Education Funding: Southend
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on securing this important debate. I am grateful for this timely opportunity to discuss the details of the proposals for introducing a new national funding formula. I have known my hon. Friend for as many years as he has known me, and I assure him that I do not intend to palm him off with fluffy platitudes.
We are now more than halfway through the consultation process on these proposals, and we have heard views from across the school sector and from all parts of the country. Throughout the consultation period, we are considering all representations from local authorities, teachers, governors, parents and hon. Members in this House. We are listening carefully so that we can ensure that the final national funding formula is the right one.
Many Governments have avoided introducing a national funding formula. We have grasped the nettle. It could be argued that in a time of fiscal restraint, we should have avoided introducing a national funding formula, but we think it is right to introduce such a formula and are proceeding with the consultation with the intention of introducing that formula. It is an open and transparent consultation, which is why it includes illustrative allocations for every school and local authority in England, calculated on the basis of figures for 2016-17, to help schools and others to understand the impact of the proposals. Those allocations are only illustrative.
The new formula will apply, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West said, in 2018-19 on the basis of a soft formula, which means that the local school forum can alter the allocations within the funding envelope for Southend. We have already announced that for 2017-18, no local authority will see any fall in its funding levels.
We believe that what we are proposing achieves the best balance between the different elements of the formula—between the core funding for every pupil and the extra funding for those with additional needs, and between the funding that relates to pupils’ characteristics and the funding that supports schools to meet their fixed costs. Those are complex trade-offs, which is why we are consulting for a full three months on the proposals.
The single biggest element of the national funding formula will be a basic amount that every pupil attracts to the school. That will account for around three quarters of the total schools block—about £23 billion of the total £40 billion. We are clear that significant funding should be directed through the formula to children from disadvantaged backgrounds who face entrenched barriers to their education. Schools that are educating those children should receive extra resources, so that they can support those children to do as well as their peers. We propose to spend more through the formula than is currently spent on pupils who start school with low prior attainment compared to their peers, so that they can get the extra support they need to catch up.
Overall, we want to maximise the amount of funding spent on factors that relate directly to pupils’ so-called characteristics. Our proposed lump sum of £110,000 per school, regardless of its size, is just below the current national average if we aggregate the 150 local formulae in the country. It is significantly below the sum that Southend uses locally, but we still believe that the lump sum is an important element of the formula. Our proposals recognise that all schools need a fixed element of funding that does not vary with pupil numbers and characteristics, to provide a level of certainty. One reason—it is not the only one—why Southend schools face these percentage reductions is the difference in the lump sum figure.
The decisions we have made in balancing the formula will certainly have different effects across the country, depending on how they differ from decisions that local authorities have taken on their local formula. The anomaly is in the local formulae, rather than in what we are proposing in the national formula. In the case of Southend, the current local formula uses a higher basic per-pupil amount than the figure we propose in the national funding formula. Southend also concentrates funding for deprivation more narrowly. In the national funding formula, we want to spread deprivation funding more broadly and further up the income spectrum, so that we can target additional funding to pupils who are not necessarily eligible for free school meals but whose background may still create a barrier to their education.
We know that some areas and schools will disagree with the balance we have struck in the proposals. That will be the case particularly in areas where the proposed national funding formula will mean a lower level of funding than the current baseline for 2016-17, such as in Southend. We are keen to hear views on whether we have got that balance right and welcome any additional evidence through the consultation. We will look to change our proposals where the evidence shows clearly that the balance needs to shift.
I took on board the advice from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West, which will trump any advice we receive from experts across the country. He argued for a de minimis funding level of £4,800 per secondary school pupil, and his advice will be considered as part of the consultation process.
While there will be different views about the precise balance of the factors, there is certainly a consensus, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) confirmed, that we need a national funding formula and a fair funding system that gets resources to where they are needed most. No matter where children live and whatever their background, prior attainment or ability, they should have access to an excellent education. We want all children to be able to reach their full potential and to succeed in adult life. That ambition can be achieved only if we have a fair approach to funding, whereby funding relates directly to children’s needs and the schools they attend.
Under our proposals, the funding system will be clear, simple and transparent for the first time. Similar schools will be treated in the same way right across the country. We will no longer see the wide range in funding levels that we see now, and it will no longer be the case that the amount a child attracts to their school depends on where they live or their school’s location. Our proposals will end the postcode lottery in school funding and extend opportunity across the country.
I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West a minute to conclude at the end if he wishes; if not, I will plough on. I am hugely grateful to have had this opportunity to look closely at how we can ensure fairer funding for our schools. It has been very useful to hear from my hon. Friends for Southend West and for Rochford and Southend East and to take time to consider the important issues that they both raised.
Sir David Amess
The thing that slightly disturbs me in what my hon. Friend the Minister slipped in is that it seems as if he is blaming the local authority for the disparity in the figures.
Mr Gibb
I am making the point that we are aggregating 150 separate local formulae into one national funding formula, which will inevitably mean there will be changes. That is particularly inevitable, mathematically, if we then illustrate the new formula on the basis of existing figures. However, I understand my hon. Friend’s points. As I said, these are illustrative figures and will have no impact on 2017-18. The overall level of school funding, at £40 billion, is the maximum amount we have ever spent on schools. It will rise in the years ahead. Schools will receive more money if their pupil numbers go up and if their pupil characteristics change. We expect school funding to be at about £42 billion by 2019-20. That does not mean to say that the formula will not have the impact we are illustrating; they are illustrative figures only.
Question put and agreed to.
Educational Attainment: Oldham
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) on securing the debate. I agree with him about the historic nature of today. Let me also offer my congratulations to his son on turning 15.
As the Prime Minister has said, the Government want to create a true meritocracy in this country, and there is no more important place to start than education. I was pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Oldham area, when we were able to discuss how we could work together to raise education standards in the town, and also to discuss the Oldham Education and Skills Commission. I enjoyed reading its report.
According to the Government’s policy for school improvement, a high-performing education system must be driven by the best school leaders. Teachers and senior leaders should be free to innovate and improve standards in their own schools, driven by a genuine sense of responsibility to share knowledge with their peers, and swift and fearless in challenging failure wherever they find it. In turn, the Government have an important role to play in helping the best teachers and headteachers to lead the system.
Teaching practice, and what is taught in the classroom, should be determined solely by evidence. The Government, school leaders and teachers share responsibility for seeking to learn from those who teach in the best schools in England, and in higher performing systems internationally. One example is the Government’s reforms of primary education, and particularly the much needed drive to improve early literacy through systematic synthetic phonics and the essentials—spelling, punctuation and grammar. Another is the adoption of the south-east Asian “mastery” approach to maths teaching, with its emphasis on fluency in mental and written calculation and its refusal to allow any pupil to fall behind.
Those are critical education reforms, and they share an important characteristic with our third principle. A high-performing education system must provide opportunities for all pupils to achieve their potential, and no children should enter education with the odds already stacked against them simply because of who their family are or where they are growing up. Despite all the evidence on what makes a difference, our society remains unequal. The effects of this inequality are evident in the social mobility index, published last year by the Social Mobility Commission. Its indicators illustrated the daunting barriers faced by children in Oldham and other areas identified as coldspots for social mobility. The Government’s selection of Oldham and 11 other coldspots as opportunity areas represents an important commitment to those children.
We are making significant investments in each opportunity area, through new funding and access to additional support from the Department’s existing improvement programmes. This expenditure will, in line with our principles, be determined through rigorous assessment of specific barriers to social mobility and be based on evidence of what works in education. Our approach to removing these barriers must involve working with all schools and local partners who share our goal, with the support of the most effective system leaders. I am therefore very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the foundations he and his colleagues have laid in Oldham, and for this opportunity to confirm the Government’s commitment to Oldham and the other opportunity areas, and to discuss with the House our approach to improving education across the country.
The reforms of the last six years show that professional autonomy combined with strong accountability is delivering improvement in our education system. Academy leaders benefit from that autonomy. The latest data show that 10 of the 26 academies in Oldham have been inspected since they opened. All those with more than one inspection since opening have maintained or improved their Ofsted grades.
We want to see good schools choosing academy status as a positive choice, and we expect academies and academy sponsors to play their part in Oldham and the other opportunity areas. We know that strong sponsors with commitment, drive and the right resources can drive up standards in a school. The recent report by Sir Nick Weller on education standards in the north endorsed the role of strong sponsors and strong partnerships. There is, however, despite improvement across academy and maintained schools in Oldham, a clear need for further improvement, particularly at secondary level.
We have seen how being a multi-academy trust can provide opportunities to bring together educational expertise and develop and trial innovative new approaches. We will want to support new and existing MATs to develop in Oldham, and ensure that knowledge and approaches developed in those MATs are shared across Oldham’s schools, to drive up performance.
A school-led system is, of course, not just one in which headteachers can drive up standards in their own school, but also one that enables them to support each other, and challenge each other to improve. Oldham now has six teaching schools. All were selected because of their strong leadership and their commitment to helping partner schools in Oldham develop knowledgeable teachers and excellent teaching practices. There are also nine national leaders of education working with schools in Oldham—leaders such as Julie Hollis, headteacher of Oldham’s Blue Coat academy, a teaching school and an outstanding school with very high EBacc attainment figures.
Julie, her team, and the many other national leaders of education, senior leaders of education and national leaders of governance in Oldham and across the country are our system leaders. One of the reasons we can be confident that the opportunity areas will be successful is that we can already look with pride to their record of achievement, and their continuing appetite to support and drive improvement across the system.
