School Funding Formula (London)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

May I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on his first speech in this Parliament and welcome him back to the House of Commons?

The Government want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live, receive a first-class education. Over the past seven years, we have made significant progress. There are now almost 1.8 million more children in schools that are rated good or outstanding compared with 2010. Thanks to a curriculum that ensures that all children are taught the core knowledge that they need to be successful, to the promotion of evidence-based teaching practices such as Asian-style maths mastery and systematic synthetic phonics, and the hard work of hundreds of thousands of teachers, standards across England are on the rise. According to the latest international figures, secondary school pupils in England outperform pupils in the other nations of the United Kingdom.

The anachronistic way in which funding is distributed across the country is not fair and is in need of reform, so over the past six months I have spent a lot of time meeting teachers, headteachers, parents, governors and hon. and right hon. Members to discuss fairness in the school funding system. As a result of those conversations, I have never been more convinced of the need to grasp the nettle and address the unfairness of the current funding system. The data that are used to allocate funding to local authorities are over a decade out of date. Over that period, for example, the free school meals rate has almost halved in Southwark and has more than doubled in Dorset, but the funding that each local authority receives has not responded. It is not right that local authorities with similar needs and characteristics receive very different levels of funding from central Government. That results in a situation where, for example, a school in Barnsley would receive 50% more funding, with no other change to its circumstances, if it were situated in Hackney. That is not a rational, fair or efficient system for distributing money to our schools.

That is why the Government have gone further than any previous Government in reforming school funding, and why the Queen’s Speech made it clear that we are determined to introduce a fairer distribution of funding for schools. In doing so, we will ensure that all schools in England are funded on a consistent and transparent basis that reflects local needs. We will set out our plans shortly, and, as outlined in our manifesto, we will make sure that no school budget is cut as a result of the new formula. That will be particularly important for six schools in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The other 23 schools would all see a rise in funding as a result of the national funding formula. I hope that that addresses one of the concerns that he expressed.

In March 2016, we launched the first stage of our consultation on the national funding formula. We asked for views on the principles that should underpin it and its overall design. Those principles included using robust data to ensure that funding is matched to pupil characteristics and the importance of transparency in the way in which funding is allocated. Over 6,000 people responded and there was widespread support for reforming the current system and for the principles that we set out, including the issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised of low prior attainment, which he queried. Allocating extra funding for pupils who begin school behind their peers is, I believe, absolutely right. There is no perverse incentive, because it is the child’s attainment in the predecessor school that is relevant: nursery school if they are going to primary school, or primary school if they are going to secondary school.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

It is absolutely right, of course, that we should invest in pupils with low prior attainment, but does the Minister agree that that should not be at the expense of schools that, for whatever reason, do not hit the criteria on low prior attainment, English as an additional language or free school meals? They should have the funding they need to provide a full, rounded, liberal education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

I accept my hon. Friend’s point. We have had many discussions on these and other issues—regarding not only schools in his constituency, but f40 schools across the country. I feel strongly that schools with children who come from deprived backgrounds, with all the challenges they bring, should receive extra funding through the formula in addition to the money that comes through the pupil premium. I also strongly believe that we need to ensure that children who start school behind their peers catch up. Funding, I hope, will help ensure that they do. My hon. Friend is right, however, that we want to ensure that schools without any of those characteristics are properly funded. We can do that when a strong economy is generating the revenue to pay for those funds.

[Bob Blackman]

One of the issues that the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) did not raise was rising rolls, particularly in London. The birth rate and the influx of people coming to London with young children require schools to accommodate more children, but the money lags. Will the Minister consider that aspect? If schools are not going to lose out over all, the per-pupil funding will be crucial in London to make sure that money goes to the schools as rolls rise.

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: as pupil numbers rise, so funding for schools will rise as well, because it is based on a per-pupil approach. We are spending record amounts on school funding—£41 billion this year—and that is set to rise further as pupil numbers rise.

In December last year, we launched the second stage of the consultation on the detailed design of the formula. As part of the consultation and to ensure maximum transparency, we published detailed illustrative impact data for all schools and local authorities, and that enabled us to hold a truly national debate during the three months of the consultation. During that period, as I said, I met parents, teachers and governors. Both the Secretary of State and I met hon. Members from across the House. We received more than 5,000 letters on the national funding formula and held more than 10 debates in the House. We received more than 25,000 responses to the consultation itself.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the Minister for meeting me and the heads of Wilson’s School and Carshalton High School for Girls a few months ago. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) said, irrespective of what the Government do about the funding formula, significant funding pressures come from the apprenticeship levy, pensions, national insurance and the additional recruitment costs that schools face because of the shortage of teachers. How will the Minister address those cost pressures?

[Nick Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated my comments, as he did his right hon. Friend’s. I will come to those issues. On the apprenticeship levy, schools can use apprenticeship levy funds not only for training support staff, but for training teachers. We are developing a teacher apprenticeship and the Government have asked Sir Andrew Carter to help develop a high-quality teaching apprenticeship to enable schools to draw down funding available through the apprenticeship levy.

