The Question Time “Businessman” seems always to be on hand to propagate
Cons propaganda. Given the number of Business failures and devious practices,
why are we supposed to believe they are the purveyors of any kind of wisdom?
Where
would our “Businessman” be if he had not been taught by “Public Sector”
teachers?
IFS
warning over school spending
The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that the equivalent of an
extra penny on the basic rate of income tax is needed to protect schools in
England from real-term cuts in spending. The think-tank says maintaining
funding at current levels would mean raising spending by £3.7bn over the next
four years. Headteachers across the south and east of England say more than
3,400 posts have already had to be closed at more than 700 schools, including
more than 1,000 teachers. Some 43% of the heads at these schools feel their
budgets are “inadequate” and 49% defined their financial position as being at
"crisis point". Just 8% thought funding levels were adequate or good. BBC News
You may have seen the newspaper headlines that indicated that only three schools in Kirklees gain from the governments (and by association Jason's) "fairer funding formula".
The schools set to gain if the changes survive pressure from MPs are Marsden I & N (£6,462), Lindley CE Infant (£7,728) and Kirkburton Middle, the winner, with an increase of £11,978.
All other Kirklees schools miss out and will have funding cut with the biggest losers being secondary schools, Holmfirth High losing £177,099.
This is on top of the £5.5m cut that the Education Department has made to the Education Support Grant that Kirklees got to support schools. This was an abolition in total of the grant, not a cut. This is also at the same time as the government plan to spend millions on divisive "selective" schools and even more divisive "faith" schools. They intent to continue building schools where there is no lack of capacity, not only wasting money (look to the embezzlement in Bradford) on the buildings, but taking funding away from existing schools.
One of the few duties that Local Authorities still has in relation to schools is to ensure that there are adequate places for the school age population.
That is why they are given a role in determining the number of places at each school. The way that all school funding now works is that schools receive their funding based on the number of pupils they attract. So if one school increases the number of pupils it has then another school looses pupils and money. This could make a school struggle and close. All the more likely given the cuts that are on the way.
That is why a Local Authority would try to avoid creating more school places where there is no shortage of places as to do so would damage the funding of an adjacent school. The Government who do not have the duty to ensure there are adequate places are quite happy to promote their dogma by creating extra places by parachuting in "Free Schools".
Kirklees had to make a decision on an application by a school to create more places. The logic of creating more places was probably the right decision for the school and parents involved, who do not have any duty to look beyond their own school. But the Cabinet received advice that the extra places created could put other schools at risk and so refused the application. The school have a right to appeal the decision, and might well win the appeal on the basis of their argument for their own school.
The parents, and others, involved in the campaign complained that the decision was being made on financial grounds, in a way they were right but what is also true, as in most things money can not be ignored. Schools are financed and the consequences of the way the schools are financed as an effect on other schools. Even education cannot call on an unlimited funds.
Parental choice has been supported by all political parties in government, but parties in government do not have to suffer from the consequences of not being able to plan to meet the needs of all children by ensuring there are adequate school places. It might by alright to leave the price of fish to the variances of the market, but the planning of school places requires a bit more thought, and the consequences of children and families in loosing local schools is a price too high to leave school places to market whims. Schools can not be opened instantly, and they definably can't be opened if the government will not pay.
None of this can be used to criticize the parents who want the best for their children in fighting for what they believe is the best.
Three of the Kirklees constituencies feature in the top hundred constituencies who's schools have lost most money in the government shake up of funding. (I am presuming the other constituency is just out of top one hundred)
The worse hit is Huddersfield who are set to loose 13% of their funding with a cut of £668 per pupil, closely followed by Dewsbury who will loose £534 per pupil which is 12% of their funding, Batley and Spen will loose 11%, £510 per pupil.
The good news part of this story is that the money will not go to waste as schools in the Tory Heartlands down South will have a boost in income. Can anyone still be surprised at this callous manipulation of government spending? The only surprise is the number of people who live in the North and still vote Conservative.
Facepalm: The Tories are ending their special fund for free meals in the smallest infant schools
TORIES SNATCH KIDS MEALS
The Tories are quietly ending a free school meals fund which has paid out more than £32 million.
Special cash grants for nearly 3,000 of the smallest infant schools will not be renewed at the end of next month - forcing them to raid other parts of their budgets.
Bonus funding helped infant schools with fewer than 150 pupils meet David Cameron 's pledge to provide free hot meals for every pupil.
The schools, many of them in rural areas, needed extra cash because their size meant they could not buy bulk food cheaply enough to fit their budgets. Read more: Row continues over children being asked to walk three miles to school after South Lanarkshire Council change free transport limits
But the grant worth well over £3,000 per school in 2014/15 was scaled back to a flat fee of £2,300 this year - and is now being axed altogether.
Officials said the fund was always meant to be transitional - but Shadow Children's Minister Sharon Hodgson said: "Once again David Cameron’s rhetoric doesn’t match the reality." All smiles: Free school meals for all infant pupils were a Tory pledge
"His Government is undermining his own pledge to hard-working parents and their children, who were promised a healthy and nutritious meal at school to help them learn," she continued.
In October the PM told the shadow minister he would keep universal infants' school meals, saying: "I am proud of what we have done, and we will be keeping it."
She said: "The Prime Minister stood up at the despatch box and committed his Government to protecting free school meals for all infants.
"A few short months later, the Department for Education has scrapped the help small schools receive to make free school meals for infants viable.
"School budgets are already under a lot of pressure with rising costs and shrinking budgets. Small schools are often especially hard pressed.
"The Prime Minister should act to ensure the education of children, and the financial viability of small schools is not at risk."
Getty Images
PM pledge: But Labour claims schools will have to raid other parts of their budgets
In 2014/15 the fund paid out £3,000 or more for each small school, plus a per-pupil supplement depending on the school's size. The funding was initially set at £22.5m.
In 2015/16 the fund paid out a flat fee of £2,300 to 2,867 schools, coming to £6.5m in total.
Although these figures come to £29million, the Department for Education said a total of £32.5m was spent through the scheme.
A Department for Education spokesman said: "To help small schools with the transition to universal infant free school meals, we paid them an extra £32.5million over two years – over and above the £600million we have spent on the policy as a whole so far.
"We have always been clear that this funding was always intended to be temporary to help small schools to put their meals service on a more sustainable footing.
"We know that schools around the country used the funding to rise to the challenge and are providing hot meals to infants at lunchtime, something that has been proven to aid concentration and attainment and is part of our drive for educational excellence everywhere."
Academy schools in England are hoarding cash balances worth nearly £2.5bn – more than £550,000 per school and draining the education sector of funds that could be spent on learning.
Figures released by the Department for Education in response to parliamentary questions show that the 4,400 academies in England held cash reserves of £2.47bn at the end of the last financial year. That is more than the remaining 18,700 local authority maintained schools put together, which held a combined £2.18bn.