We must, however, acknowledge the stark reality that, despite the hard work and achievements of our headteachers and system leaders, children growing up in Oldham and other opportunity areas are still less likely to attend an outstanding school, or to gain the qualifications they need to progress to higher education, training or the best jobs. They are still being left behind, and they start falling behind even before they start school. There can be no argument with the hon. Gentleman’s own clear and damning judgment: in his introduction to the Oldham Education and Skills Commission’s report, he stated that this
“Unfulfilled talent is criminal. It wastes…public money and blights families and communities.”
We are, therefore, as one in our recognition of the need to act, and in our commitment to supporting improvements.
As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, we have already announced new funding for the opportunity areas, and have confirmed that additional support will be made available through national improvement programmes, such as the new teaching and leadership innovation fund. Also, £1 million from the careers and enterprise investment fund will go towards improving the quality of advice and guidance given to pupils in opportunity areas. Together, these extra Government resources, combined with the local commitment embodied by the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, will make the difference that we all want to see in Oldham.
I shall refer to the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised during the debate. The academy trust has agreed with the regional schools commissioner that the Collective Spirit free school and Manchester Creative Studio School should join new multi-academy trusts. Our priority is to ensure that pupils receive high-quality education, and we are working with the trusts to ensure that there are swift improvements. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about conflicts of interest in the trust are investigated.
The closure of Greater Manchester University Technical College was not a decision that was taken lightly. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our priority is the education and welfare of the UTC’s pupils. We are working closely with local schools and colleges to ensure that significant support from the local authority enables pupils to continue and progress in their studies. I am grateful to the new Greater Manchester UTC trustees who have stepped in to ensure that this happens, and that action is taken in the best interests of the pupils and their parents.
In conclusion, the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the challenges in Oldham. I hope that I have assured him and the House that we share his commitment to tackling those challenges. We look forward to working with him and other Members in the area, and with local partners, to transform educational attainment in Oldham.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
We received 6,000 responses to the first stage of the consultation on the national funding formula, which sets out the principles and factors to be used in the formula. We continue to receive representations on the second stage of the consultation, which closes on 22 March. Our proposals for funding reform will mean that schools will, for the first time, receive a consistent and fair share of the schools budget, addressing the anachronistic unfair funding system that has been in place since 2005.
Mr Bradshaw
Exeter schools already suffer a double whammy—they are in one of the lowest funded counties in England, and they have to subsidise the high cost of providing school transport and keeping open small rural schools—yet the new funding formula will actually make them worse off. How will the Minister explain that to my constituents and to the schools themselves?
Mr Gibb
In Devon, as a result of the new funding formula and on the basis of the figures for 2016-17, school funding would rise from £377.2 million to £378.7 million, an increase of 0.4%. In the right hon. Gentleman’s Exeter constituency, there will be no overall change in the level of funding, although there will of course be changes between schools. Whenever we introduce a new national formula and illustrate it on the basis of the current year’s figures—in this case, 2016-17—some schools will inevitably gain and others will lose. Overall, 54% of schools across the country will gain under the new national funding formula.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
If these proposals are adopted, the historically underfunded constituency of East Devon will have 15 primary schools that gain while 20 lose out, and all our secondary schools will lose out. That is clearly neither fair nor acceptable. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and other Devon MPs so that we can make our point yet again?
Mr Gibb
I am very happy to meet my right hon. Friend. I think that the Secretary of State has already met Devon MPs to discuss this matter, but I am sure that she will do so again.
I understand the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). There is a small fall in overall funding in his constituency, although 40% of schools in East Devon will see a rise in income on the basis of the new formula. The new funding formula attaches a higher value to deprivation than Devon’s local formula, so schools in Devon with a low proportion of pupils from a disadvantaged background or with low prior attainment do less well under the national formula. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will continue to make representations through the consultation, which closes on 22 March.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
The head of one of my local academy trusts tells me that his school will lose more than 2.5% of its overall budget as a result of the national funding formula alone. That figure is higher than the 1.5% cap promised by the Government. Does the Minister share the trust’s view that the cuts will have the biggest impact on deprived and vulnerable children? If so, what are the Government doing?
Mr Gibb
No, I am afraid that the hon. Lady is wrong. We aggregated all the local funding formulae across the 150 local authorities and looked at the level of deprivation. We are allocating 9.5% of the national funding formula to deprivation, which is broadly in line with the existing position. We have also increased the amount in the funding formula that goes to children who start school behind. The scheme is deliberately designed to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are falling behind. I would have thought that the hon. Lady, representing the constituency that she does, would support a fairer funding system that helps those particular children.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Mr Gibb
I accept my hon. Friend’s comments. Schools in his constituency will gain about £300,000 of funding overall—a 0.6% increase. On the basis of illustrative figures for 2016-17, 70.6% of schools in his constituency will actually gain funding, compared with 29% that will lose a small amount.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Mr Gibb
Because the hon. Lady’s constituency will remain one of the highest-funded areas of the country. She is right that the per pupil funding rate in Lewisham, Deptford will fall from £5,708 to £5,550 as a result of the national funding formula, but that is still one of the highest in the country. The prosperity of London as a whole has increased over the past 10 years, with the proportion of children on free school meals falling from 27% to 18%, but it still has some of the highest levels of deprivation. That is why, under the new national funding formula, London’s funding remains 30% higher than the national average.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
I welcome the principle of the new national funding formula, but one third of schools in North Devon look set to lose funding under the indicative figures. Will the Minister continue to listen carefully to our representations? Will he also confirm whether the indicative figures are just that and that they could be subject to some revision?
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm last week’s report that the Secretary of State handed back to the Treasury £384 million that was earmarked for school improvement? Does he agree with the estimate of London Councils that it would take £335 million to ensure that no school loses out under the new funding formula?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Lady should know how negotiations with the Treasury work. We negotiated a good agreement with the Treasury and have protected core school funding in real terms. We are spending £40 billion a year on school funding—a record high figure—and that is set to rise, as pupil numbers rise over the next two years, to £42 billion by 2019-20. The figure that she refers to is about the cost of academisation. That proposal continues, but we are not targeting the same timetable that was agreed in the previous White Paper.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that Torbay’s schools benefit overall from the proposals, yet the grammar schools that serve a large swathe of south Devon do not. I thank him for his courtesy in recently meeting the heads of those schools. Will he update me on when we are likely to receive a detailed response to the points we raised?
Mr Gibb
As I said at the meeting, which I enjoyed very much, schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency will gain £1.2 million of extra funding under the new national funding formula, which amounts to an increase of 2.4%. The funding of 78% of schools in his constituency will increase as a result of the formula. I listened carefully to the representations that he and headteachers in his constituency made, and I will respond to him shortly.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Minister said earlier that it will be schools with fewer deprived pupils and better prior attainment that are likely to lose out under his proposals, but in my constituency that is simply wrong. The nine schools that will have their funding cut are in the most deprived parts of the city where, on average, children start school 20 months behind where they should be in their development. Something has gone very badly wrong with his plans. Will he look again and explain to me and the teachers in my constituency why the kids who need help the most are going to lose out?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Lady will have looked at the consultation document and seen that a very high proportion of the national funding formula is allocated on the basis of disadvantage—it is based on pupils’ low prior attainment and things such as English as an additional language. The difference is that we are basing the national funding formula on today’s data, not the data as they were in 2005. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place something that the Labour party neglected to do: a fair national funding formula that is based on a clear set of factors and principles, and on up-to-date data.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
In East Sussex, funding per pupil is £193 lower than the national average. What more can be done for my schools in Wealden, which are both small and rural?
Mr Gibb
We have ensured that sparsity is an important factor in the national funding formula and we are increasing funding for the sparsity element from £15 million to £27 million across the system. East Sussex sees an increase in its funding overall and my hon. Friend should welcome this much fairer system. It is fairer to schools in East Sussex and right across the country.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Mr Gibb
I suggest that the hon. Lady tells schools in Hull that, because of the way in which the new national funding formula addresses historical anachronisms and because of our focus on tackling deprivation, Hull’s school funding under the formula rises from £157 million to £161.7 million, which is an increase of some 3%. In her constituency of Kingston upon Hull North, funding rises by £1.4 million, with 83% of her schools seeing an increase in funding on the basis of 2016-17 figures.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Our proposals for funding reform mean that schools and local authority areas would, for the first time, receive a consistent and fair share of the schools budget, so that they can give every child the opportunity to reach their full potential. The consultation on the second stage runs until 22 March. In Gloucestershire, funding would rise from £331.5 million to £334 million because of the national funding formula, on the basis of the 2016-17 figures, which is a rise of 0.8%.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My right hon. Friend is well aware that Gloucestershire has suffered for years under the current system; there is a 61% disparity between the top-funded and the bottom-funded primary schools. Will he look carefully at the unfair proposals he has brought forward in the funding formula, because they double-count items such as deprivation, low attainment and English as a first language, and it is not fair on rural schools?
Mr Gibb
I have listened very carefully to the representations my hon. Friend makes, both today and in the various meetings we have held. The Government’s proposals for funding reform seek to balance carefully the differing needs of rural and urban schools. Schools in the historically lowest-funded areas would gain, on average, about 3.6% under the national funding formula; 676 small and remote rural schools would also benefit from sparsity funding for the first time; and, nationally, small rural schools, as a group, would gain 1.3% on average, with primary schools in sparse areas gaining some 5.3% on average. In his constituency, 64% of the schools would gain funding under the proposals, based on applying the formula to the current year’s figures.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Under the new funding proposals, Ormiston South Parade academy in my constituency will see a 2.8% reduction in its budget, yet The Times reported last week that Ormiston Academies Trust is seeking to hire a public relations agency for up to £900,000 to deal with reputational management. Does the Minister think that parents will consider that a good use of Government funding or that that money should be spent on the school?
