Responding to today’s Budget announcement, Geoff Barton, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“We fear this Budget falls a long way short of what is needed in
terms of investment in education, but recognise that there is at
least some progress in the right direction. There is more
investment in early years, in schools and in 16-19 education, and
we welcome these commitments. But there is long-term systemic
under-funding in all these sectors, and significant investment is
needed to repair the damage done by a decade of austerity.
“We hear the Chancellor’s claim that the investment in schools
will restore per pupil funding to 2010 levels. However, we will
need to see the detail of the overall spending plans and
commitments before knowing the full implications. Even in the
best-case analysis this still represents no growth in school
funding for 15 years, and this commitment does not address the
stark reality in 16-19 education where the learner rate is far
too low. What we do know is that school and college budgets are
very thinly stretched and the financial situation continues to be
extremely difficult.
“The additional funding for education recovery following the
Covid pandemic is nowhere near what is needed. Alongside other
education organisations and school trusts, we submitted in August
a proposal for an additional £5.8 billion of spending over the
next three years focused in particular on supporting
disadvantaged young people. This was far less than the £15
billion plan reportedly put forward by the former Education
Recovery Commissioner and it is disappointing that the government
has not gone further in meeting our relatively modest proposal.
We will continue to press for the education recovery funding that
children need and deserve. They have suffered the most
educational disruption of any generation since the second world
war and the government must do better for them.”
