(Houghton and Sunderland
South) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if
she will make a statement on the 2023-2024 core school budget
allocations.
The Minister for Schools ()
As the Government confirmed in a written ministerial statement
yesterday, the Department for Education has corrected an error in
the notional allocations of the schools national funding formula
for 2024-2025. Those allocations were originally published and
notified to the House on 17 July 2023. However, the Department
has subsequently uncovered an error made by officials during the
initial calculations of the national funding formula.
Specifically, there was an error processing forecast pupil
numbers, which meant that the overall cost of the core schools
budget for 2024-25 would be 0.62% greater than allocated. The
Department therefore issued new national funding formula
allocations on 6 October to rectify that error as quickly as
possible.
The permanent secretary has apologised for the error in writing
to both the Chair of the Education Committee and the Secretary of
State. The Secretary of State has instructed the permanent
secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance
process surrounding the calculation and quality assurance of the
NFF, with external and independent scrutiny. Peter Wyman CBE, the
chair of the Institute of Charted Accountants in England and
Wales, will lead the review. Improvements have already been
identified to ensure that similar mistakes are not made.
I would like to reassure the House that the error does not affect
the overall level of school funding, which remains at £59.6
billion for 2024-25. The Government continue to deliver, in full,
the core schools budget, which includes funding for mainstream
schools and for high needs. As I said, it will remain at £59.6
billion in 2024-25—its highest ever level in real terms and, of
course, in cash terms. That is a percentage increase of 3.2%
compared with the current year of 2023-24. Through the schools
national funding formula, average funding is £5,300 per primary
school pupil and £6,830 per secondary school pupil in 2024-25, up
from £5,200 and £6,720 respectively in 2023-24.
Schools have not yet received their 2024-25 funding, so the
correction of this error does not mean adjusting any funding that
schools have already received. Likewise, the error will not
impact on the publication of a dedicated schools grant in
December, or on when schools will receive their final allocations
for 2024-25. The 2024-25 high needs national funding formula
allocations, which fund provisions for children with complex
special educational needs and disabilities, are also unaffected
by the error, as are other funding streams outside the NFF,
including the teachers’ pay additional grant announced in the
summer.
I also clarify that the recalculation of the NFF for 2024-25 does
not affect the affordability of the 2023 teachers’ pay award.
There has been no change to the funding that was promised as part
of the pay settlement in July and which the unions agreed meant
that the pay award is properly funded. The Government recognise
that the correction of the NFF error will be difficult for local
authorities and frustrating for some school leaders, which is why
the Department has rectified the error as quickly as
possible.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister has taken three, nearly four, minutes. I hope
that he is coming to the end of his remarks.
This is my final sentence, Mr Speaker.
The Department is working closely with school stakeholders,
including unions, to communicate this change and support schools
and local authorities.
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Since
the House returned from the summer recess, Ministers have been
forced to come here twice, first to explain how this Government
left school buildings in such a parlous state that many are now
at risk of collapse, and now to explain that the Conservatives
are taking £370 million out of schools’ budget allocations for
next year. It is shambolic, it is chaotic, and our children
deserve a lot better. I am glad that Ministers have listened to
Labour’s call for an independent investigation, but what is the
timeline for this review? How will the review be reported to the
House, and how will Members have a chance to scrutinise its
findings?
We need to know much more, too. We need to know why, when the
mistake was first identified in September, it was not until after
the Conservative party conference in October that headteachers
were finally notified. What support will schools now receive to
ensure that children’s education does not suffer as a result of
Conservative incompetence? Rather than blaming officials, will
the Secretary of State—wherever she is today—finally take some
responsibility?
We all know that mistakes happen, but this is not a one-off; this
is part of a much bigger pattern of Conservative mismanagement
right across the Department and right across Government for 13
long years, and it is our children who are paying the price. It
is Conservative mismanagement that brought us the RAAC—reinforced
autoclaved aerated concrete—crisis in our schools, that kept
children at home as Ministers failed to resolve industrial action
for months on end, and that is now seeing record numbers of
teachers leaving the profession, attainment gaps widening and
standards falling. It will fall to the next Labour Government to
reset the relationship between Government, families and schools,
to show once again that it is Labour that is the party of high
and rising standards in our schools.
The hon. Lady refers to RAAC. We took the only decision that any
responsible Government would take when the evidence changed on
RAAC in school buildings that surveyors had previously assessed
as not in a critical condition and we discovered it was not safe
for pupils to stay in those schools. There are 174 schools so far
confirmed with RAAC, which we have published details of, and we
are taking urgent action to make sure that no child or member of
staff in our school buildings will be at risk from this
reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—which, by the way, has
been around through successive Administrations, both Labour and
Conservative, since the 1950s and 1960s.