Mr Gibb
Academies face much greater financial scrutiny than local authority schools. They have to produce annual audited accounts, whereas local authority schools do not, and the Education Funding Agency scrutinises closely, on a quarterly basis, the funding and expenditure of academies and multi-academy trusts.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
Mr Gibb
The new funding formula is designed to ensure that funding is properly matched to need. It uses up-to-date data so that children who face entrenched barriers to their education receive the teaching and support that they need. I recognise that my hon. Friend will be disappointed by the impact of the proposals, on the basis of illustrative figures for the 2016-17 year for schools in Southend. As he knows, we are conducting a full consultation on the formula’s details, and I know he will continue to make his views known through that process.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) about funding for academies, what will the Minister do to help schools such as the Whitehaven academy in Cumbria, which has been left with a crumbling building after his Government axed its capital funding, and where the teachers are now prevented from photocopying to save money? Will the Government help the pupils and parents who need support?
Mr Gibb
It is nice to hear from the hon. Lady for the third time. We are spending record amounts on capital: £23 billion has been allocated for capital spending over this spending review period. We created 600,000 more school places in the previous Parliament, and we are committed to creating another 600,000 in this Parliament. We are spending £40 billion a year on revenue funding for schools—a record amount that over the next two years will rise, as pupil numbers rise, to £42 billion. None of that would be possible if we relied on the Labour party to oversee the economy. We have a strong economy and we are rescuing it from the fiasco of the previous Labour Government.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Under the proposed formula, small rural schools will gain an average of 1.3% in funding, on the basis of the illustrative figures. We have also confirmed that the national funding formula will include a sparsity factor. That will particularly target funding on small and remote schools, which we know play an important role in our local communities. On average, small schools serving such communities would gain 3.3%, and small primary schools 5.3%.
Daniel Kawczynski
I thank the Minister for that answer. Under these proposals, some Shrewsbury schools will benefit and others will lose. Overall as a country, we still see the extraordinary situation in which, on average, Shropshire pupils can get as little as half that of inner-city children. How can he justify parts of the United Kingdom continuing to get almost double what we get in Shropshire?
Mr Gibb
In Shropshire as a whole, school funding rises from £151.7 million to £153.2 million as a result of the national funding formula based on the illustrative figures. That is a rise of some 0.9%. In my hon. Friend’s constituency, schools as a group will see an additional £100,000 of funding.
Maria Caulfield
Given that small rural schools in East Sussex are set to lose funding under the fairer funding formula, will the Minister review the need for those maintained schools to pay the apprenticeship levy, which adds to their costs, especially as fewer than half of the stand-alone academies pay that levy?
Mr Gibb
The apprenticeship levy is an important policy, as my hon. Friend will know. It is designed to ensure that we have the skills that are needed for our economy. The levy can be used to fund training and professional development in schools, and we will provide schools with detailed information on how the levy will work for them and how they can make the most of available apprenticeships.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Does the help in funding for rural schools not represent the opposite of addressing the need that I raised in a recent debate—disappointingly, the Minister did not even mention it when summing up the debate—for areas that have a high influx of additional pupils during the school year? I estimate that next year something like 600 school places in Slough will get zero funding, because, despite his talking about up-to-date deprivation numbers, he is not working his funding formula on up-to-date pupil numbers.
Mr Gibb
The formula does contain an element for growth. We also responded to the representations on mobility made by the right hon. Lady’s colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). When pupils join a school part way through the year, that will be factored in. I would have expected her to welcome both those changes to the funding formula.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) had hastily to delete a tweet this week that showed that the national debt had exploded on this Government’s watch. Therefore, the sparsity formula, which was to save rural schools everywhere, has become the paucity formula. Should the Minister not tell the House that the key issue facing schools up to 2020 is the £3 billion-worth of cuts coming down the line for every school in the country?
Mr Gibb
Funding is increasing to £42 billion by the end of this spending review period. We are increasing the amount allocated for sparsity from £15 million under the current formula to £27 million. The hon. Gentleman talks about debt, but, since 2010, we have had to face the problem of tackling the historic budget deficit inherited from the last Labour Government because of their poor stewardship of the public finances. Tackling that debt and that deficit has enabled us to have a strong economy with growing employment and greater opportunities for young people when they leave school.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
We are concerned that the quality of education in too many Northamptonshire schools is not good enough, especially for disadvantaged pupils. We are using new powers to tackle inadequate schools and to move them into strong multi-academy trusts. We are also working with the local authority, teaching schools and academy trusts to ensure that schools are receiving appropriate support to help them to improve.
Mr Hollobone
Educational attainment in Northamptonshire, sadly, is still below the national average. What is the single most important thing the local education authority should be doing to raise standards?
Mr Gibb
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in seeking to raise standards in Northamptonshire schools. In October, together with hon. Friends representing Northamptonshire constituencies, we met the director of children’s services at Northamptonshire County Council to discuss academic standards in Northamptonshire schools. That included discussions about standards in phonics, which I would say is the single most important issue; key stage 2 SATs in reading and maths; GCSE results; and the EBacc. I have taken a close interest in the schools in my hon. Friend’s county, and we are meeting again in April to assess progress.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Unfortunately, the Minister is absolutely right. Sir Christopher Hatton school in my constituency is outstanding, but we have two inadequate schools—Rushden and the Wrenn—and the Minister will shortly meet me and the chief executive of the Hatton Academies Trust. Does he agree that local academy trusts also have an important role to play in solving the problem with Northamptonshire’s education?
Mr Gibb
Yes, I do agree with my hon. Friend. Collaboration between schools, particularly in local multi-academy trusts, is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that we spread best practice and that schools in a multi-academy trust help one another to raise aspirations and the standard of academic education our children receive.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I would, of course, be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss school funding in Yeovil. Indeed, so efficient are our offices that that meeting is already in the diary for 27 February. I should remind him that in his constituency, school funding rises by some £2.8 million under the new national funding formula, and that 94% of the schools in his constituency will see a rise in funding.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Mr Gibb
I share my hon. Friend’s view about the primacy of reading and writing, which are fundamental to education and to social justice. That is why ensuring that children are taught to read using the method of systematic synthetic phonics—evidence from this country and around the world shows that it works—has been at the heart of our education reforms. As a result, the proportion of six-year-olds reaching the expected standard in the phonics check has risen from 58% in 2012 to 81% in 2016.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
What does the Secretary of State say to my constituent Catherine Foster, who received funding in April 2015 for a health and social care diploma with a provider that has now gone into administration? She has no access to her portfolio and no qualification, but a mountain of debt. Will the Secretary of State look into this case and meet me to help Catherine and thousands of other students in this situation?
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Too many people leave school without achieving the results they need, but is my right hon. Friend aware of the incredible work done by the British Army at the Pirbright and Catterick training camps in getting people who join those establishments without the necessary grades up to the right grade, and will he undertake to find out what can be learned from those places?
Mr Gibb
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the work of the Army training camps at Catterick and Pirbright to the attention of the House. The Army has a strong track record of delivering high-quality education and training. I would be delighted to discuss these issues further with him.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Sir Michael Wilshaw recently urged the Government to tackle the comparatively low standards in many northern and midlands secondary schools, and Nottingham’s education improvement board has identified teacher recruitment and retention as its No. 1 priority. How can the Secretary of State honestly believe that cutting the funding of every single school in my constituency will help them to attract the best teachers and so raise standards among young people in some of our most deprived communities?
School Funding: Greater London
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. I hope I can assure her about some of the issues she raises.
Whenever a national funding formula is introduced, no matter what weightings are attached to the factors in the formula, there will be winners and losers. If we apply the formula to the current year, 2016-17, and produce an array of figures for each of the 23,000 schools, there will by definition—mathematically, it has to occur—be winners and losers. In the interests of transparency, we are showing the effect of the new formula, the factors and principles of which were agreed in principle when we consulted last year. We have applied the new formula, with the weightings we discussed in the second consultation, to all 23,000 schools. It shows, of course, that some schools gain and some schools lose. That will happen no matter what national formula anybody in this House produces. If we want a national funding formula—we committed to that in our manifesto—that is the consequence of doing so on the basis of this year’s figures.
We have committed to protecting school funding in real terms over the course of the Parliament. It stands at a record high of £40 billion at the moment, and is projected to grow to £42 billion as pupil numbers grow over the spending review period.
I share the hon. Lady’s view about the success of London’s schools. Their academic standards have soared in recent years, bucking the trend of inner cities throughout the world. The Government are equally ambitious for the rest of the country. All children should have an excellent education that unlocks their talent and creates opportunity regardless of where they live, their background, their ability or their need.
The Government are, because of this ambition, prioritising spending on education. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms, so that as pupil numbers rise so too does the amount of money for our schools. This means that schools are receiving more funding than ever before: a total, as I have said, of over £40 billion this year.
The current funding system prevents this record amount of money from getting to where it is needed most. Underfunded schools do not have access to the same opportunities to do the best for their pupils. It is harder for them to attract the best teachers and to afford the right support. That is why the Government are introducing a national funding formula for mainstream education and for the high-needs support provided for children with special educational needs.
