School Funding

Faisal Rashid Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I will of course come to the specifics of the Opposition’s motion and the important points about the funding formula.

We are also giving primary schools £320 million a year for PE and sport—double what was given in 2016—and investing £600 million a year to provide free school meals for all infants. That is on top of our substantial investment in school improvement activities. This year, we will invest over £60 million in maths, science and computing, and over £100 million—to respond partly to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—in arts and music.

Spending is high by historical standards. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies—this has come up already—has shown that, in real terms, per pupil funding in 2020 will be at least half as much again as it was in 2000. Looking internationally, we spend more on our schools in total than both the EU and OECD averages and at levels comparable with key competitor countries.

However, although it is true that overall spend is higher—this goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the sole, or primary Liberal Democrat representative with us here today—on technical and vocational education, our figures compare less favourably. In Germany in particular, the spend is considerably more than ours on secondary-level vocational programmes. That is why I am so pleased that the Chancellor has committed extra money to boost the size and funding for the new T-level programmes. That will total over £500 million a year in additional resources for post-16 education when T-levels are fully rolled out.

As well as ensuring record funding for our schools, the Government have taken on the historical challenge of introducing a fair national funding formula—something, of course, that has not been taken on by any previous Government—to ensure that money is directed where it is most needed, based on the individual characteristics of schools and pupils, not on accidents of history or geography.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Damian Hinds]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not. We have gone further than our manifesto promise that no school would lose funding as a result of the national funding formula. The formula is in fact giving every local authority more money for every pupil in every school in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Every school is attracting at least a cash increase of 0.5% per pupil through the formula this year, and 1% more next year, compared with their baselines.

Of course, we have always been clear that local authorities continue to have some flexibility on how this funding is distributed across schools in their local area. I think that is right and it is a good thing that the flexibility exists for local authorities as we transition into the national funding formula. As our extensive consultation showed, flexibility is important because it allows local authorities, in consultation with their schools, to reflect local need and to smooth the transition toward the NFF where this represents a significant change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders]

Yes, it is concerning. As we know, in any organisation seeking to balance the books—and schools are no different—the more experienced and more expensive staff are often the ones encouraged to perhaps take early retirement or redundancy. The replacement staff, if there are any, are often at the lower end of the pay spectrum—not that they are any lesser people for that, but they do not have the skills and experience that justify being in a higher pay bracket.

The cuts to school funding extend to council support. Changes to central support grants will lead to about half a million pounds being lost to my local authority in the next decade, which will further emasculate its already strangled ability to support schools. Not that it can help most of them even if it wanted to, thanks to the acceleration of the academies programme.

[Faisal Rashid]

Under the new system, Warrington will have among the worst funded schools—141st out of 150—and could also lose just under £2,500 per child. Clearly, the system is not fit for purpose or balanced across the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should ensure that the fair funding formula is just that: fair?

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hon. Members are making points about the situations in their constituencies, and I want to talk about the ludicrous situation facing one of the academies in my constituency. It was placed in special measures last year, but has had to wait over six months to get any financial support from the Department to help it to improve. In the past, the local authority would have stepped in the next day—it would probably have been helping all along—but now the academy is required to go through a lengthy application process, which delays progress. Six months in a failing school is six months too long, and the lack of progress, which has been visible to the local community, has long-term implications for the school’s viability. Because of its situation, the roll is now falling. In fact, the school faces a double whammy of funding losses, which will only exacerbate an already extremely challenging situation.

The net result is that the other schools in my constituency end up being over-subscribed. The chaos of an academy-led admissions system means that some parents end up feeling that they have nowhere to send their children to. That is quite a dramatic statement, but that is how many parents feel and it represents an absolute failure by the state. The prospects of the situation remedying itself any time soon look bleak. If we were truly following the market-led approach that the Government appear to be advocating, the successful schools in my constituency that can attract more pupils would be allowed to expand, but there is precious little funding available for them to do that.

One example of a school in my constituency that has turned round and been a success story is Ellesmere Port Catholic High School, which has seen huge improvements after it was placed in special measures in November 2013. The headteacher and the school have worked exceptionally hard to turn things round, and in June 2015 it was officially rated by Ofsted as good. So impressive has the school’s improvement been that the chief inspector of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, referred to it in a speech about schools making remarkable transformations, saying:

“At Ellesmere Port Catholic High School, only a third of pupils achieved 5 good GCSEs. Now almost three-quarters do.”

I am pleased to say that this year the school has had full admissions for its year 7 pupils. These improvements should be applauded, as they have been by Sir Michael Wilshaw, but how is the school rewarded? With a budget scenario that envisages staffing cuts.

The school tells me that it desperately needs to expand as a result of its progress, but where is the capital funding that it needs to help to achieve that aim? How can it build on its success when it is not allowed to build? I am sure that if it reopened as a free school, there would be no problem getting the cash needed, but why does it need to reinvent the wheel? Why are existing schools that have put the effort in and that made great improvements and are already an established part of the community discriminated against because they are not part of the latest Government fad? How about a capital funding policy that rewards improvement and looks at where existing provision can be augmented? Indeed, we can contrast that with a story I read yesterday about a brand new free school in Plymouth that cost £4.2 million to set up, but which has closed after just 16 months. How can money be thrown down the drain on experiments like that when existing good schools cannot expand?

Education is at a tipping point in this country. We know from a National Education Union survey that 55% of schools that responded said that class sizes had risen in the last year and that over three quarters reported cuts in spending on books and equipment.