Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced the latest government spending plans, in his 2023 Autumn Statement.
In the run-up to the announcement, schools and leaders had been making the case for a big uplift in education spending.
However, teaching unions were left “bitterly disappointed” by Mr Hunt’s statement, which contained no major new spending commitments for schools.
Mr Hunt set out plans for a £7 million fund over three years to tackle anti-semitism in schools and universities.
The headline announcement in the statement was a cut in national insurance, which Mr Hunt said would help schools facing teacher recruitment and retention problems.
The most significant spending and tax plans are usually announced in the Spring Budget, but can also be included in the Autumn Statement.
Last year, Mr Hunt announced an extra £2.3 billion per year for schools.
Build-up to 2023 Autumn Statement
The Department for Education, along with all other departments, will have made a case to the Treasury in advance of the Autumn Statement setting out the funding it needs.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said last month that education will be a main priority in every Spending Review as it “is the best economic policy, the best social policy and the best moral policy”.
“It is the best way to spread opportunity and create a more prosperous society,” Mr Sunak added.
Mr Sunak has included ‘delivering world-class education’ among five long-term decisions his government will be investing in. It is likely within these priorities will be preparing for the recently announced Advanced British Standard (ABS).
Ahead of today’s statement, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said it was the prime minister’s “opportunity to honour his promise to his party and to the country”.
“Every teacher and school leader will be watching to see if he puts the country’s money where his mouth is, and will be expecting him to make education the priority he says it is in action as well as words,” said Mr Whiteman.
Spending ‘more likely’ next November
However, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Dame Meg Hillier, had told Tes that schools might not see a huge injection of funding at the Autumn Statement - but might “hope to hear the general direction of travel”.
“I think it’s more likely that the Spending Review expected around November next year will be the moment when there’ll be a three-year budget set for schools,” she said.
“If the chancellor just pulls cash out of the bag now for capital spending, it will be challenging to know how they can spend it that fast in the year, so I think it’s much more likely, just practically, to be at the next Autumn Statement.”
Here are some of the areas that many in the school sector had hoped the DfE would prioritise in its Autumn Statement case this year:
RAAC and school rebuilding
DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood told MPs at PAC in September that any increase needed to the School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) would be the DfE’s first priority at the next Spending Review.
The remaining 100 slots on the SRP will prioritise schools affected by the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) crisis, the DfE has previously said.
There are 500 slots on the SRP, and it has been warned that schools in poor condition for other reasons than RAAC could miss out.
The DfE has also promised to fund all capital costs and reasonable revenue costs related to RAAC. No specific figure on the amount of money available has been provided yet but the department has already spent millions in contracts on measures such as temporary buildings.
Eight unions wrote to the government in September to call for an additional £4.4 billion for school buildings to address the scale of the issue.
SEND
Meanwhile, the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) crisis in schools is continuing to build.
Commons Education Select Committee chair Robin Walker told Tes last month that prioritising school buildings at the Spending Review must not “come at the expense of investment in SEND places and provision”.
The DfE agreed that SEND needed prioritising at the 2022 Spending Review. The f40 group of local authorities, which have historically received the lowest funding, coordinated a letter with MPs asking for more funding again this year for SEND support.
The letter said that an extra £4.6 billion is required a year to meet the growing demand for high-needs support.
Mr Whiteman said members of the NAHT are flagging that investment is needed to fix a “broken” SEND system “with increasing urgency”.
“This is something that has been completely ignored by successive governments for over a decade now, and it is beyond urgent to solve,” he added.
Pay, recruitment and retention
Unions have also written to the chancellor calling for a £1.7 billion increase to school funding a year in the Autumn Statement to prevent schools having to make cuts to provision.
The unions said they expect school costs to rise by at least 5.8 per cent in 2024-25 if there is a pay award equivalent to the one for this year. As a result, they urged the chancellor to uplift funding to retain teachers.
The DfE failed to meet its initial teacher training targets last year and the rate that teachers are leaving the profession is now at its highest in four years.
Persistent absence and mental health
The Commons Education Select Committee has also called on the government to improve support for pupils with mental health difficulties.
There has been a dramatic increase in mental health difficulties among pupils since the pandemic, and MPs warned current support levels are “grossly inadequate”.
Across autumn and spring terms last year, more than 1.5 million children were also persistently absent from school - almost double the number five years ago.
The DfE has already announced 14 attendance hubs to try and tackle this growing issue, which children’s commissioner Rachel de Souza warned last month could put the attainment of a generation of pupils at risk if not reduced.
The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) also flagged this as a concern that needs addressing with investment.
Tutoring
The four-year National Tutoring Programme (NTP) is currently set to finish at the end of this academic year.
School leaders and experts have urged the government to continue funding the NTP, which is helping to narrow the disadvantage gap caused by the pandemic.
Education Policy Institute chief executive Natalie Perera and Speakers for Schools CEO Nick Brook have both called for the government to commit to tutoring in the long term.
In a letter to the chancellor, the FEA also called for an extension of the NTP through 2024-25 at a cost of £150 million, and £95 million for 16-19 tutoring. The FEA added that tutoring should be embedded long term for £140 million a year.
They call for this to go to all pupils in receipt of pupil premium to help close the disadvantage gap, which is at its widest in more than a decade at key stage 4.
Tackling poverty
The impact of the cost-of-living crisis is increasingly being seen in schools. The FEA has also called for free school meal eligibility to be extended to all families in receipt of universal credit at a cost of £1 billion a year.
Furthermore, the letter said pupil premium funding should be uplifted by £264 million a year to 2015-16 rates.
Early years
The FEA letter, which was signed by many leaders across the sector (including Susannah Hardyman, Action Tutoring CEO, Russell Hobby, Teach First CEO, and Nick Harrison, Sutton Trust CEO), also calls for 30 hours of funded early years education for all children aged 3 and 4. This is costed at £1.1 billion a year.
The signatories also want to see the early years’ pupil premium uplifted to match the primary rate at a cost of £130 million a year.