The national funding formula will be the biggest change to schools and high-needs funding for well over a decade. Such change is never easy. That is why previous Governments assiduously avoided doing it. However, it will mean that for the first time we will have a transparent system that matches funding to children’s needs and the schools they attend.
In the current system, schools and local areas receive significantly different levels of funding with little or no justification. For example, a primary school in Westminster teaching a pupil eligible for free school meals, and with English as an additional language, would receive £4,973 for that pupil this year. However, if that same pupil were in a school in Greenwich, the school would receive £6,676 this year, a difference of £1,703. Under our national funding formula, they would receive the same amount.
These anomalies will be ended once we have a national funding formula in place, and that is why introducing fair funding was a key manifesto commitment for the Government. Fair funding will mean that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding regardless of where they happen to live.
We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming schools and high-needs funding systems in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and the proposals for the overall design of the funding system. Over 6,000 people responded, with wide support for our proposals. Building on that support, in December we were able to proceed to the second stage of the consultation, covering detailed proposals for the design of both the schools and high-needs funding formula.
Our proposals will target money towards pupils who face the greatest barriers to their education. In particular, our proposals boost the support provided for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not eligible for free school meals, whose families are just about managing. We are putting more money into supporting pupils who have fallen behind, both in primary and secondary school, to ensure that they, too, receive the support they need to catch up.
Overall, 10,740 schools will gain funding, and the formula will allow them to see those gains quickly—54% of schools will gain. There will be increases of up to 3% in per pupil funding in 2018-19 and up to 2.5% in 2019-20. Some 72 local authority areas are due to gain high-needs funding, and they will also do so quickly, with increases of up to 3% in both 2018-19 and 2019-20. As well as providing for these increases, we have listened to those who highlighted in the first consultation the risks of major budget changes for schools, so we are also including significant protections in both the formulas. No school will face reductions of more than 1.5% a year, or 3% overall, per pupil, and no area will lose funding for high needs.
London will remain the highest-funded part of the country under these proposals. Schools in inner London will attract 30% more funding per pupil than the national average. Despite the city’s increasing affluence, London’s schools still have the highest proportion from disadvantaged backgrounds and the highest labour market costs in the country, so our formula matches funding to those needs, which is why those schools are funded better than those elsewhere. As a result of our proposals, 17 of the 27 schools in the hon. Member’s constituency will gain funding. That is 63% of schools in her constituency.
Some schools in London, however, will see some reduction in their current funding, and this reflects significant changes in relative deprivation between the capital and the rest of the country over the last decade. For example, the proportion of London pupils eligible for free school meals dropped from 27% in 2005 to 18% in 2015, as London became more affluent, but the current funding system has taken no account of these changes. It has simply built on an anachronistic, atrophied system, over 10 years, under which we simply increase the amounts, year on year, based on a formula designed for life in 2005. It is well past time that our funding system reflected the levels of deprivation that exist today, not those that existed a decade or more ago.
For those schools that will see a budget reduction, the significant protections we are proposing will mean that no school will face reductions of more than 3% per pupil as a result of this formula. This will mean that they can manage the significant reforms while continuing to raise standards. All schools need to make the best use of the resources they have, ensuring that every pound is used effectively to improve standards and have the maximum impact for children and young people. To help them, we have put in place, and continue to develop, a comprehensive package of support to help schools make efficiency savings and manage cost pressures, while continuing to improve the quality of their education.
To be specific, which the hon. Member asked me to be, we are preparing a national buying scheme for things such as energy and information technology, but we are also providing advice to schools about how to manage staff and ensure the right combination of staff to reflect the curriculum they are providing.
We are using a broad definition of disadvantage to target additional funding to schools most likely to use it, comprising pupil and area-level deprivation data, prior attainment data and English as an additional language. No individual measure is enough on its own. Each picks up different aspects of the challenges that schools face, and they work together to target funding. Where a child qualifies for more than one of these factors, the school receives funding for each qualifying factor. For example, if a child comes from a more disadvantaged household and lives in an area of socio-economic deprivation, their school will attract funding through both the free school meals factor and the area-level deprivation factor. That helps us to target funding most accurately to the schools that face the most acute challenges, while not ignoring the needs of children who face some barrier to achievement, and of course the school will continue to receive additional funding through the pupil premium to help them improve the attainment of the most disadvantaged.
There are specific reasons why funding as a whole rises by 0.7% in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and they include the growing affluence, as I have said. Historically, Westminster has been one of the lower-funded inner-London local authorities. As a result, it sets higher basic per pupil funding than most other local authorities in England, and the difference between Westminster’s basic per pupil funding rates and the national funding formula rates is not as substantial as in other parts of London. The majority of schools in Westminster North are primary schools rather than secondary schools. The Westminster formula is currently marginally more generous to secondary schools than under the national funding formula, so primary schools benefit from a slight adjustment to the primary-to-secondary ratio that we are introducing. Schools in Westminster North gain from the national funding formula deprivation and low prior attainment factors.
Westminster Council currently chooses not to use IDACI, the income deprivation affecting children index, factor for primary schools at all—it does for secondary—so its schools are gaining from the broader measure of deprivation that we are using in the national funding formula. The national funding formula’s prior low attainment factor is also more generous than Westminster’s formula, at £1,050 plus the area cost adjustment under the national funding formula, compared with £722 under the Westminster formula.
On that note, I hope that I have assured the hon. Lady that this is a fairer funding system, but I shall be happy to discuss the details with her in due course.
Question put and agreed to.
School Funding
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Of course, the PISA students who were tested in 2015 spent their primary school years being educated under a Labour Government, not under the reforms implemented by this Government.
This has been an important debate, featuring excellent contributions from Members in all parts of the House, at a time when the Government are consulting on the details and weightings of the factors that will make up the new national funding formula.
The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) launched our debate today with her joke about robbing Peterborough to pay Poole. Alas, her facts are as weak as her joke, because Peterborough will see a rise of 2.7% under the formula, an increase of £3.7 million, and Poole will also see a rise of some 1.1% under the formula. What we have learnt from Labour today is that it does not support the principle of equal funding on the basis of the same need, and half of Labour Members will see a net gain in funding as a result of the new formula, including the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), where funding will increase by £1.7 million, with an extra £1.2 million for schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne .[Interruption] I will not give way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) asked us to look again at the deprivation block. The proportion of the formula that we have applied for deprivation reflects what local authorities are already doing across the country at the moment. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) asked about high-needs funding; Liverpool is due to gain 14.4% in high-needs funding under the formula, with increases of 3% per year in 2018-19 and again in 2019-20.
My hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) was right to say that the new national funding formula is resulting in the cake being cut a little more fairly. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) was right to point out the flaw in Labour’s motion. The Government are not cutting school spending; it is at an all-time high.
I welcome the constructive and supportive speeches from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), and my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), for Newark (Robert Jenrick), for Solihull (Julian Knight), for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris).
In our manifesto, we promised to remedy the unfair and anachronistic funding system that no longer reflects the genuine needs of pupils and schools. It had become atrophied on the basis of factors as they stood in 2005, rather than the make-up of the student population today: an outdated system, fixed in amber where a pupil in Brighton and Hove secured £1,600 more than a pupil in East Sussex, with countless other examples of unfairness up and down the country.
The Government have already consulted on a set of principles that should drive this new formula—a basic unit of funding; one for primary schools, one for key stage 3 secondary pupils and one for key stage 4 secondary pupils. This figure would make up the vast bulk of the formula, and would be the same figure for every school in England.
On top of this, there is a factor for deprivation, ensuring that schools are able to close the educational attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds. There is also a factor for low prior attainment, ensuring that schools are able to help children who start school educationally behind their peers. There is a factor for sparsity, addressing cost pressures unique to rural schools. There is a mobility factor for schools that routinely take pupils part way through the year. There is a lump sum to help address the fixed costs that disproportionately affect small schools. And there is a factor that takes into account higher employment costs in London and some other areas.
These are the right factors, as responses to the first stage of the consultation confirmed. They are the right factors because they will help drive our education reforms to the school curriculum, which are already resulting in higher academic standards and raised expectations. They will further drive our determination that all children, regardless of background or ability, will be well on their way to becoming fluent readers by the age of six, which 81% of six-year-olds are now, compared with just 58% five years ago. They are the factors that will help further drive the introduction of new, more academically demanding, knowledge-based GCSEs, putting our public exams and qualifications on a par with the best in the world.
As part of our consultation, we wanted to be transparent about the effects of the new formula on every school and every local authority on the basis of this year’s figures, and 54% of schools will gain under the new formula. But with any new formula there will be winners and losers. Even within local authority areas that gain overall, some schools with few of the factors that drive the additional funding will see small losses in income. That is the nature of any new formula, built on whatever basis or weightings—unless, of course, the new formula maintains the status quo.
Accepting that a new formula, by definition, produces winners and losers, accepting that we will ensure that the losing schools lose no more than 1.5% per pupil in any year and no more than 3% in total, accepting that the gaining schools will see their gains expedited by up to 3% in 2018-19 and by up to 2.5% in 2019-20, and accepting in principle that the factors of deprivation and low prior attainment are right, what is left is the question whether the weightings are right. These weightings are crafted to drive social mobility. They are calculated to help children who are falling behind at school, and they are motivated by our desire to do more for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The national funding formula is not about the overall level of school funding or the cost pressures that schools are facing over the three years from 2016-17 to 2019-20. The formula is about creating a nationally delivered and fair school funding system. We wanted to grasp the nettle—a nettle that previous Governments have assiduously avoided—and introduce a new national funding formula, ending the postcode lottery and ensuring that over time we have a much fairer funding system.