The hon. Lady refers to £370 million being taken out of the
school budget. No money has been taken out of the school budget.
It is £59.6 billion next year, and it will remain at £59.6
billion. What would be irresponsible would be to increase funding
for schools by 0.62% solely as a result of an error by officials.
That is not how Government spending systems work. It has to go
through the proper value for money procedures, and that is how we
always conduct our allocation of taxpayers’ money.
The hon. Lady talks about standards in schools. We are rising in
the international tables. We are fourth in the world for the
reading ability of nine-year-olds, according to the recent
progress in international reading literacy study, or PIRLS, of
pupils of that age. We are rising in TIMSS, the trends in
mathematics and science study, and we are rising in PISA, the
programme for international student assessment. That is in direct
contrast with what happened under the last Labour Government,
when we were falling in those PISA tables.
Mr Speaker
We come to the Chair of the Select Committee.
(Worcester) (Con)
I am grateful for the apology and the letter that the Select
Committee received on this issue, which we have published today.
Clearly, it is deeply unfortunate that this error took place. It
is a result of a complex and very difficult to understand funding
system that provides schools with a lack of transparency as to
how their funding works in the long run.
We were elected on a manifesto to deliver a fair national funding
formula. There were plans in place to legislate for the direct
funding of schools. While I welcome my right hon. Friend’s
confirmation that this does not in any way affect the high needs
block or take money out of the overall school budget, can he
update the House on plans to deliver that direct funding formula,
which, along with multi-year funding settlements, the Select
Committee and the sector have been calling for over many
years?
Yes, it is unfortunate, for which officials and Ministers have
apologised. It is frustrating, particularly for local authorities
that have to conduct their calculations—it was an error based on
the coding of the pupil numbers.
My hon. Friend mentioned moving to the direct funding formula.
That is the intention of the Government, and the latest edition
of the national funding formula and high needs technical briefing
does say that we want ultimately to get to direct funding. Many
local authorities are moving their local funding formula ever
closer to the approach taken in the national funding formula.
(Huddersfield)
(Lab/Co-op)
I saw a tweet to the Minister earlier this morning saying that
one man’s error is another man’s total cock-up—I do not know
whether that is technical language, Mr Speaker. The fact of the
matter is that he is the longest-serving Minister in any
Department in any Government for many years, and on his watch we
have seen the demoralisation of the education sector in our
country, with good people leaving. It is the Gibb factor. Why
does he not resign and talk to people?
If I may say so, Mr Speaker, that was an extraordinary outburst.
Today, we have the highest number of teachers in the
profession—some 468,000—which is, by the way, 27,000 more than
when we came to office in 2010. In Labour-run Wales, we are not
seeing that rise in the number of teachers.
(Bexleyheath and Crayford)
(Con)
Naturally, this error is very disappointing, but I welcome that
the Department has rectified it speedily. What steps is my right
hon. Friend taking to work with school stakeholders to
communicate the change and to support schools and local
authorities?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: it was unfortunate. As
a Minister, when officials gather outside my office to tell me
great news about an error that has been made, my instinct is
always to find out what the error is and rectify it as quickly as
possible. That took about four weeks, compared with the normal
six weeks to calculate the NFF, and we then published the figures
as rapidly as possible. That is the approach that the Department
and I have taken.
(Worsley and Eccles South)
(Lab)
Earlier this year, the Sutton Trust reported that half of school
leaders said that they had already been forced to cut back on
trips and outings. That includes cultural trips to concerts and
plays, which often have a profound effect on young people who
would not otherwise be able to attend those events. The average
secondary school is now being told that it will have around
£58,000 less to spend than was announced in July—whatever the
Minister says, those schools will have planned on the basis of
that money. I am concerned that even fewer young people will now
be able to access the benefits of cultural trips. What is the
Minister doing to make sure that young people in state-funded
schools still have access to cultural experiences that enrich
their education?
The figures published in July were indicative figures. They are
used by local authorities. Once the October census comes out with
the pupil numbers, they then apply their local formula to those
figures. That is the allocation that schools use for their
budgeting, and that happens around December.
Over the period between 2021-22 and 2024-25, school funding has
increased by 20%, so there has been a very significant increase.
I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of cultural
activities in schools, which is why we have a cultural education
plan that is being worked on at the moment.
