Commenting on the Public Account’s Committee’s Oral Evidence
Session on the Department for Education’s annual accounts, held
today, Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of
the National Education Union, said:
“The Government has presided over a toxic mix of chronic
underfunding and chaos from poor oversight at the Department for
Education. This has been developing over years and Ministers need
to get a grip.
“It is the Government’s prime duty to secure the financial
viability of schools and colleges and a sufficient supply of
qualified teachers and school leaders, yet the DfE’s accounts
demonstrate that it is unable to do so.
“The Government’s announcement of an extra £1.3 billion for
school funding will not reverse the real term cuts faced by
schools nor the £2.8 billion cut from school budgets since 2015.
This has left primary schools facing an average £52,000 cut and
secondary schools an average £178,000 cut.
“Cuts of this magnitude, which the National Audit Office (NAO)
has confirmed have not been experienced by schools since the
mid-1990s, are leading to an increase in class sizes, loss of
school staff and cuts to extra curricular activities and
resources.
“Real-terms cuts to schools’ and colleges’ funding must be
reversed and our education institutions given the resources they
need to provide the high-quality education our children deserve.
These measures, along with a commitment to address teachers’ pay
and workload, would go some way to addressing the serious
recruitment and retention problems that threaten education
quality in England.
“Although the mess of the DfE’s accounts (1) mean we have to wait
longer for the academies sector data, we already know the DfE and
its agencies spent £12.1 million on consultants in 2016-17 –
money which could have made a huge difference to schools and
colleges that are struggling to meet their basic running costs.
We hope the new accounting arrangements for academies make it
easier for Parliament, parents, the education community and
taxpayers to scrutinise academies funding and spending in future.
“The fact that 44 colleges were in formal intervention due to
poor financial health, reflects the gross underfunding of post-16
education by both the current Government and the previous
Coalition Government and urgently needs to be reversed.
“These accounts point to a catalogue of failures by the
Government. Its fragmentation and privatisation of the education
system has caused chaos and cost the taxpayer dear. It is clear
that the DfE is unable to exercise oversight over thousands of
academies. Nothing short of a return to local democratic
oversight of schools will resolve this situation.”
Editors Notes
(1) We note that
that the Department is now preparing to publish a new, separate
report for the academies sector later this month. It is to be
hoped that these new accounting arrangements do indeed make it
easier for Parliament, parents, the education community and
taxpayers to scrutinise academies funding and spending in more
depth. This has been sadly lacking since 2010.
Even without the academies sector data, the Department’s
Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts for the Year ended 31
March 2017 raise a number of ongoing concerns including the £12.1
million spent by the Department and its agencies on consultants
in 2016-17. A significant sum that could have made a huge
difference to schools and colleges that currently are having to
put their hands down the back of the sofa to meet their basic
running costs.
Likewise, teachers and school leaders will take a dim view of the
fact that the Department and its agencies simply ‘wrote off’ £5.7
million in 2016-17. The Department has liabilities totalling
potentially billions of pounds as a result of a number of
indemnities provided by the Secretary of State to assist academy
conversions.
At a time when school funding is so tight, the Department will
need to convince taxpayers that these indemnities do not turn
into financial liabilities. These include indemnities on existing
PFI contracts valued at £7.9 billion on local authority sites
where schools have become academies; an indemnity on a 35-year
lease arrangement valued at £12.5 million with Tottenham Hotspur
Property Company for an academy site; a £2 million indemnity for
Inspiration Trust, whose directors include Sir , the recently
appointed Academies Minister and former Chair of the DfE’s
Academies Board, in respect of the Great Yarmouth High
school; and a £5 million indemnity to the Church of England’s
Commissioners in relation to a lease arrangement for an academy
site.