Despite all the pressures to tackle the budget deficit that we inherited from the last Labour Government—an essential task if we are to continue to deliver the strong economic growth, the high levels of employment and the employment opportunities for young people that we want—we have managed to protect core school spending in real terms. Indeed, in 2015-16 we added a further £390 million, and for 2018-19 and 2019-20 there will be a further £200 million to expedite the gains to those historically underfunded schools that the new formula seeks to address.
Despite this, we know that schools are facing cost pressures as a result of the introduction of the national living wage and of increases to teachers’ salaries, to employer national insurance contributions, to teachers’ pensions and to the apprenticeship levy. Similar pressures are being faced across the public sector—and, indeed, in the private sector—and they are addressed by increased efficiencies and better procurement. It is important to note that some of these cost pressures have already materialised. The 8% that people refer to is not an estimate of pressures still to come. In the current year, 2016-17, schools have dealt with pressures averaging 3.1% per pupil. Over the next three years, per-pupil pressures will average between 1.5% and 1.6% a year. To help to tackle those pressures, the Department is providing high quality advice and guidance to schools about their budget management, and we are helping by introducing national buying schemes for products and services such as energy and IT.
We are consulting, and we are listening to the responses to the consultation and to the concerns raised by my hon. Friends and by Opposition Members. The Secretary of State and I have heard representations from some low-funded authorities about whether there is a de minimis level of funding that their secondary schools need in circumstances where few of their pupils bring with them the additional needs funding. We will look at this, and at all the other concerns that right hon. and hon. Members have raised.
This Government are taking the bold decision, and the right decision. We are acting to right the wrongs of a seemingly arbitrary and deeply unfair funding system. Over the past seven years, while fixing the economy, the Government have transformed the education system. We have ended grade inflation, breathing confidence back into our public exams. Effective teaching methods such as Asian-style maths mastery and systematic synthetic phonics are revolutionising the way in which primary pupils are being taught.
More pupils are being taught the core academic subjects that facilitate study at this country’s world-leading universities. Some 1.8 million more pupils are now in schools judged by Ofsted to be “good” or “outstanding”. The attainment gap between disadvantaged 16-year-olds and their better-off peers has closed by 7%. That is a record to be proud of.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Question put accordingly (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
Education Funding: Devon
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, and to follow the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). The hon. Gentleman, as a Labour shadow spokesman, defended his party’s legacy, but since this Government came to power, 1.8 million more children than in 2010 are in schools graded by Ofsted as good and outstanding—1.8 million more children receiving a higher standard of education. This year 147,000 more six-year-olds are reading more effectively as a consequence of the reforms implemented since 2010.
I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) on securing his important debate. I am sure he agrees that we share the same ambition to see a country that works for everyone, where all children receive an excellent education that unlocks talent and creates opportunity, regardless of where they live, their background, ability or needs.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) referred to the funding levels for schools in his constituency. He is assiduous in visiting the schools in his constituency, as I saw at first hand when I joined him on one of those visits. We had a roundtable discussion with a number of his local headteachers. Overall, his schools will receive an increase of 0.7% in funding as a result of the national funding formula. As I said at that meeting, however, we are paying close attention to the responses to the first-stage consultation and to the second-stage consultation on the detailed proposals. The latter consultation closes on 27 March.
The Government are prioritising spending on education. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms so that as pupils numbers increase, so will the amount of money for schools. That means that schools are receiving more funding than ever before, totalling more than £40 billion. The existing funding system, however, prevents us from getting that record amount of money to where it is needed most. Underfunded schools do not have access to the same opportunities to do the best for their pupils, and it is harder for them to attract the best teachers and afford the right support. That is why we are reforming the funding system by introducing a national funding formula for both mainstream schools and high-need support for children with special educational needs. That will be the biggest change to school and high-needs funding for well over a decade, and means that we will for the first time have a clear, simple and transparent system that matches funding to pupils’ needs and the schools that they attend. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to introduce a national funding formula.
The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) is right that introducing a national funding formula when we are still tackling the historic budget deficit that we inherited from his Government is challenging. We have protected core school spending in real terms, but I accept that there are cost pressures on schools. We believe that it is nevertheless important to use this one-time-only opportunity to introduce a fairer funding system.
In the current system, similar schools and local areas receive very different levels of funding, with little or no justification. For example, a primary-age pupil who is eligible for free school meals attracts an extra £1,378 for their school if they live in Devon but an extra £2,642—£1,264 more—if they live in Brighton and Hove. Those anomalies will end once we have a national funding formula in place. Introducing fair funding was a key manifesto commitment for this Government, and it will mean that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding regardless of where they live.
We launched the first stage of our consultation on reforming the schools and high-needs funding system in March last year. We set out the principles for reform and proposals for the overall design of the system. More than 6,000 people responded, and there was wide support for the proposals. Building on that support, we were able in December to proceed to the second stage of the consultation and set out detailed proposals for the design of both the schools and high-needs funding formulae. The consultation period will last until 22 March, and the issues raised in this debate and others are part and parcel of that process.
Under our proposals, money will be targeted towards pupils who face the greatest barriers. In particular, support will be boosted for children from the most deprived families and those who live in areas of deprivation but are not eligible for free school meals—those whose families are just about managing. We are putting more money towards supporting pupils in both primary and secondary schools who have fallen behind, to ensure that they, too, have the support they need to catch up.
Overall, 10,740 schools—54% of all schools—will gain funding, and the formula will allow them to see those gains quickly, with increases in per-pupil funding of up to 3% in 2018-19 and 2.5% in 2019-20. Some 72 local authority areas are due to gain high-needs funding, and they, too, will see that quickly, with gains of up to 3% in both those financial years. As well as providing for those increases, we have listened to those who highlighted the risks of major budget changes for schools during the first stage of our consultation and will include significant protections in both formulae. No school will face per-pupil reductions of more than 1.5% per year or 3% overall, and no local authority will lose high-needs funding.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) mentioned my visit to the outstanding Ivybridge Community College in his constituency. It was a pleasure to see such high academic standards being delivered in that school. He referred to a list. I do have such a list, which says that under the new national funding formula, schools funding in Devon as a whole will rise from £377.2 million in 2016-17 to £378.7 million—an increase of 0.4%. Some 213 schools in Devon—62% of all Devon schools—will gain funding. I recognise that the proposals would result in budget reductions for some schools in the constituencies of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon and other hon. Members, but I believe that the formula strikes the correct balance between the core funding that every child attracts and the extra funding that is targeted at those with additional needs—both children in areas of deprivation and schools that serve rural communities.
Our proposed protections will mean that schools in Devon that do not gain funding can manage these significant reforms while continuing to raise standards. All schools need to make the best use of the resources they have and ensure that every pound is used effectively to improve standards. To help schools, we have put in place and continue to develop a comprehensive package of support to enable them to make efficiency savings and manage cost pressures while continuing to improve the quality of education for their pupils.
Although Devon will not receive any additional high-needs funding as a result of the new formulae, I hope that my hon. Friends understand that the funding floor will allow underfunded local authorities to gain funding and go a long way to protect the local authorities that spend the most, in recognition of the fact that their spending levels are the result of decisions on placements taken in consultation with parents. We are also providing £23 million of additional funding this year to support all local authorities to undertake strategic reviews of their high-needs provision.
As a member of the f40, Devon has played a significant role in campaigning for fair schools funding, as have my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Government’s proposed formula is based on our assessment of needs across the whole country; it is not designed around the interests of any one area or group in isolation. None the less, and reflecting the underfunding that several f40 members have suffered for many years, most of the areas represented by the f40, including Devon, will gain: overall, funding for their schools will increase by £210 million. I understand that some f40 members are disappointed with the formula’s effect on their area. Funding reform is always difficult—many competing demands have to be balanced—and it is particularly difficult in an area as complex as education. That is why we are holding such a long consultation to gather views.
I am aware of the concern that my hon. Friends and others have raised that fairer funding for schools in Devon and other parts of the country is overdue. We agree that these reforms are vital, but they are an historic change, which is why we have taken time to consider the options and implications carefully. The new system will be in place from April 2018, but in the meantime we have confirmed funding for 2017-18 so that local authorities and schools have the information and certainty that they need to plan their budgets for the coming year.
Mr Gibb
I will give way in one moment. I was just coming to my hon. Friend’s point about funding levels in 2017-18, the year before the new national funding formula comes into effect. We have confirmed that no area will see a reduction in their schools or high-needs funding in 2017-18, and areas such as Devon that benefited from the £390 million that we added to the schools budget in the last Parliament will have that extra funding protected in their baseline in 2017-18, as they did in 2016-17.
Anne Marie Morris
That is helpful, but it does not address the cost issue that I raised. For any institution, what comes in and what goes out need to balance. I respectfully ask the Minister whether he will undertake to consult his fellow Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about these costs and how they fall on schools—particularly the apprenticeship levy. Clearly, it is not for him to slash that on a whim, but it is incumbent on him to discuss it.
