What are the big figures?
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The DfE’s non-schools budget has been cut by 12 per cent. This includes a 33 per cent reduction in central administration and from axing five education quangoes.
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The schools’ resource budget rises from £50.8bn this year to £53.9bn in 2014-15.
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The capital budget shrinks from £7.6bn this year to £3.4 at the end of the period. The average will be higher than the average during Labour’s first administration
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Education Maintenance Allowances will only go to the poorest children, saving half a billion pounds.
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The public sector pay freeze will “free up” £1.1bn
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Procurement and back office savings within the schools budget “will allow at least £1 billion to be invested directly in frontline teaching”
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There will be “unit cost reductions” in the 16 to 19 participation budget, as the school leaving age is raised
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Further savings have been secured through efficiencies in Sure Start, as well as rationalising and ending centrally directed programmes for children, young people and families.
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Main school grants will be maintained in cash rather than real terms, and consolidated into a single grant. Others will be “ended and rationalised”.
What is the government’s rationale for changes in education spending?
It says the existing system of support for the poorest has failed, in part because it does not provide effective education to help disadvantaged families improve their prospects. “The Spending Review therefore protects schools spending and increases support for the poorest in the early years and at every stage of their education by introducing a new fairness premium – worth £7.2 billion in total over the Spending Review period – to support the poorest.”
What does the Fairness Premium include?
This is the Pupil Premium, of which details are still sketchy, but will be worth £2.5bn by the final year of the Review, plus a new right to 15 hours a week of free early education for disadvantaged two year olds.
There is also to be a National Scholarship Fund of £150m a year by 2014-15 to help students on the lowest incomes in higher education. Sure Start is protected “in cash terms”. The Educational Maintenance Allowance has been axed and will be replaced by a more targeted benefit which has not yet been explained in any detail.
“We need to understand more about the pupil premium and how it will affect the distribution of funding between schools. Although the overall figure is stable, the pattern will change and there will be winners and losers,” says Russell Hobby.
Aren’t schools going to be picking up the pieces for families devastated by the cuts in services and jobs?
The Government has used the Review to announce a new Early Intervention Grant “to support and help turn around the lives of families with multiple problems, improving outcomes and reducing costs to welfare and public services. The campaign will be underpinned by local Community Budgets focused on family intervention – enabling a more flexible and integrated approach to delivering the help these families need.”
Are there any changes in the way schools funding works?
Yes. Although the schools grant to local authorities remain ringfenced, there are questions over other funding which may go via the same route.
Is there any good news?
“Head teachers will have increased flexibility over their budgets, including through simpler, fairer and more transparent funding,” says the Review.
What’s the bad news?
Education really loses out on capital spending, with a cut of 60 per cent in real growth over the period of the review. Spending of £7.6bn this year will drop to £3.4bn by 2014-15. The Review says £15.8bn will be available during the next five years to provide “capital funding for new schools, rebuilding or refurbishing over 600 schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme and investing in new school provision in areas of demographic pressure.”
Demographic pressure may also have unwelcome effects on overall school funding, as the per-pupil payment remains the same only in cash terms, and real-term increases in overall funding of 0.1 per cent could be swallowed in increasing numbers of children.
Local authority funding will fall by around one-third, so many services will be cut or outsourced.
What about teachers’ pay and pensions?
In short, public sector workers are going to be paying increased pension contributions. “The Government will commit to continue with a form of defined benefit pension, and seek progressive changes to the level of employee contributions that will deliver an additional £1.8 billion of savings a year by 2014-15. The nature of the benefit and the precise level of progressive contributions will be determined once Lord Hutton’s final recommendations have been received.”
It outlines how further work and reports will be done before decisions are taken, and notes that it will “seek engagement with all stakeholders including trade unions”.
There is little on public sector pay aside from a reminder about the two-year pay freeze, and a reminder that Will Hutton’s review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector will report in late November.
There are hints about the possibilities of negotiating pay – presumably cuts or freezes – locally. Whether and how this might apply in education is unclear. Mr Hobby comments: “School leaders, teachers and support staff need the same security for their families as everyone else: affordable housing, reliable transport, fair pay and a decent pension. Attacks on these rights would dramatically affect recruitment and retention.”
What about further education?
There will be loans for over-24s who want to take courses leading to A-Level equivalent qualifications. The Review also promises to “free colleges from bureaucracy” by simplifying funding, streamlining “arms-length bodies” and improving information and advice for learners. It does not say how these things will be done. There is talk of reducing unit costs in 16-19 education.
Anything about special educational needs?
There is a hint that the Government wants to create personal budgets for children with SEN. No details are given on how this might work, and whether local authorities would be by-passed as a result.