Sir (New Forest East) (Con)
One reason why this Minister has been in his post so long is that
successive Prime Ministers have judged him to be rather good at
his job. For the benefit of the House, can he confirm that the
civil servants who discovered the mistake made it known to
Ministers at the first possible opportunity, and that Ministers
made it known to the public at the first possible opportunity?
Does that not reflect credit on our parliamentary democratic
system?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his kind comments. He
is absolutely right: as soon as we knew about the error, I wanted
to make sure that we were doing everything we could to rectify it
and find a solution to the problem that officials and the
Department had caused. That was my approach, and that is why we
recalculated the whole of the national funding formula notional
allocations as soon as we could and published that detail on 6
October.
(St Albans) (LD)
For far too long, the Department for Education has been plagued
by a litany of failures that have had a devastating impact on
children, their parents and teachers. We have had the mutant
algorithm and the RAAC roofs, we have a crisis in our SEND
system, and now we have a bit of good old-fashioned incompetence.
Does the Minister agree that it is high time that the Secretary
of State offered an apology to the British public for all this,
or does he think that—in her words—we should thank her for doing
a flipping good job?
The last flippant comment was not necessary; these are all
serious issues. Issues such as RAAC have been around in our
school system since the 1950s and 1960s. When we discovered new
facts and new evidence, we took swift action. There will always
be almost no notice; when we have evidence, we cannot just sit on
it until a more convenient time to announce it. We had to
announce it straightaway. Every school with confirmed RAAC has a
caseworker allocated to make sure that we are keeping children
safe and keeping them in face-to-face education. So far, we have
identified 174 schools with RAAC and in the vast majority of
those—all but 23 schools—all the children are still in
face-to-face education.
In terms of special educational needs, we published a Green Paper
and an implementation plan to improve the experience of parents
and children with special educational needs in our school
system.
(Harrow East) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the update. Clearly, when
formulas such as this are being used, it is important that they
are tested first to see the results, before those are issued to
the schools and other people are involved. Will he confirm that
the position is that, even after this error has been corrected,
all schools in this country will have enough money to fund the
teachers’ pay award agreed by the Government?
My hon. Friend is right. I have to say that my experience of this
particular team in the Department is that they are one of the
best teams I have dealt with. This was an error made by
officials. They have owned up to it and we have corrected it. It
does not affect school funding at all, and it relates to the next
financial year, 2024-25. It certainly does not affect this
financial year, 2023-24, and the funding of the pay award.
Incidentally, it is the highest pay award for 30 years. The 6.5%
pay award for teachers is fully funded, with an extra teachers’
pay grant of £525 million this year and £900 million next year.
It is totally unaffected by this error.
(Cambridge) (Lab)
Cambridgeshire schools are some of the lowest funded in England,
and they will now receive £4.4 million less than they expected.
The Minister will know that local authority officials and schools
will now have to spend time recalculating their budgets. What
will he do to compensate them for the time they are spending on
that?
The situation is unfortunate for local authorities, which will
have been spending time calculating their school budgets on a
local authority basis. That is why we wanted to get the
recalculation of the figures done as soon as possible and out to
local authorities. Cambridgeshire is funded in the way it is
because we base funding on the level of deprivation in our
communities. We have targeted a greater proportion of the schools
national funding formula towards deprived pupils than ever
before. In total, about £4.4 billion, or 10% of the formula, will
be allocated according to deprivation factors in 2024-25. If an
area has fewer children from disadvantaged backgrounds than other
areas, that will of course be reflected in its overall ranking
for local authority funding.
(Chelmsford) (Con)
Last week I visited Meadgate Primary School, which is one of the
many good and outstanding schools in my constituency. I am sure
the Minister will recall precisely how many good and outstanding
schools there are today, compared with 13 years ago. Meadgate
Primary School is part of an academy trust of seven schools, and
across the schools this situation could account for a £70,000
difference between what they had calculated they might expect and
what they will receive.
That is obviously concerning, but also concerning is the number
of children now coming in who would have had an education, health
and care plan done when they were at pre-school, but did not get
one because of the pandemic and now face delays. Given that high
needs funding has doubled, will the Minister raise this backlog
in assessments with the children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the
Member for Wantage (), to try to make sure that
our primary schools are getting the support they need today for
those children with SEND?
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the great work that she
did as children’s Minister in the Department for Education. She
is right that the proportion of schools judged good or
outstanding has increased. In 2010, it was 68%, and today that
figure is 88%. We are not happy with that—our focus is on the
remaining 12%. Every local school in our country should be a good
or outstanding school.
