Commenting on Financial sustainability of schools in
England, a report from the National Audit Office (NAO),
Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
"Schools have been coping in very difficult circumstances, but
the NAO report shows all too clearly that this is not a
sustainable way forward. Even before meeting the costs of Covid
safety with little support from Government, schools were
struggling to make ends meet with successive real-terms cuts to
funding over many years. For sixth form colleges, where funding
shortfalls are even more severe, the situation has been truly
dire with many closing or merging.
"The report makes clear the perilous position of school finance
at the local authority level. The deficit rose from £11 million
in 2014-15 to £675 million in 2019-20. This forced local
authorities to remove services provided to schools, which in turn
resulted in further financial pressure on schools. The Department
for Education's initiatives to advise schools on how to make cuts
were worse than useless and ignored its very obvious role in
creating such a difficult situation.
"School budgets were often only balanced by cutting staffing,
damaging provision to children. The NAO report finds that almost
half of primary schools and four-fifths of secondary schools had
been forced to cut the number of teachers to balance their books
in 2017/18 and 2018/19. These are staggering figures and should
act as a wake-up call for a Government which throughout this
period denied there was any issue with school funding."
