School Funding Reform

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very distinguished point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). One of the problems with BSF is that £210 million was spent by local authorities on consultants, including IT consultants, and some of that money was invested in material that we would not describe as state of the art. It is critical to ensure that we get value for every penny we spend. Information technology is critical to effective learning in the 21st century, but so is ensuring that we get proper value for money.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Education Secretary will know from his recent and very welcome visit to my constituency how grateful parents and teachers will be for his announcement today about changing the schools funding formula, under which pupils in my constituency have for far too long received almost half the spend per pupil received for pupils from areas with similar levels of deprivation in other parts of the country. My right hon. Friend will also know that we have a short-term immediate problem with LACSEG funding. I seek an assurance that his Department’s officials will work closely with the local education authority to try to overcome those problems before the start of the new school year.

[Michael Gove]

I very much enjoyed my visit to Gloucester and Stroud on Friday, and the first thing I did when I arrived at the Department on Monday was to instruct my officials to co-operate with Gloucester city council and the Young People’s Learning Agency to ensure that we deal with this issue.