My right hon. Friend makes an important point about education,
health and care plans. She is right that the funding of the high
needs budget has increased considerably over the past few years,
and I will raise the issue of the backlog in EHCPs with my hon.
Friend the children’s Minister. I should say that we are building
significant numbers of new free special schools, so that there
are more places available for children with severe special
educational needs.
(Rochdale) (Lab)
We know that a child growing up in an area of deprivation is on
average likely to do less well through our school system. I take
the point that the Minister made about extra funding for
deprivation, but will he accept from me that we know that money
makes a difference? When will this Government get a grip on the
problem of deprivation?
Deprivation and disadvantaged children have been the core driving
force of all our reforms since 2010. We are spending record
amounts of money on school funding—£59.6 billion is the highest
ever in cash terms, in real terms and in real terms per pupil.
Before the pandemic, we had closed the attainment gap between
disadvantaged children and other children by 13% in primary
schools and by 9% in secondary schools. That has been undone by
the pandemic, but we are determined to close that gap again. All
the reforms that led to that closure are still in place, and we
are confident, particularly with the £5 billion of recovery
funding and the tutoring programme, that we will close that gap
once again.
(Newcastle-under-Lyme)
(Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s answers today, and I thank him
for his leadership and his ownership of this issue, which is not
his fault. He has approached it in exactly the right manner, as
my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir ) said. I welcome that we are
continuing to deliver the core schools budget in full, not just
for mainstream schools, but for high needs. Will my right hon.
Friend the Minister set out what the percentage increase for
those areas will be in 2024-25, compared with this year?
On the increases in funding last year and this year, funding is
increasing by £3.9 billion in 2022-23 and by £1.8 billion in
2024-25. When we combine that with the £4 billion increase we had
between 2021-22 and 2022-23, that is a 20% increase in cash terms
over that period.
(Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I wrote to the Secretary of State at the beginning of August,
asking for a meeting to discuss a series of special educational
needs funding issues in Harrow. The Minister will be aware that
special educational needs are one of the many pressures on school
budgets across the country. They certainly are a significant
issue in Harrow. Can he explain specifically how much schools in
Harrow will now not receive, compared with what they had expected
to receive? Will he encourage the Secretary of State to respond
to my letter, and to do so with generosity?
I say first to the hon. Member that no funding is being reduced
in Harrow. All areas will be receiving significant increases in
school funding. The error is about the allocation figures—the
notional figures—for 2024-25, and those have been corrected. On
special educational needs, we have increased special educational
needs funding significantly over the past several years, because
of the pressures that local authorities are facing with increased
numbers of EHCPs. We are taking a number of measures to help
address that, and I will of course ensure that the hon. Member
has his meeting in the Department as soon as possible.
(Slough) (Lab)
This is yet another error and case of incompetence under this
Government. The average primary school is expected to be more
than £12,000 worse off next academic year and the average
secondary school £57,000 worse off than under the July
publication. How will the Government help headteachers in Slough
and across the country deal with the extra stress and pressure on
account of this error, especially when they have to make
difficult decisions on staffing and additional support for those
pupils who need it?
The actual allocations to schools happen in December each year in
the normal way, so this situation will not affect the figures
that local authorities have informed schools they will be
receiving. Those are based on the October census of pupil numbers
and the application of the local formula. We then fund the local
authorities on the basis of the national funding. The record
funding of £59.6 billion equates to an average of £5,300 per
primary school pupil and £6,830 per secondary school pupil.
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
The Minister’s argument in a nutshell is, “You didn’t have the
money, so you’ve not lost it.” But the point is that local
authorities received the notional funding allocation and were
beginning to plan based on that figure given by the Government.
In places such as Stockport, Tameside and Manchester, the figures
that are going to be withdrawn from those areas are not
insubstantial. I politely say to the Minister that his argument
is incoherent—I will grade him D-minus. And his maths is
appalling—I will grade him U. Can I suggest he goes into
detention and fixes this matter, because schools in Tameside,
Stockport and Manchester desperately need that cash?
The funding allocated for local authorities is ringfenced. This
is an allocation and calculation issue—it is not that they have
received the money—and we corrected it as soon as the error was
made. Any Labour Members in the same position would have reacted
in precisely the same way that I have.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
This blunder is going to cost schools in York dear. We are
already in the bottom 20 in the country for school funding and in
the bottom third for high needs. I had a meeting with parents on
Friday night, and 150 of them were in tears and on their knees
about the SEN funding. The formulas are just not working in areas
where there is low funding. Will the Minister bring forward the
fair funding formula to ensure that children in my constituency
with SEND have fair funding allocated to them?
