Schools: National Funding Formula

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have been clear about protecting the funding that is going to the children we want to be able to catch up. Both the Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted have done important, insightful work on the use of the pupil premium. It is important that we get the most out of that investment, and I think we are steadily understanding what works to help children who are falling behind to catch up. The transparency in the new formula means that we can now take a similar approach on helping children catch up with the other money flowing through the core schools formula. In time, we can have a common strategy across the two budget elements. One of the most important things that we did in education in the previous Parliament, other than our general push to raise standards, was to identify that we needed to put funding against children who are at risk of falling behind, because that is how we will drive social mobility through education.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

In the Secretary of State’s original funding formula proposals, schools in Durham were projected to lose up to £1,000 per pupil. Even with the additional resources, which are welcome, many school budgets in Durham will, at best, flatline. Will the Secretary of State guarantee today that no school in Durham will face a real-terms cut? In addition, when will she address the urgent need to rebuild many of our schools?

[Justine Greening]

First, as I set out today, there will be a minimum 0.5% cash increase per pupil for all schools in 2018-19, increasing to 1% by 2019-20, and that settlement is actually more generous than the Opposition manifesto commitment. Those schools are now doing better under our funding formula.

Secondly, we are investing huge amounts in our schools estate, not least through the condition improvement fund. We have managed to get ahead of the school places crisis that was left to us by the previous Labour Government. Ensuring that we have the school places in our system that children need is a major thing that we have done.