7%—perhaps they had a special deal. I do not doubt that these funding formulas are hard to draw up, but it must surely be evident to Ministers that they have got this one wrong. I do not believe it was their intention to redistribute cash from north to south. When every single school in my constituency is looking to make staff cuts and almost every headteacher is writing to parents with, frankly, understated stories of impending financial chaos, it is evident that something has gone very badly wrong.

I urge Ministers to please reconsider this badly conceived idea. I will make one party political point. When attainment levels start falling, as they will, and when class sizes start rising, school trips are cancelled, swimming lessons are cut, opportunities for learning music no longer present themselves, teachers leave and are not replaced, teachers are asked to teach lessons in subjects that they are not qualified to teach and specialist support for needier children is cut, I will have to make it absolutely clear to my constituents where the responsibility lies. It will not be with the heroic staff at my local primary and secondary schools or the outstanding leadership of my local headteachers. I urge the Minister to see that his Department has got this one wrong. The national fair funding formula provides neither fairness nor funding, and must be changed.