Schools minister Nick Gibb has faced calls to resign in the Commons over the Department for Education’s £370 million school funding error.
Mr Gibb described the error as “unfortunate” but insisted “no money has been taken out of the school budget” as he answered an urgent question on the matter in Parliament.
He also disclosed it took approximately four weeks to identify and correct the error in the calculation of the national funding formula (NFF) figures.
Labour MP for Huddersfield, Barry Sheerman, unleashed a scathing critique of Mr Gibb’s tenure as schools minister and called for his resignation, accusing him of overseeing the “demoralisation of the education centre of our country”.
Earlier this month, the government ordered an inquiry and the DfE apologised after it miscalculated its funding plans for the next academic year.
On 6 October, the DfE’s top official, permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood, admitted there was an error processing forecast pupil numbers in the NFF, which would mean the overall cost of the core schools budget would be 0.62 per cent greater than allocated in 2024-25.
Four education unions have written to education secretary Gillian Keegan, urging her to restore the original rates as they claimed the revisions effectively reduced the value of the NFF by £370 million.
‘The Gibb factor’
But in a written statement this week, Mr Gibb said 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”.
On Tuesday, Mr Sheerman told MPs he received a Twitter post earlier in the day, which characterised the minister’s actions as a “total cock up”.
He went on: “I don’t know if that’s technical language, but the fact of the matter is, this is a minister, the longest serving minister, I think in any department, in any government for so many years, and under his watch, we have seen the demoralisation of the education centre of our country in his office and good people leaving.
“It’s the Gibb factor. Why doesn’t he resign and talk to people?”
Mr Gibb replied: “That was, if I may say so, an extraordinary outburst. We have the highest number of teachers in our teaching profession, 468,000 teachers today, 27,000 by the way more than in 2010 when we came into office, and indeed we’re not seeing that rise in the number of teachers in Labour-run Wales.”
Mr Gibb was previously education minister between July 2014 and September 2021 and between May 2010 and September 2012.
A ‘shambolic’ situation
Asking the urgent question earlier, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “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.”
She added: “Rather than blaming officials, will the secretary of state, wherever she is today, finally take some responsibility?”
Ms Phillipson also said: “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.”
Mr Gibb said: “No money has been taken out of the school budget. It’s £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 per cent solely as a result of an error by officials. That is not how government spending systems work.”
Recounting the moment he was made aware of the error, he later said: “It was unfortunate. And when you are a minister and officials gather outside your office to tell you this great news about the error that’s been made, my instinct is always to find out what the error is and rectify it as quickly as possible.
“And that took about four weeks compared to the normal six weeks in calculating the NFF and then publishing those figures as rapidly as possible. That’s been the approach that I have taken and which the department has taken.”
