The Government must fix the broken education funding system,
commit to a multi-billion cash injection for schools and colleges
and bring forward a strategic ten-year education funding plan,
MPs say today.
A report by the Education Select Committee says funding has not
kept pace with the rising demands placed on schools and colleges.
The Committee’s inquiry found that, as well as coping with
growing pupil numbers and rising costs, schools were increasingly
being asked to cover additional services – such as mental health,
social issues and more complex special educational needs and
disabilities provision – without adequate resources, putting the
sector under significant strain over the past decade.
The report shows that further education has been hardest hit,
with post-16 funding per student falling by 16% in real terms
over the past decade. MPs urge a £1 billion boost.
The report makes the following key recommendations:
- ensure
schools get the multi-billion pound investment they desperately
need;
- urgently
address underfunding in further education by increasing the base
rate from £4,000 to at least £4,760, rising in line with
inflation;
- increase
school funding by raising the age-weighted pupil unit value;
- increase
high needs funding for special educational needs and disabilities
to address a projected £1.2 billion deficit;
- implement
the full roll-out of the National Funding Formula as soon as
feasible, and make the various funding formulae more
forward-looking and less reliant on historical factors;
- ensure all
eligible students attract Pupil Premium and overcome existing
barriers to automatic enrolment as a matter of priority;
- secure from
the Treasury the full amount of estimated Pupil Premium money
that has not been claimed because students did not register for
free school meals, and allocate this money to disadvantaged
children; and
- extend the
Pupil Premium to provide for 16–19 year olds.
Rt Hon , Chair of the Education
Committee, said: “Education is crucial to our
nation’s future. It is the driver of future prosperity and
provides the ladder of opportunity to transform the life chances
of millions of our young people. If it is right that the NHS can
have a ten-year plan and a five-year funding settlement, then
surely education, perhaps the most important public service,
should also have a ten-year plan and a long-term funding
settlement.
Substantial amounts of money have been allocated to education
by the Government, but spending has not kept pace with the
growing demands placed on our schools and colleges. Alongside the
ten-year plan, the Government needs to cover the 8% funding gap
currently faced by schools.
There is a crisis of confidence in the ability of mainstream
schools to provide adequate SEND support. This needs to be
tackled through increased school funding to support better early
intervention. The Government must also spend an extra £1 billion
to address the projected high needs deficit. There should be
automatic enrolment so all eligible students receive Pupil
Premium, and previously unclaimed money should be clawed back
from the Treasury to help the most disadvantaged pupils. Pupil
Premium should also be extended to 16-19 education.
Given the march of the robots and the rise of automation, it
is extraordinary that further education has for so long been
starved of cash. Funding further education properly must sit at
the heart of a ten-year plan.
To make sure we are giving schools and colleges the money
they need, we are calling for a comprehensive, bottom-up national
assessment of the real-world costs of delivering a quality
education. A proper ten-year plan and long-term funding
settlement would provide stability for schools and colleges and
help ensure that our education system is fit for the
21st century.”
