A headteachers’ leader has said he fears a new education funding crisis is “looming”, and that the numbers from recent allocations “don’t add up”.
In a blog post published today, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) general secretary Geoff Barton said the chancellor Rishi Sunak “must act”, to avoid recruitment becoming difficult and schools having to cut budgets.
Mr Barton said high forecasts for inflation meant that the funding allocated to education in last October’s Spending Review was no longer adequate, and that this was a “real problem” for the Department for Education (DfE).
He said the DfE was of the view that the planned increase to £30,000 teacher starting salaries would be paid for out of this allocation, but that the reality was that many staff would “in reality, see real-terms cuts to salaries” and schools would “struggle” to pay staff wages because of the other costs they were facing.
Mr Barton pointed to rising energy costs as one of the issues facing schools, and said some were seeing bills rise from £10,000 to £70,000 and from £65,000 to £200,000.
He added: “In the meantime, of course, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi is putting the finishing touches to a White Paper which is expected to set new literacy and numeracy targets, and encourage the growth of multi-academy trusts. Will there be any new resources for any of this?
“After all, it’s hard to bring about system-wide changes without any money.”
Mr Barton said he hoped to see “a sign from the chancellor that history isn’t about to repeat itself”, in next week’s Spring Statement.
The DfE has previously said that in 2022-23, core schools funding will increase by £4 billion compared with 2021-22 - giving a 5 per cent real-terms per-pupil boost - and that this will help schools to meet wider cost pressures.
In last year’s Spending Review, the Treasury said an additional £4.7 billion for the core schools budget by 2024-25 would “level up education standards” by “supporting delivery of the government’s commitment to increase teacher starting salaries to £30,000”.
This implied that the government considers that funding for the salary hike will be covered by the £4.7 billion uplift.
The government has been approached for comment.