Mr Gibb
We recognise that schools face cost pressures, including salary increases, the introduction of the national living wage, increases to employers’ national insurance and pension scheme contributions, and general inflation, as well as the introduction of the apprenticeship levy. The current, unfair funding system makes those pressures harder to manage. The new national funding formula will not only direct funding where it is most needed but give schools greater certainty about funding and allow them to plan ahead effectively. The Government are also providing a wide range of tools and other support to schools to improve their efficiency, and we will soon launch a school buying strategy to support schools to save more than £1 billion a year by 2019 on non-staff expenditure.
I appreciate what my hon. Friend says; in addition to those pressures, schools will pay the apprenticeship levy. The apprenticeship levy has real benefits for schools. It will support them to train and develop new and existing staff. It is an integral part of the Government’s wider plans to improve productivity and to provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds and all ages to enter the workplace. That is why we encourage all schools to employ or designate apprenticeships, whether or not they pay the apprenticeship levy.
Anne Marie Morris
Does the Minister recognise that—as I understand it—there is no such thing as an apprentice teacher? Does he agree that the most important thing to spend money on, for any school facing the pressures they are facing, is teachers, not administrative staff?
Mr Gibb
There is an employers’ group that is preparing and working on the introduction of a graduate-entry apprenticeship scheme for teachers, so there will be opportunities for schools to use that funding and indeed spend more than the money from the apprenticeship levy on training teachers and also support staff and other technical staff that help schools operate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) described his constituency as in part inner city, where there are significant areas of deprivation. The Government are seeking to tackle that, not least through improving education. Social mobility lies at the core of the Government’s objectives, and that is one reason why schools in his constituency are seeing an overall increase of some 4.4% in funding, which he was magnanimous enough to acknowledge.
We are using a broad definition of disadvantage to target additional funding to the schools most likely to use it, comprising pupil and area-level deprivation data, prior attainment data and English as an additional language data. No individual measure is enough on its own; each addresses different challenges that schools face. When a child qualifies under more than one of those factors, the school receives funding for each qualifying factor. For example, if a child comes from a more disadvantaged household and they live in an area of socioeconomic deprivation, their school will attract funding through both the free school meals factor and the area-level deprivation factor. That helps us to target funding most accurately to the schools that face the most acute challenges.
Mr Streeter
The Minister has said that this is a genuine consultation exercise, but I am not hearing too much in terms of a willingness to amend the national funding formula. I understand that that will be tricky, but will he confirm that if a sufficiently strong case is made he is prepared to look again and that changes might be made?
Mr Gibb
I am seeking to explain the reasoning behind why we place such emphasis on deprivation and low prior attainment—that is something that will affect the grammar schools in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport—and why we place such emphasis on helping children with English as an additional language. This is a Government driven to improve social mobility.
This is a genuine consultation. I have set out the explanation as to why we produced the formula for consultation that we did. We are listening to the responses—we will be going through and reading the written responses and we will listen to debates such as this one in the consultation process—and where we can make changes that address unfairnesses revealed through that process of course we will make changes to the approach we are taking. The decisions we are taking are driven principally by social mobility and ensuring that children from the most deprived parts of our country are properly funded at their schools to ensure that they make progress and fulfil their potential.
I acknowledge the concerns about the schools block ring fence and the level of flexibility between schools and high needs raised in the debate, given that Devon has in the past moved funding from the schools block to the high-needs block to support its high-needs pressures. We recognise that some continuing flexibility between the schools and high-needs blocks will be important in ensuring that the funding system is responsive to changes in the balance of mainstream and specialist provision.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon for the important work he and the WESC Foundation do for children and young people with visual impairment. The reforms of high-needs funding and the additional funding we are providing this year and next year support the most vulnerable children in the country who are supported by high-needs funding.
In order to give my right hon. Friend time to respond, I will conclude. I am enormously grateful to him for raising this issue and to other hon. Friends and right hon. and hon. Members for airing their concerns and issues about funding of schools. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends are reassured that the Government are committed to reforming school funding and delivering a fair funding system for children in Devon and throughout the country.
Oliver Colvile
May I thank the Minister very much for his response? Will he be willing to meet the grammar schools in my constituency? Would he like to comment on why grammar schools did not feature in the speech made by the Opposition spokesman?
Mr Gibb
I will be delighted to meet the grammar school headteachers from his constituency either in the constituency or at the Department. To be fair to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), this debate is about funding, but we as a Government want to create more good school places, whether those are more good grammar school places or more good school places in non-selective schools, helped by the independent sector and universities, and by having more faith schools. We want more good school places, and that is what drives our continuing education reforms.
I hope that hon. Members will be reassured about the Government’s commitment to reforming school funding. It is a system where funding reflects the real level of need and where every pupil has the same opportunities.
Mr Gibb
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I would like to give time for my right hon. Friend to respond.
A fair national funding formula for schools and high needs underpins our ambition for social mobility and social justice. It will mean that every pupil is supported to achieve to the best of their potential, wherever they are in the country. I hope that while recognising the challenges that lie ahead, my hon. Friends will give their support to working with us to achieve that vital aim.
School Funding Formula and Northern Schools
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as always, Mr Streeter. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing this important debate. He is right—this is one of a number of debates we will undoubtedly have as we consider the second stage of the consultation on our national funding formula. We will debate funding in Devon tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that debate as I much as I have looked forward to this one. This is part of a process of consultation on the second phase, in the same way as we consulted on the first.
The Government are committed to improving educational outcomes in the north, and reforming the funding system is essential to underpinning that ambition. Although I represent a southern constituency, I spent many years of my childhood living in Leeds and Wakefield in the 1970s, and I do not recognise some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the opportunities available for people in the north. The hon. Gentleman spoke of cost pressures on schools in general, and in the north in particular. Through our careful management of the economy, we have been able to protect the core schools budget in real terms, which means that schools are receiving more funding than ever before for children’s education—more than £40 billion.
We of course recognise the cost pressures facing schools, and we will therefore continue to provide advice and support to help schools use their funding in cost-effective ways and improve the way in which they buy goods and services, so that they get the best possible value for their pupils. We have published a wide range of tools and support on gov.uk, including support for schools to review their level of efficiency, to investigate expenditure levels of similar schools and to take action to improve efficiency in practice. We are also launching a schools buying strategy that will support schools to save more than £1 billion a year by 2019-20 on non-staff expenditure. It will help all schools to improve how they buy goods and services, allowing them to invest more in high-quality education for their pupils.
As well as helping schools make the best use of their resources, we urgently need to reform the unfair system that currently distributes funding across the country. The Government are committed to creating a country that works for everyone no matter where they live, whether in the north or south, in a city or the countryside. Whatever their background, ability or need, children should have access to an excellent education. We want all children to reach their full potential and to succeed in adult life. We know that the current schools and high needs funding system does not support that aspiration—it is unfair, untransparent and out of date. Similar schools and local areas receive different levels of funding with little or no justification.
For example, secondary schools in Darlington receive an additional £40 for each pupil with low prior attainment—pupils who did not reach the expected standard at primary school—but secondary schools in Richmond upon Thames receive £3,229 for such pupils, which is a difference of more than £3,000. We do not only see such differences by comparing the two ends of the country; sometimes it can be a matter of a few miles down the road. For example, a 13-year-old pupil from a deprived background for whom English is an additional language would attract £5,150 to their school if they lived in Redcar and Cleveland; next door in Stockton-on-Tees, that same pupil would attract £8,242 to their school, which is an addition of more than £3,000.
The huge differences in funding that similar areas receive to educate similar pupils are clearly not sustainable. Underfunded schools do not have access to the same opportunities to do the best for their children. It is harder for them to attract the best teachers and to afford the right support, which is why introducing fair funding was a key manifesto commitment for the Government. We need to introduce fair funding so that the same child with the same needs will attract the same funding, regardless of where they happen to live. That is the only way that parents can be sure that there is level playing field.
We launched the first stage of the consultation on reforming the schools and high needs funding systems in March 2016. That consultation set out our principles of reform and our proposals for the design of the schools and high needs funding system. I am grateful to the more than 6,000 teachers, headteachers, governors, local authority representatives and others who took the time to respond to that consultation, and I am pleased that our proposals received wide support.
In the light of that, we are now consulting on the detailed proposals for the design of the schools and high needs funding formula. We have also published illustrative allocations data, so that every school and local authority can see the impact of the proposals. The second stage of the consultation will run until 22 March, and we are keen to hear from as many schools, governors, local authorities and parents as possible. I welcome this debate as a valuable addition to that consultation.
Our proposed formula would result in more than 10,000 schools throughout the country—54% of all schools— gaining funding, with a quarter of all schools gaining more than 5.5%. Those that are due to see gains will see them quickly, with increases of up to 3% in per-pupil funding in 2018-19, and up to a further 2.5% in 2019. Our formula will target money towards pupils who face entrenched barriers to their success, particularly those who are deprived and those who live in areas of deprivation but who are not necessarily eligible for free school meals—those whose families are just about managing. We are putting more money towards supporting pupils who have fallen behind their peers, in both primary and secondary school, to ensure that they get the support that they need to catch up.
Our proposed national funding formula will see gains for schools right across the north. In the north-east, schools will see an average 1% increase, while schools in Yorkshire and the Humber will see a 1.5% average increase. I acknowledge that the outcome will be more mixed in the north-west, but schools there will also be small gainers on average under our proposals. I recognise that our proposals would result in budget reductions for schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southport, but I nevertheless believe that our proposed formula strikes the correct balance between the core schools budget, which every pupil attracts, and the extra funding needed to target those with additional needs.
