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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE


Continuing concerns on schools funding

The Department for Education (DfE) has, following the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), announced and budgeted for only a 0.1% per year increase in schools budgets over the three-year funding period to 2014. Inflation, predicted to be above 3% per year during the period, will erode and overtake this cash uplift. It is estimated that, including the pupil premium, funding for schools will be cut in real terms by 0.6% each year.
The pupil premium will only reach a total of £2.5 billion in the final year of the funding period, starting from a baseline in 2011 of £625 million only in the first year. Many schools still seem to believe that the £2.5 billion will come all at once.
Despite the cuts in the budget, schools are still expected to find £1 billion worth of efficiency savings.
Previous centrally directed programmes are being cut, affecting service provision and putting jobs at risk.
Devolved capital funding to schools for care and maintenance of their buildings has been cut from around £959 million in 2010/11 to £195 million in 2011/12. This raises a whole series of issues about repair and maintenance of the working environment and could put even greater financial pressure on schools.
The DfE has said that it cannot guarantee that individual schools budgets will not be cut and they cannot guarantee that there will be no teacher/support staff redundancies.

Further updates on school funding and the impact of the Coalition Government’s programme of cuts can be found at www.nasuwt.org.uk/ChampioningEducation


Budget realities exposed

The scale of the Coalition Government’s strategy of spin and misinformation over school funding has been exposed after the Secretary of State for Education admitted that schools will face real-terms cuts to their budgets.

Ministers have consistently trumpeted that schools would see a 0.1% increase in their budgets following last autumn’s CSR but Secretary of State Michael Gove has now admitted that school spending is likely to fall.

The NASUWT has sought consistently to expose the truth at the heart of the Coalition Government’s agenda and the reality of the cuts facing schools was made even more evident by as further details of the pupil premium were announced.

The Secretary of State has repeatedly sought to claim that this would be provided through additional funds but has now admitted that the money to fund the premium will come from savings elsewhere in the schools’ budget, including the public sector pay freeze.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, condemned the Coalition Government’s attempts to mislead the public as a smokescreen to mask the scale of cuts being made to education.

“The smoke has now cleared and it is evident that the losers will be some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and the schools in some of England’s most deprived areas,” she said.

“This is yet another example of the Coalition Government manipulating figures to suit its own ends.

“Playing fast and loose with figures is one thing. Playing fast and loose with children’s futures is quite another.”

In the light of the Coalition Government’s admissions, Ms Keates called on the Government to reconsider its promotion of academies and free schools, saying:

“At a time when schools and local authorities are facing massive cuts, when thousands of jobs and essential services are at risk and when some of the most disadvantaged young people are having their financial lifeline cut, it is simply indefensible for the Secretary of State to continue to fritter scarce resources on pursuing unnecessary and expensive experiments, such as free schools and bribing schools to become academies.”


Coalition Government’s vision for public services challenged

The Coalition Government is using the cloak of cuts to mislead the public into accepting reforms that will neither improve public services nor provide value for money, the Union has told ministers.

Responding to a Coalition Government consultation on its plans for public service reform, the Union has made a scathing analysis of the Coalition’s vision.

The NASUWT’s submission argues that the Coalition Government’s plans to hand over public services to private providers will reduce provision for the most vulnerable, fatally weaken the principle of democratic accountability and increase costs.

The Coalition’s determination to press ahead with such a system of reform despite these major concerns demonstrates that their plans are fuelled by a desire to encourage private profiteering at the expense of the needs of the public.

In its submission, the NASUWT highlights the effectiveness of public services, pointing out that Ofsted has rated two thirds of schools either good or outstanding and that contrary to the Coalition Government’s claims, reforms will not create greater choice and freedom for service users, but instead simply increase competition and lead to inefficient use of public money.

The Union has pointed to past experiences of private providers moving into the public sector, highlighting private company’s tendency to concentrate on promoting only those elements of a service that will generate most profit. Private providers are also less accountable to the public, and the NASUWT has highlighted the increased risks to the public purse if private providers fail.

The Coalition Government is proposing to create a ‘voucher-type’ system in which users can choose and pay for the services they require.

The NASUWT has warned that this will lead to greater inequality as the more affluent will be able to afford to top up their voucher with additional funds to allow themselves more choice over which services they use while those on low incomes will be left with basic services.

The NASUWT believes public services must be available to all, regardless of their ability to pay, and the Coalition Government’s plans amount to little more than an illusion of choice.

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