I understand the hon. Lady’s points, and I share the concern of
parents with children with special educational needs and
disabilities. We do want to make sure that local authorities are
properly funded for children with those special needs, which is
why we have increased funding for high needs very significantly
over the past few years. Over £10 billion is now allocated to
local authorities for those children. If we look at the national
funding formula, we see that 10.2% of the formula—£4.4 billion—is
on the basis of deprivation factors, and 17.8% is allocated on
the basis of additional needs. These are very significant sums
both in the national funding formula for mainstream schools and
the extra money we are giving to local authorities for high
needs.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat in the form
of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the
Minister for Schools to an Urgent Question in the other place
earlier today. The Statement is as follows:
“As the Government confirmed in a Written Ministerial Statement
yesterday, the Department for Education has corrected an error in
the notional allocations of the schools national funding formula
for 2024-25. Those allocations were originally published and
notified to the House on 17 July 2023. However, the department
has subsequently uncovered an error made by officials during the
initial calculations of the national funding formula.
Specifically, there was an error processing forecast pupil
numbers, which meant that the overall cost of the core schools
budget for 2024-25 would be 0.62% greater than allocated. The
department therefore issued new NFF allocations on 6 October this
year to rectify that error as quickly as possible.
The Permanent Secretary has apologised for the error in writing
to both the chair of the Education Committee and the Secretary of
State. The Secretary of State has instructed the Permanent
Secretary to conduct a formal review of the quality assurance
process surrounding the calculation and quality assurance of the
NFF, with external and independent scrutiny. Peter Wyman CBE, the
chair of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and
Wales, will lead the review. Improvements have already been
identified to ensure that similar mistakes are not repeated.
I reassure the House that the error does not affect the overall
level of school funding, which remains at £59.6 billion for
2024-25. The Government are continuing to deliver in full the
core schools budget, which includes funding for mainstream
schools and for high needs. As I said, it will remain at £59.6
billion in 2024-25, the highest ever in history in real terms and
in cash terms. That is a percentage increase of 3.2% compared
with 2023-24. Through the schools national funding formula,
average funding is £5,300 per primary school pupil and £6,830 per
secondary school pupil in 2024-25, up from £5,200 and £6,720
respectively in 2023-24.
Schools have not yet received their 2024-25 funding, so the
correction of this error does not mean adjusting any funding that
schools have already received. Likewise, the error will not
impact on the publication of the dedicated schools grant in
December, or on when schools will receive their final allocations
for 2024-25. The 2024-25 high-needs national funding formula
allocations, which fund provision for children with complex
special educational needs and disabilities, are also unaffected
by this error, as are other funding streams outside the NFF,
including the teachers’ pay additional grant announced in the
summer.
I would also clarify that the recalculation of the NFF for
2024-25 does not affect the affordability of the 2023 teachers’
pay award. There has been no change to the funding that was
promised as part of the pay settlement in July and which the
unions agreed meant that the pay award was properly funded. The
Government recognise that the correction of the NFF error will be
difficult for local authorities and frustrating for some school
leaders, which is why the department has rectified the error as
quickly as possible. The department is working closely with
school stakeholders, including unions, to communicate this change
and support schools and local authorities.”
17:31:00
(Lab)
My Lords, this is yet another example of the Government failing
on education. As with RAAC, there was a delay in notifying school
leaders; the error was identified in September, but heads were
not notified until October. Can the Minister tell the House about
how the error was identified, the timeline and decisions on the
communication of this to schools and families? It is also clear
that the Government know that the correction of the national
funding formula will be tough for local authorities and
frustrating for some school leaders. How will the department
assist head teachers to deal with the additional stress and
pressure this may cause, as the error will affect staffing
decisions, judgments about school purchases and additional
support available to pupils?
(Con)
I do not accept that the Government delayed action either in
relation to RAAC or in this case. In relation to RAAC, when we
had new information that came to us as a department, we took the
only responsible decision that any Minister could take, which was
to take urgent action to ensure that no one was at risk. That was
exactly what we did, and we are working closely with schools to
resolve the challenges they face as a result. The reason for the
error was a mistake in the coding of pupil numbers. Normally, it
takes about six weeks to go through that process. We obviously
needed to do a thorough quality assurance to make sure that the
revised numbers were correct. We did that in four weeks and then
there was no delay in announcing it.