John Pugh
I probably made my point quite imperfectly. Can the Minister assure me that if a secondary school—those are the worst-affected schools in this respect—is in an area in which primary schools have made good progress, and the children who are handed on to them are therefore attaining the expected level and do not enter the secondary school with poor prior attainment, that secondary school will not lose out simply because it has good feeder schools? That scenario would discourage the kind of collaboration between secondary schools and feeder primary schools that the Minister wants to see, because it would almost be in the vested interest of the secondary schools to have incompetent feeder primary schools—from a financial point of view, if not an academic one.
Mr Gibb
I do not accept that argument. It is important to ensure that schools—primary or secondary—are well funded for pupils who start school academically behind their peers. I do not believe that any professional I have ever met would deliberately not collaborate with another school to improve pupils’ attainment simply to attract an element of the funding formula. Of course, the biggest element of it depends on deprivation, whether measured by receipt of free school meals or by children in one of the lower IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index—bands. That is important to ensure that children from those areas are properly supported.
The hon. Gentleman managed to mention Manchester, Kirklees, Liverpool and Sefton. However, he forgot to mention areas that will receive an increase in funding under the proposed funding formula, including 1.7% in Durham and Gateshead; more than 2% in Newcastle; nearly 3% in south Tyneside; nearly 2% in Sunderland; 3.4% in Blackpool; 4.3% in Bury; 4.9% in Knowsley; and 4.3% in Leeds. Schools in northern urban areas will continue to be highly funded; even areas that will see a small reduction under the proposed national funding formula will still be some of the highest-funded in the country, including Manchester and Liverpool, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That is right, as those areas have higher levels of socioeconomic deprivation and children with additional needs. Matching funding to need will see schools in those areas funded higher than those elsewhere in the country. A secondary school pupil with significant additional needs could attract more than £10,000 to their school through the proposed national funding formula and the pupil premium.
While introducing these significant reforms to the funding system, we are also delivering stability. We have listened to those who have highlighted the risks of major budget changes.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Funding for Sport in Schools
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) on securing this important debate.
Childhood obesity is a national problem. Data from Public Health England’s national child measurement programme shows that, in England, a third of children are obese or overweight by the time they leave primary school. As my hon. Friend so ably said, we run the risk of creating new social norms in which obesity is the new normal. Sugar consumption is a major factor in childhood obesity, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks are now one of the biggest sources of dietary sugar for children and teenagers. A single 330 ml can of cola can contain nine teaspoons of sugar—more than a child’s daily recommended intake of added sugar—often without any other intrinsic nutritional value. The introduction of the soft drinks industry levy is a clear indication of this Government’s commitment to addressing this vital issue.
Reducing sugar consumption alone, though, is not enough. It is also important that all children have the opportunity to engage in sport and physical activity. This debate is therefore timely, as it allows me the opportunity to set out our plan further to improve physical education and school sport using revenue generated by the levy. The Government understand that high-quality PE is a route to instilling a life with health, wellbeing and exercise at its core. That is why PE is compulsory at all four key stages in the national curriculum and why, through the primary PE and sport premium, we have invested more than £600 million since 2013 in ring-fenced funding to primary schools to improve PE and sport.
We know that that funding is making a big difference. Independent research by NatCen has found that since the introduction of the primary PE and sport premium, 87% of schools have reported that the quality of PE has increased, and the vast majority of schools have introduced new sports and extracurricular activities. I join the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) in paying tribute to those teachers who go the extra mile, almost literally, to provide extra sporting activities.
The NatCen research also shows that 84% of schools also reported an increase in pupil engagement in PE during curricular time and in participation in extracurricular activities. The number of qualified specialist PE teachers in primary schools has increased by 50%, covering almost half of all schools. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon will undoubtedly be aware that primary schools in Wiltshire received around £1.8 million in additional funding in 2016-17, and that primary schools in Swindon received an additional £611,400.
We know that there is more to do. The soft drinks industry levy will be used to double the primary PE and sport premium to £320 million a year from September 2017. The funding will continue to be ring-fenced to assist schools in developing PE and extracurricular sport activities and to make long-term improvements that will benefit pupils joining the school in future years. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) that that funding is committed to 2020 and will help drive up the quality and breadth of PE and sport provision.
The increased funding will allow schools to build on the progress made through the existing premium. It will enable them to hire qualified sports coaches to work with teachers, provide existing staff with training or resources and introduce new sports and activities that encourage more pupils to be healthy and active. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon told us about the PE teacher Mark Draycott and his excellent initiative, Draycott sports camp, established in 2013, which operates out of Oakhurst primary school, where Mr Draycott is also a teacher.
The idea behind the camp was to create more opportunities for primary-age children of all abilities to participate in sport and physical activity during the school holidays. The programme offers extracurricular clubs after school and during the holidays. I commend my hon. Friend on championing that great work and taking the time to visit the camp last year, where I am reliably informed that he acquitted himself creditably in a netball shoot-out and a game of lacrosse. My hon. Friend pointed to the importance to schools of recruiting qualified PE teachers such as Mark Draycott. The Department continues to recruit well in physical education. In 2015-16, we recruited 1,235 new teacher trainers, against a target of 1,227.
My hon. Friends the Members for Erewash (Maggie Throup), for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and for Macclesfield (David Rutley), as well as the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) and others, praised the daily mile initiative and its success in ensuring that children exercise every day. It is the brainchild of Elaine Wyllie, whom I look forward to meeting in February. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes emphasised the importance of active travel and encouraging children to cycle to school where it is safe to do so, and I agree.
My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield pointed to the importance of being active in the workplace. Perhaps we as MPs should sit less and stand more. We run for office, stand for election and take our seats, but of the three, the most important is obviously running for office. He asked for a Minister to meet ukactive. The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson) or I would be delighted to do so.
A positive experience of sport at a young age can create a lifelong love of sport and physical participation. That is why we are focusing on primary-age children, as we want to help them develop healthy habits and a love of sport at an early age, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash emphasised. Secondary schools have specialist PE teachers already on the staff and can access programmes such as Sportivate and satellite clubs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes raised a concern about children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We want all pupils to be healthy and active, and we know that many schools are already using their sport premium funding to target disadvantaged pupils, who are traditionally the least active. In many schools, that will include providing additional support to children who might not be able to attend after-school clubs and activities, but we know that there is more to be done, which is why we are doubling the funding from September 2017.
We have also announced that £10 million a year in revenue from the soft drinks levy will fund the expansion of healthy breakfast clubs in up to 1,600 schools from September 2017 to 2020. The programme will ensure that more children benefit from a healthy start to their school day and is a fitting accompaniment to the primary PE and sport premium.
We are anxious to ensure that schools continue to use the funding wisely and have a number of accountability measures in place, as has been mentioned in this debate. Schools are held accountable for how they spend their funding through Ofsted whole-school inspections and a requirement to report their spending plans and the impact of that spending online. Furthermore, we have updated grant conditions and guidance and continue to work with our partners to disseminate best practice and examples of innovative uses of funding to schools, ensuring that they are best placed when the doubling of the premium comes into effect.
The Government aim to reduce England’s rate of childhood obesity significantly within the next 10 years. I firmly believe that a cross-governmental approach is key to success. In addition to the soft drinks industry levy, two landmark strategies have been published in the last 12 months: the Government’s sports strategy and the childhood obesity plan. We continue to work closely with a range of other Departments to deliver those strategies.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Sixth-form Education: International Comparisons
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
May I start by adding to House’s adulation of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and congratulate him on securing the debate? Ensuring high-quality post-16 education is a priority for the Government and for the country. We recognise the contribution of the dedicated staff working in all types of post-16 education and the hard work of students. In fact, a record proportion of young people are now participating in education, training or apprenticeships. I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) the assurance that the Government support sixth-form colleges, including the sixth-form college mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and Franklin College in Grimsby.
Education and training in England is widely respected around the world, but we are determined to make further improvements to ensure that 16 to 19-year-olds are ready for the demands of the workplace by moving directly into skilled employment or by continuing to higher education. We are therefore reforming academic and technical education for over-16s and we are learning from the best international systems.
All countries that we look to learn from have a stage of education that no longer exclusively takes place in school. At this stage, there are options for students to gain relevant experience to prepare them for work either through apprenticeships or technical education, as we heard in the previous debate, or to prepare for further academic study at university. The way that works and the age at which it starts varies considerably around the world. For example, in countries such as Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, there is a high level of investment by employers in vocational training in the secondary phase and an early emphasis on workplace training. That leads to lower rates of young people who are not in education, employment or training than in England, but the difference in academic standards between pupils from different socioeconomic backgrounds in those countries is larger than in England.
By contrast, only about one fifth of 15 to 19-year-olds in countries such as Japan and Korea are enrolled in vocational upper-secondary programmes. The remaining 80% of those cohorts continue a rigorous academic programme. It is useful to benchmark ourselves—if “to benchmark” is a new verb—against such countries to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our education system and to raise our expectations of what students here can achieve. That is why I am determined that we should improve our maths teaching by learning from the high-performing Asian systems such as those in Shanghai, Singapore and Japan by adopting maths mastery through the maths hubs programme, but it is not simply a case of choosing one country to learn from. Our priority should be making our whole system world class.
