“More maths for everyone,” proclaimed chancellor Philip Hammond as he unveiled the 2017 Budget, adding: “Don’t let anyone say I don’t know how to show the nation a good time.”

The announcement of a £177 million package of policies to boost maths - £150 million of it targeted at post-16 provision - was, on the face of it, welcome and long overdue. But there’s an irony that, when it comes to the money available for these flagship policies to boost maths attainment, the figures don’t appear to add up.

Take the announcement of an £80 million advanced maths premium. This is worth £600 for every extra student who decides to take maths, further maths or core maths, “with more than £80 million available initially and no cap on numbers”.

So far, so good. But, realistically, how many students could colleges actually cajole into taking maths A levels? Even if a college manages to attract the maximum £2,400 by persuading an individual to complete two post-16 maths qualifications, it would take 34,666 of them to use up the full £83.2 million allocation made available over five years.

Given that the number of entries in maths and further maths A levels last summer stood at 95,000 and 16,000 respectively, this would entail a huge and sustained increase in year-on-year entries. Oh, and another small point: some £37 million will kick in only in 2022-23 - after the next (scheduled) general election.

Once you start looking at the restrictions around applying for the other maths initiatives, then it’s easy to understand why frustrations are building in colleges that are desperate to boost the maths skills of their students. The funding they badly need is ostensibly being made available - but much of it lies tantalisingly out of their reach.

Funding that you can see, but which disappears when you try to touch it? That sounds like a magic money tree to me.

Stephen Exley is the Tes FE editor