(LD)
My Lords, the Minister will know through her visits to schools
that school budgets are stretched to breaking point. Head
teachers are telling me, and no doubt telling the Minister, that
day in and day out they are struggling to make ends meet. The
average primary school will receive £12,000 less than the average
secondary school and £57,000 less than was expected. Schools will
have planned their budgets for 2024-25; that is the critical
point. Does the Minister think that commitments made back in July
to the House should be honoured and the original national funding
formula rates should stand?
(Con)
We understand that this has a clear impact on schools and on
local authorities in particular. That is why we are working
through this closely with local authorities. But to be clear,
they make their final allocations once they have the definitive
pupil numbers, which were published on 5 October. The earlier
publication of this data allows them to do initial planning, but
no definitive allocations would have been made ahead of the
publication of the projected pupil numbers. We are honouring the
initial commitment, which was £59.6 billion. Over three years,
that is a 20% increase in funding for school budgets, with a
tilting of that increase towards some of the most disadvantaged
areas in the country. It would obviously be irresponsible to
increase funding based on an error by officials. There is a very
rigorous process, as the noble Lord knows, for approving funding
and we cannot sidestep it in a situation like this.
(Lab)
My Lords, I listened carefully to the Statement and the
Minister’s response, so I wonder if she can answer two specific
questions. First, the department has committed to undertake an
investigation, so when will that investigation be commenced?
Secondly, might the department decide at the end of that
investigation, as it has done in previous, recent years, to keep
the per-pupil funding as announced in July? In response to my
noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister talked about the
overall spending but the issue with the recalculation of pupils
is that the per-pupil funding is now lower. The department has in
previous years honoured the allocation at per-pupil level rather
than the global total so, after the investigation, might the
department have the opportunity to reconsider and honour the
per-pupil level of funding?
(Con)
The noble Baroness needs to forgive me, but I am not familiar
with the instances to which she refers. I am not aware of
anywhere that there has been an error made by officials and the
per- pupil figure was honoured, which would require finding, as I
understand it, an additional £370 million. I do not think that is
likely. I do not have an exact timeline for the investigation
but, clearly, we want to get clarity on this as quickly as
possible. We are absolutely committed to publishing the lessons
learned from that.
(LD)
My Lords, can the Minister give us some idea of where the lack of
spending, shall we say, is affecting the structure of a school? I
remind the House once again of my interests in special
educational needs. Is it in the capacity to identify those with
hidden disabilities? Some 80% of the population who are dyslexic
are not identified at school, or throughout their lives. Are we
going to find out that there is less capacity there? Will there
be less capacity in things such as sport, or art and drama,
because we are not undertaking the training? Where will there be
some reduction in capacity in schools, because there clearly is
going to be some?
(Con)
I think the noble Lord will accept that schools have significant
autonomy over their budgets, and therefore it would not be
appropriate for me to speculate on where they will make the
savings to meet the shortfall.
of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I was heartened to hear the Minister say that areas
where there is deprivation will be especially considered. Could
she say a little more about how those are areas are identified?
Are there already criteria that have established which they are
and what they need?
(Con)
There are areas of the country which, for historic reasons, have
had lower than average per-pupil funding: the north-east, the
north-west and Yorkshire and Humber, to give some examples.
Conversely, inner London has historically had the highest
per-pupil funding. That increase for inner London has been
protected, but it means that those regions that I mentioned, and
others, will attract above-average increases in per-pupil
funding, which has been part of our strategy to ensure that the
allocation of funding is fair.
(Lab)
My Lords, given that we have time remaining, may I ask the
Minister if she has a view on how the lower per-pupil funding
allocation—at least £43 per pupil—is likely to impact on the
mental health work in schools, particularly those wrestling with
incredible child poverty?
(Con)
I can only repeat what I said to the noble Lord, . Each school, as the noble
Baroness well knows, has a deep understanding of the needs of
their school community and is best placed to make the decision on
where to prioritise spending, including the adjustments that,
sadly, have to be made.
(LD)
Given that we still have time, following that answer, could the
Minister give me an idea of what will not be cut? When will the
planning be honoured? If we know that, we will have an idea of
what is vulnerable.
(Con)
First, I do not accept that we are not honouring our commitment;
it was £59.6 billion, and we are honouring that. It is important
to have that on the record. The noble Lord will be relieved to
know that, as I mentioned in the initial Answer, the high-needs
budget for children with special educational needs and
disabilities is not affected by this.