There is much to be proud of in comparing our education system to other countries. For example, England’s 15-year-olds continue to perform significantly above the OECD average in science and, in 2015, England’s 15-year-olds performed above average in reading for the first time. However, our performance in maths remains at the OECD average and a survey of adult skills identified our 16 to 18-year-olds as having the weakest literacy and numeracy skills out of 18 countries in 2012. We need to take action to deal with areas of poor performance. In the case of literacy and numeracy, we have now made the continued study of English and maths in post-16 education and training compulsory for students who did not achieve a good GCSE pass at age 16. More broadly, we are reforming both academic and technical education.
International examples of programme hours are widely used, but those comparisons need to be carefully interpreted. It is important that we understand what the estimates include, how programmes of longer duration or higher intensity are funded and how they sit beside other routes for young people to take from school to work. It is not always clear in the various studies where work experience is included in the figures. Certainly in the planned hours used to benchmark our own programmes for funding, we do not include self-directed study or homework, which is a key part of this phase of education. It is important that we develop a system that serves our pupils and our economy.
In England, we have an established academic route for sixth-form students through well-respected A-level qualifications. It is true that our system requires pupils to make choices and therefore, to a certain extent, to specialise in a smaller number of subjects for the sixth-form stage, but some degree of specialisation is a feature of systems in other countries as well. Through the A-level route, our academic system at post-16 is effective in preparing pupils for successful futures through in-depth study of the subjects they choose. We have some of the best universities in the world, and the proportion of English students studying in higher education is now larger than it has ever been. That includes the highest ever entry rate for the most disadvantaged 18-year-olds.
Of course, we are not standing still, and we are strengthening the design of A-levels to make sure that pupils continue to be fully equipped for the future. We have given higher education providers a leading role in redesigning a number of key A-levels, to ensure that pupils who take these qualifications are prepared for undergraduate-level study. We have also redesigned the assessment model, increasing the time available for high-quality teaching rather than taking exams.
Where we have not matched our neighbours is in technical education, where we have a major programme of reform under way. The landmark review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds conducted by Professor Alison Wolf in 2011 found that at least 350,000 16 to 19-year-olds were working towards vocational qualifications that offered no clear progression routes. The review led to the introduction of new study programmes and of per-student funding instead of per-qualification funding to ensure fair funding for FE colleges in line with other 16-to-19 institutions. As a direct result of the recommendations in the Wolf report, we now include only approved qualifications in performance tables. This means that young people can have confidence that their qualifications will enable them to progress to further study or into employment.
However, we recognise that the system is still not doing enough to support students who wish to pursue technical education. We recognise that we are still not matching the most effective systems of technical education in other European economies. That is why, following publication of the Sainsbury review, we are embarking on a radical reform of England’s post-16 technical education system. Learning from the best technical education systems overseas, we are working to introduce new technical routes that will enable young people to gain the knowledge and skills required for work, according to standards designed in partnership with employers. Bringing training for young people and adults in line with the needs of business and industry will support increases in productivity, which has lagged behind, even as economic growth and employment levels have improved. It will also help to ensure that young people and adults can move into sustained and skilled careers that lead to prosperity and security.
Alongside that, we are continuing the reform of apprenticeships, as we have heard. We are increasing the quality of apprenticeships through more rigorous assessment and grading at the end of the apprenticeship. We are also giving employers control of the funding so they become more demanding customers. We are committed to reaching 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020.
Caroline Lucas
I genuinely very much welcome the Minister’s support for the sixth-form sector and sixth-form colleges, but he has been speaking for nearly 10 minutes and has said nothing about the arbitrary funding that has been the focus of so much of the concern expressed on both sides of the House. Will he commit to look at this funding issue? Will the Government look at how much funding is required for the rounded curriculum that sixth-form colleges want to deliver? Colleges in my constituency, such as Varndean College and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, are desperate to deliver it but are being undermined by the lack of funding, which the Minister still has not really addressed.
Mr Gibb
If only the hon. Lady had waited just two more seconds, we would have come to that pivotal part of my response to the debate.
Clearly, the right level of funding needs to be in place to match our ambitious academic and technical reforms. In 2013, investment in education in the UK as a whole—combining public and private sources—was above the OECD average across all phases, including post-16. We have made the system more coherent so that school sixth forms and colleges are all funded and have their performance reported in the same way. Funding is on a per-student basis, giving schools and colleges the freedom to design the best programmes for their students, rather than rewarding institutions for providing large numbers of small qualifications that have little value.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister says that all institutions are treated the same, but free schools, in particular, were outwith the area reviews of provision that we have just seen undertaken in many parts of the country. Is he aware of Connell Sixth Form College in my constituency, which was opened by a grammar school and has recently received a “requires improvement” Ofsted rating? That sixth-form college is operating below the numbers required to sustain it, and it was outwith the area review. Does he think that is a good use of public funds in the context of this debate?
Mr Gibb
Area reviews can take schools into account, but 2,000 or more schools have sixth forms, and if we were to bring them all into the area reviews, that would make the whole system unmanageable. The free school system was introduced to challenge the status quo in terms of sixth forms and in terms of schools themselves, because in the past we have had monopoly provision of new schools. The free school movement has been phenomenal in opening up sixth forms such as King’s College London Mathematics School, where 100% of youngsters are getting A or A* grades in maths A-level, and Exeter Mathematics School. These schools are challenging the status quo in these areas and providing a very high-quality education. We need to see more of those innovative and demanding free sixth-form schools that open up for young people opportunities that they would not otherwise have had.
Nic Dakin
I have been listening to the Minister very carefully. Does he accept that the research available demonstrates that since 2010 the funding for 16 to 18-year-olds has been reduced in real terms, and that the impact of that has been to reduce the level of tuition time to 13 to 17 hours per student? I am interested in whether he recognises that as an issue, and if so, whether he sees it as a problem.
Mr Gibb
I absolutely recognise that resources are tight for 16-to-19 education and training. In recent years, we have had to make some post-16 savings while working hard to sustain funding levels for schools, bearing in mind the fact that success in school pre-16 is the best predictor of outcomes in post-16 education.
We have made clear commitments to 16-to-19 education, where we have protected the base rate of funding at £4,000 per student for all types of providers until 2020. This was announced in the 2015 spending review, at a time when public finances are under great pressure. Providers receive additional funding for students taking part in more expensive programmes, and there is also a large programme uplift for providers who have pupils studying four or more A-levels, provided they achieve minimum grade requirements, and about £540 million of funding is allocated each year to enable schools and colleges to give extra support to disadvantaged students. That is essential in helping those from poorer backgrounds or those who, pre-16, have not attained well enough to get the help they need to succeed.
Overall, we plan to invest about £7 billion during 2016-17—taking apprenticeships together with other education and training options—to ensure that there is a place in education or training for every 16 to 19-year-old who wants one. This commitment means that all types of providers are funded for 600 planned hours per year per full-time student. That level of funding supports a significant programme of study. For example, it will allow for three A-levels and 50 hours of tutorials, plus either one AS-level or about 150 hours of enrichment or work experience. While we have not been able to protect budgets for sixth-form education in real terms, there is funding to ensure that every sixth-form age student has the opportunity to undertake high-quality study that will help them to move on to skilled work or further or higher education.
Our commitment to the post-16 sector has contributed to the current record-high proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in education, training or apprenticeships, and the lowest proportion of young people not in education, employment or training since consistent records began in 1994. Applications to higher education from 18-year-olds are at an all-time high.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe for raising this important issue. I recognise that there is more to do to continue improving our post-16 education system to ensure it is established as one of the world’s best, but we should be proud of the achievements so far and recognise that we are building a system that is both affordable and in keeping with our country’s needs.
Question put and agreed to.
Schools Revenue Funding Settlement 2017-18
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Today I am announcing details of schools revenue funding for 2017-18. This announcement includes the dedicated schools grant (DSG), the education services grant (ESG) transitional grant and the pupil premium. Pupils Per pupil rate Disadvantaged pupils: primary £1,320 Disadvantaged pupils: secondary £935 Pupil premium plus: looked after children (LAC) 1 and those adopted from care or who leave care under a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (formally known as a residence order). £1,900 Service children £300 1A looked after child is defined in the Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English or Welsh local authority.
The distribution of the DSG to local authorities will continue to be set out in three spending blocks for each authority: a schools block, a high needs block and an early years block.
The schools block has been allocated on the basis of the schools block units of funding announced in the Secretary of State’s statement to the House on 21 July 2016. To protect schools from significant budget reductions, we will continue with a minimum funding guarantee that ensures no school loses more than 1.5% per pupil in its 2017-18 budget—excluding sixth-form funding and ESG—compared to 2016-17, and before the pupil premium is added.
We have been able to provide an additional £130 million for the DSG high needs block. The high needs block supports provision for pupils and students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), up to the age of 25, and alternative provision for pupils who cannot receive their education in schools.
The DSG early years block comprises funding for the 15 hours’ entitlement for three and four-year-olds: the additional 15 hours for three and four-year-old children of eligible working parents from September 2017; participation funding for two-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds; the early years pupil premium; and the disability access fund. The provisional allocations for this block were announced in the Secretary of State’s statement of 1 December 2016.
The ESG transitional grant for local authorities will be set at a financial year rate of £66 per pupil and paid for the period April to August 2017. We will also continue to provide a protection to limit the reduction of academies’ budgets as a result of the ending of ESG from September 2017.
The pupil premium per pupil amounts for 2017-18 will be protected at the current rates, which are:
Pupil premium allocations for financial year 2017-18 will be published in June 2017 following the receipt of pupil number data from the spring 2017 schools and alternative provision censuses.
Details of these arrangements have been published on gov.uk.
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