Behind the 'real terms' con, schools face cuts
John Freeman
Monday, October 3, 2011
The children and families minister Sarah Teather used her party conference to announce a doubling of the pupil premium from 625m to 1.25bn.
Seventeen per cent of children in England are eligible for free school meals, and their schools are allocated £430 a pupil, increasing next year to perhaps £800 a pupil. Of course, this is just a case of a politician claiming double credit, as the spending review last November included this increase, and we already know that the funding is planned to double again to £2.5bn by 2014/15. But in the present climate, we should be pleased that this increase in funding has been safeguarded.
Let's try to assess what it is really like in schools. Going back to the November spending review, the Treasury said: "There will be real terms increases of 0.1 per cent in each year of the spending review for the five to 16s school budget, including a £2.5bn pupil premium. Underlying per pupil funding will be maintained in cash terms." The 2010 Budget assumed inflation of two per cent. Even with the pupil premium increase, school budgets were only planned to increase by 2.1 per cent, so 0.1 per cent in real terms – close enough to zero not to matter. But inflation reached 4.5 per cent in August 2011, so spending power is in fact well into negative figures.
The pupil premium may help schools with higher-than-average numbers of children in poverty. But for average schools, it will make little difference and for schools serving more affluent areas, there will be cuts. Where pupil numbers are decreasing, or where there is new competition for school pupils, the financial outlook is extraordinarily bleak.
There will be school redundancies and governing bodies and head teachers will have no slack to take up the cuts in other services provided by local authorities – services you might expect the pupil premium to pay for – music, for example, or youth services. It will be a hard year, not made easier by complacent government statements that unduly raise expectations.
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.