The NASUWT Teachers Union has said that trying to understand the full impact of the Education funding cuts at this time is ‘like knitting fog’.
Certainly, after the backlash over the scrapping of 700 school building projects, the chancellor announcement that there will be £15.8bn to “rebuild and refurbish” 600 schools should mean that schools won’t need to find this funding from other budgets – what’s your take?
The headline messages we picked out are:
- The schools budget will see a real reduction in Department of Education resource spending of 3% by 2014-15.
- 60% reduction in real terms in capital spending over the Spending Review period. However over the Spending Review period there will be a total of £15.8 billion of capital spending. The average annual capital budget will be higher than the average annual capital budget in the 1997-98 to 2004-05 period.
- Funding grants streamlined i.e. Education Maintenance Allowances ended; procurement and back office savings; 33% admin reduction in real terms by closing NDPBs, reducing headcount, reducing the costs of the DfE estate and cutting nonessential expenditure.
Next steps will include further details contained in a Schools’ White Paper, a Special Educational Needs and Disability Green paper, and confirmation of local authority allocations for schools and early years provision. We’ll keep an eye in developments and keep you updated on further announcements that are expected throughout the next three months.
