Clarke offers funding lifeline to schools
Education Secretary Charles Clarke today announced that schools would be able to dip into their capital funds in order to bolster their day-to-day finances.
The announcement comes after many schools had complained that they were facing budget shortfalls despite the extra £2.7bn of investment that the Government had put forward.
The Government had accused local authorities of holding back at least £500m of that funding from schools. However, the Local Government Association insisted that councils had passed on the budget increases to schools.
Earlier this month DfES published a detailed analysis of the school budgets of local education authorities for 2003 to 2004, based on authorities’ own statements.
The department has confirmed that many authorities have taken action to ensure that their schools have received reasonable year-on-year increases in funding.
And indeed some LEAs have increased their spending on schools by significantly more than resources Government has provided.
But in some cases the DfES found that payments to schools had been spread out over the year, and that many schools that were complaining of shortfalls would actually be receiving more money.
Announcing new measures to help schools deal with this uncertainty, Charles Clarke said: “I accept that this is a difficult year of change for schools and LEAs, with unique circumstances arising from the changes to the funding system, and the one-off pressures on teachers’ pensions and National Insurance.”
“To further help schools manage this year’s budgets, I have decided to allow them, in discussion with LEAs, to use their devolved capital funding to support their day-to-day running costs.”
“This will be for this year only,” he stressed, “and must be a decision taken by the school and the LEA only where there is a clear case that failing to do so would lead to excessive instability within the school.”
However, local authorities have continued to complain that as well as the pension and NI contribution increases, the increase in teachers’ pay, particularly in London, had not been properly accounted for in the Government’s spending plans .
And experts have also pointed out that changes to the administration of the Standards Fund, the central pot from which schools can top up their budgets for areas such as special education needs resources, had affected the overall finances of some secondary schools in particular.
Indeed the Education Secretary did state that there were lessons to be learned from this year’s funding confusion.
