Schools: Funding Formula

Lord Evans of Weardale Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Rural schools are of course essential to their local communities and ensure that children do not have to travel long distances to school, but we are including an enhanced sparsity factor in our formula to target additional funding to our smallest and most remote schools. This sparsity funding is over and above the lump sum that all schools will receive to help them meet costs that do not vary with their pupil numbers.

[Lord Evans of Weardale (CB)]

My Lords, while I welcome the additional efficiency and flexibility that come from the multi-academy trust system, and from trusts and free schools overall, does the Minister agree that a reduction in funding per pupil at a time when greater skills are needed to compete internationally, and when mental health problems among young people are increasing so rapidly and causing problems for many schools, is a bad allocation of money?

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments about the efficiency of multi-academy trusts. One study shows that multi-academy trusts can achieve a saving of £146 per pupil. As I said, we are still recovering from the financial hole that we inherited in 2010 and we all have to adjust our resources. Schools have had a huge increase in money in recent years. We are trying very hard and have a lot of resources available on our government website to help them become more efficient.