Behind the manifesto gloss, all parties promise further cuts
John Freeman
Monday, April 27, 2015
Despite funding pledges, John Freeman says all the main parties will cut spending on services.
I have been reading the election manifestos to see what they say about children. You need to read the words extraordinarily carefully, with huge attention to detail, and using a deep cynicism filter, in order to work out what they actually mean - and often you need a good understanding of accountancy and demography as well. Fine words butter no parsnips. Worse, many voters will only hear soundbite extracts that say nothing beyond their own reductionist rhetoric.
I have worked on education financing for years, so I have been looking at the school funding proposals quite carefully. One of the two main parties - as you'll see shortly, it doesn't matter which - would increase schools funding in line with numbers of children aged five to 16 - with numbers going up fast, at first blush this seems a good deal. The other main party would, instead, protect the whole schools budget in real terms, which also seems a positive story. The problem is that we have both inflation and increasing numbers, as well as pay pressures and increases in pensions and national insurance.
So I was not surprised to see that the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis shows that the net effects of both these proposals is that there would be a cut in school spending per pupil of about six per cent over the next parliament. The Liberal Democrat proposals would lead to only a two per cent cut, but they may not be in any position to deliver this even if they end up in a governing coalition. So school funding is bound to suffer. The best we can hope for is a fairer distribution - but that won't happen, as it would make the cuts even deeper for some.
The problem for politicians is that education is expensive, as it is a universal service for every single child. That makes it difficult, especially when money is short, to increase funding in real terms. For either electoral or ideological reasons, both the main parties are committed to not increasing the deficit, so schools will inevitably lose out. Not surprisingly, head teachers are saying that this will lead to larger classes, less curriculum breadth and less personalised support for underachieving learners. As the chair of a governing body, I can only agree, as there is nowhere else to shave school costs, and there is bound to be a negative impact on schools' core business of learning as well as their contribution to the broader children's agenda.
Moving to other areas related to children, the Conservatives say they will "lower the benefits cap from £26,000 to £23,000 to reward work". The children in these families will surely suffer greater deprivation, although over a period of years, it is possible - only possible, not likely, I fear - that more people will enter work, assuming that work is available and that the people concerned have the requisite skills.
I looked in vain for anything in the Labour manifesto relating to the reversal of some of the key cuts imposed by the coalition, particularly the Education Maintenance Allowance (remember the EMA? It was cut in the first few weeks of Michael Gove's reign at the DfE) and Sure Start. Labour is committed to "promoting early-years intervention, supporting young children and their parents, and dealing with problems before they get out of hand". That's just the right thing to do, but please note the word "promoting", which is not the same as a funding commitment.
At her inauguration as president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services for this challenging year, Alison O'Sullivan reminded us that, back in 2010, the coalition had assumed, wrongly, that children's social care was deeply inefficient and that major savings could be made. The net effect is that other, already stretched, budgets have been raided to support children's social care. She cautioned the incoming government, of whatever hue, against making the same mistake by assuming that there is a magic bullet to reduce costs.
All we have learned in the past few years is that a decent education is the best preventative strategy against long-term deprivation, that early intervention is the most effective way of helping achieve good life-long outcomes and that good social care makes a huge difference where things go wrong. Personally, I'd argue long and hard that a real increase in spending in these areas would result in a better, fairer and more prosperous society in the medium term, and that increases in taxes or borrowing would be a price well worth paying. But I'm not standing for election.
John Freeman CBE is a former director of children's services and is now a freelance consultant Read his blog at cypnow.co.uk/freemansthinking