Financing and Funding Out of denial - time to start spending again


believe, we all know that you can’t make progress technologically unless your school is equipped in a way to take advantage of the digital literacy that your school will have and the huge potential of evolving technology.” A very strong and clear message to schools to continue to invest in products to support learning in the way they see fit for their specific student’s needs! While there are certainly cuts in school’s budgets, they are aware that funding is available and therefore their outlook is positive. Another finding from our research was that each year schools anticipate that their budgets will be cut by less the following year. Taking budgets for technology in particular, in 2010 schools forecast that the following year’s primary school budgets would drop 7.8 per cent when they actually only dropped 4.6 per cent. Similarly in secondary education, in 2010 schools anticipated a budget drop of 8.2 per cent, while the reality was nearer 7.2 per cent.


R


ay Barker, Director of BESA explains the current financial situation and suggests why schools appear to have cut their spending. The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), the education sector’s trade association, works between the government, suppliers and schools to provide insight and advice to drive up education standards. BESA’s on-going sector research has revealed that the current image of ‘cash strapped’ schools is far from reality. Remember Tony Blair’s famous ‘education, education, education’ statement 15 years ago, stressing his commitment to the sector? Since then schools have experienced a budget increase of, on average, 3.5 per cent per annum. By 2010 school’s bursars were sitting in a very comfortable position. So, while BESA’s recent ‘Resources in English Maintained Schools’ research shows that 2011/12 has seen budget cuts of 1.8 per cent in primary education to £676,000 per annum, and that secondary schools have experienced a 2.7 per cent drop to £4,068,000, schools still have significant funds to spend particularly when compared with budgets 10, five or even two years ago. So why are we seeing schools cutting back on spending?


Panic set in


One reason is the fact that for the first time in 15 years, schools are being hit with a cut rather than a budget increase and consequently a level of panic set in. Combined with this, many schools have started to opt out of local authority control. For the first time in history, school leaders, who were trained as teachers, were having to be managers of a ‘business’ comparable in size to a large company and don’t want to mis-manage their school’s budget leaving nothing for unexpected costs later in the year.


Another reason for spending cuts in schools is the delay in the Government’s National Curriculum Review until 2014. The cost of kitting out a school of, for example, 1000 students with new text books and learning support material in line with a new curriculum across several subjects is a significant investment. It is understandable that schools feel they should hold back some


funds for the new curriculum in 2014, but what schools should remember is that to date, every announcement made by Gove has been based on the foundations of ‘freedom’ for schools to do what they see is best for their individual students. It is therefore highly unlikely that the curriculum review will introduce any highly prescriptive changes. Schools have in a sense, been ‘in denial’ and now – nearly two years on since the election - things seem not so bad as they thought they would be, and in fact realise that it’s up to them to make decisions, then the crisis is probably over!


Making pressumptions


In terms of investment in technology, schools were faced with a perception that the Government did not approve of investment in technology. Because Rt Hon Michael Gove has not ring fenced funding for technology and spoke about his ‘back to basics’ attitude to education, schools presumed that technology spend was off the agenda.


This lead to a potentially damaging ‘digital divide’ with some schools continuing to invest in the technology that drives learning while others cut their investment.


However, in his announcement at BETT 2012, Gove stressed that what he was actually saying, was that schools now had the freedom to make their own decisions on how to spend their budgets. Dominic Savage, Director General at BESA raised what Gove agreed was a “very, very important point, when he asked; “the market in the UK for technology products over the past year has been fairly poor…my perception is that schools have been waiting to be told what to do because that is what they have expected in the past. You are very clear about the freedoms that you now want to give them, the need for their individual visions but can you add to that in terms of what you expect the then to do in the investment in technology from their own budgets?”


Gove’s response was very definitive. He stressed that he; “didn’t believe it was for the Government to prescribe or dictate investment in hardware.” He continued to explain; “what I do


16 www.education-today.co.uk


What we are seeing at BESA is that schools are starting to become astute investors. Taking classroom furniture as an example, our recent research into furniture and storage investment in schools has revealed an estimated £78m investment across 2012/13 and an increasing recognition of ‘hidden’ costs such as maintenance, repair and long-term physical impact. Back in 2008, the same survey revealed that schools were making the mistake of buying cheap without considering the total cost of ownership which includes the new BSEN 1729 standard. I am heartened that this understanding has grown over the years as a result of the promotion of our BESA member’s furniture group, all of whom manufacture to this standard. At BETT this year, where visitor numbers were the highest since the start of the show in 1984, a huge number of impassioned exhibitors enthused that not once did they hear a teacher complain of a lack of funds; product and service orders were being placed at a pace seldom seen before. The Education Show had more exhibitors than last year and more visitors were expected; entries for the Education Resources Awards were 15% up on last year.


So the future certainly looks brighter. Both the Government and BESA stress the importance of schools continuing to invest in learning support, but spending wisely, and this is certainly what we are once again starting to see.


April 2012


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