Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
In June 2013, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said clearly that current schools funding
“is distributed on a historical basis with no logical reason.”
I think we all agree that the facts speak for themselves and that there is no logical reason for the present funding system. My right hon. Friend went on to say:
“The result is that some schools get much more than others in the same circumstances.”
He further observed that
“That is unfair and we are going to put it right.”—[Official Report, 26 June 2013; Vol. 565, c. 311.]
The question that most of us, and our constituents, want to ask of ministerial colleagues in the Department for Education is: when will it be put right?
This is not a partisan issue. I did not think I would ever agree with a London socialist such as Fiona Millar, but she said:
“But even as one of the beneficiaries of a skewed system, it still seems profoundly wrong to me that every school should be subject to increasingly rigid national accountability measures, yet be expected to deliver the same results when such huge regional funding disparities persist.”
I think we would all agree with that. She also mentioned that the Minister for Schools observed, when announcing the £350 million, that schools with 3% of children on free school meals in Birmingham receive higher funding per pupil than schools in some rural areas with more than 30% of pupils eligible for free school meals. How does one make sense of that?
Even allowing for higher area costs and deprivation in London, the gap between most London boroughs and much of the rest of the country is far too high, reaching £1,000 per pupil in some cases. Quirks in the current funding system result in schools with the same characteristics and miles from one another receiving wildly different sums depending on their local authority.
The £350 million is welcome, but we are discussing a league of pity—where people appear in the league table. The consultation document lists 62 authorities that are in line to receive additional funding under the indicative minimum funding level. Oxfordshire is 59th on the list and receives a lower percentage and cash increase than any other English county. Oxfordshire loves Cambridgeshire dearly, but there seems to be no logic in the fact that Cambridgeshire will receive from the £350 million a boost of around £20 million in 2015-16 when Oxfordshire is set to receive only £500,000 or 0.14% of the total new funding—more than 10 times less than the £5.64 million average increase of the 62 authorities that are benefiting.
Even in the context of the £350 million that has been given additionally to try to mitigate some of the unfairness, Oxfordshire is still being treated extremely badly, and there is absolutely no intellectual or policy justification for that. At a time when schools throughout the country are rightly obliged to set national targets, standards and performance levels, it is grossly unfair that schools in some parts of the country are receiving so much more money than those in other parts. That is unjust and unfair. It must be put right, and quickly.