Schools in deprived areas to be 'worse off' despite government funding claims
Nina Jacobs
Monday, October 14, 2019
Cuts to schools funding have hit the poorest pupils three times harder than their wealthier peers, with new funding allocations not enough to redress austerity, a coalition of education unions has warned.
Some 83 per cent of schools will be worse off in 2020/21 than they were in 2015, with schools, particularly in deprived areas, "struggling to paper over the cracks" caused by wider austerity measures, according to the School Cuts coalition.
The group, made up of the National Education Union (NEU), the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and the Association of School and College Lecturers (ASCL), has launched a new searchable map charting the cuts.
At primary level, schools in deprived areas saw cuts of £382 per pupil compared with better-off areas at £125, the coalition analysis finds.
Secondary schools serving the poorest pupils, with 42 per cent in receipt of free school meals, have seen budgets slashed by £509 per pupil from 2015/16 to 2020/21.
In comparison, schools with only four per cent of pupils on free school meals had seen cuts of £117 per pupil for the same period.
The criticism from the School Cuts coalition follows the latest funding announcement for 2020/21, with the government pledging the biggest increases to the schools most in need.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, said every secondary school will receive a minimum of £5,000 per pupil, and every primary school will get a minimum of £4,000 per pupil from 2021/22.
The campaign highlights schools in Tower Hamlets, which teach children with the highest proportion of free school meals, at 33 per cent compared with the national average of 14 per cent. In this borough, schools are £735 poorer per pupil compared with 2015/16, it said.
Hartlepool was recorded as having the second most deprived intake, with cuts above average at £313 per pupil.
The unions said seven out of 10 of the "poorest" councils in England including Hackney, Islington, Liverpool and Birmingham had cuts to school funding that were above average.
In comparison, eight out of 10 of the "most prosperous" councils such as Windsor, Surrey and Oxfordshire, saw cuts that were below average.
Geoff Barton, ASCL general secretary, said the extra money allocated by the government for schools was not enough to reverse the effects of the cuts.
"The funding crisis is not over. In fact, many schools will have to make further cuts next year because they are receiving only an inflationary increase and school costs are rising above inflation," he said.
Kevin Courtney, NEU joint general secretary, said: "The unfairness of the distribution of Johnson's additional school funding is breathtaking. ?
"Johnson promised that there would be no more ‘winners and losers' in education, a noble commitment, but it does not match reality."
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said only one in three schools would receive an increase of around 1.8 per cent in their overall funding, which represented a "real-terms cut".
"This shows that it will take a lot more than the government is currently offering in order to properly restore the funding that's been lost over the past several years.
"Children and their families have seen class sizes soar, teaching assistants laid off, subjects dropped, resources diminish, and in many cases witness their school fall into disrepair, all because the ever-reducing budgets make it harder and harder to make ends meet," he said.
In a response to the unions' analysis, the Department for Education said areas with high proportions of students from a disadvantaged background would continue to receive the highest levels of funding.
"The gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed considerably in both primary and secondary schools since 2011.
"We are investing £2.4bn this year alone through the pupil premium helping the most disadvantaged children," a DfE spokesperson said.
The government is allocating higher per pupil funding for these 10 "poorest" councils under the national funding formula announced for 2020/21.
It said each of these councils received more than £4,838, the national average funding per pupil.
For councils such as Tower Hamlets, this meant a provisional allocation of £6,947 per pupil compared with £5,519 per pupil for London, the DfE added.
Meanwhile, the government has launched a consultation proposing changes to arrangements for the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), which allocates funding specifically for pupils with high needs.
Under the current rules, councils must transfer any underspend to the next year's schools budget but recent data shows half of all councils overspent at the end of 2018/19, amounting to £250m.
The national net overspend, taking underspends in other councils into account, was £40m in 2018/19.
However, this figure is expected reach a net overspend of £230m at the end of 2019/20 due to increasing pressures on schools' high needs budgets, the government said.
The consultation proposes a change to arrangements allowing councils to fund all or some of their overspends on the grant from their general resources, or to carry some of those overspends to the next financial year.
It states: "DSG deficits should not be covered from general funds but over time they should be recovered from DSG income".
An additional £780m high needs funding announced in August would help many councils bring their DSG accounts into balance, the government added.
The consultation runs until 15 November.