We will publish our response to that consultation in due course. We will build on the strong support for the basic objective of reforming the current system as well as addressing the detailed issues and concerns raised throughout the consultation. We remain committed to working with Parliament and bringing forward proposals that will command consensus.

The right hon. Member for Twickenham raised the issue of introducing a national funding formula at this moment. We felt that at a time of constraints on budgets it was even more important to introduce such a formula to ensure that the unfairnesses are ironed out—more important than when budgets are rising.

Not only do we want the system for distribution to be fair; we also want to ensure that every school has the resources it needs to deliver a world-class education for every child. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms since 2010. We have given record levels of funding for our schools, and we set out plans to increase funding further in our manifesto, as well as continuing to protect the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils in our schools.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will not.

We recognise that schools are facing cost pressures and we will reflect on the message that people sent at the election about the funding of our schools. We also know that how schools use their money is important in delivering the best outcomes for pupils. We will continue to provide support to help schools to use their funding in cost-effective ways. The Government have produced tools, information and guidance to support improved financial health and efficiency in schools. Those tools are available in one area of the gov.uk website.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am a school governor at a local primary school in my constituency. You say that we need help to find efficient ways of spending the money in the school. I have to tell you, from personal experience, that, as a group of experienced governors, we have done absolutely everything we can to be as efficient as we possibly can. The next thing to go will be teaching assistants and teachers. I have respect for what you say but—I am sorry—I just do not think that any more tools will help. What would help is more money. That is what we need.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say very gently to the hon. Lady, who is already well and truly making her mark, that the word “you” implies the Chair, and I have not made any statements about any of these matters? The hon. Lady is new, but extremely articulate, and I know that she will get to grips with these things very quickly.

[Nick Gibb]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but there are ways in which we can help schools to become more efficient with the available tools such as reviewing the level of efficiency, investigating levels of expenditure against other similar schools and other benchmarking tools that are on the website. The best way for schools to know what is effective is to share best practice. There are case studies on the gov.uk website, showing, for example, how a school in Leicestershire supports other local schools to develop a strategic three-year budget plan and thinks through its staffing model to best meet the curriculum. It also shows a school in Barnsley that has made significant savings by introducing a more efficient working pattern for support staff, and a school in my county of West Sussex that used a data-led approach to designing its curriculum and strategic staffing plans.

Earlier this year, we introduced a schools buying strategy to support schools to save more than £l billion a year by 2019-20 on their non-staff expenditure. The strategy includes the introduction of school buying hubs, which are regional units designed to communicate with and provide procurement support to all schools in the area. The hubs will provide expertise and specialist advice on procuring and managing catering and cleaning contracts, for example, to help to deliver better value in school buying. Alongside procurement advice, they will provide market intelligence, help with complex contracts, and promote local collaboration and aggregation.

The Government are building a digital buying platform to enable schools to compare prices more easily and to access a wide range of suppliers. School business management is an important and increasingly skilled profession. To support school business managers and help them to share their market knowledge, we will provide support to create new school business manager networks in areas of the country where they do not already exist. We will also create a network leaders forum to bring together leading members of the many networks, creating face-to-face opportunities to share knowledge and best practice on a national basis.

We will also provide schools with more access to better national deals. We have introduced a new deal on multifunctional devices—printers and photocopiers—this year. On average, schools could save more than 40% by using this arrangement, and up to 10% by making use of our national energy deal. The Department will work closely with schools—including the school the hon. Lady is a governor of—and suppliers to ensure that deals are easily accessible to schools and tailored to their needs.

Improved procurement will help free up resources available for teaching pupils, but to maximise these resources, it is also essential for schools to deploy their staff effectively and efficiently. This can be achieved through reducing unnecessary workload—that is where the Government have a key role to play—and making use of the full set of resources on the gov.uk website that support schools’ efficiency and financial health.

We are continuing our extensive work with the profession, teaching unions and Ofsted to challenge unhelpful practices and reduce workload, so that teachers can concentrate on teaching, not bureaucracy and paperwork. In February, we published the findings of the 2016 teacher workload survey, an update on how we are meeting our commitments to tackle workload, and details of further steps we will take, including an offer of targeted support. Earlier this year, we also published the school workforce planning guidance to help schools to make well-informed decisions about their staffing structures, and schools should always carefully consider their individual context and the mix of staffing roles they require.

In summary, this Government will continue to support England’s schools by providing more funding than ever before, by making sure that the funding is distributed fairly and to where it is needed most, and by helping schools to achieve more with that funding, with a focus on sustaining and improving the rapid progress our children and young people are making under this Government.

Introducing fair funding will be an historic and necessary reform—the biggest change to school funding for well over a decade. Thanks to the determination of this Government to address issues of unfairness in our society, we will have a clear, simple and transparent system that matches funding to children’s needs and the schools they attend. It will enable all schools, regardless of where they are situated in the country, to provide the very best education for pupils and an excellent education system.

Question put and agreed to.