It may not have lived up to the former education recovery tsar’s ambitions, but today’s Budget was, on the whole, somewhat more generous towards schools than expected.

After heads lamented that education was “scarcely mentioned” in the Spring Budget, news of a funding boost of any kind will have come as a relief to many.

However, there were some potentially less appealing details buried in the Treasury documents.

What does today’s Budget actually mean for schools?

Covid catch-up

Hopes for extra cash for the Covid recovery effort were dashed on Sunday when the chancellor said the government had “maxed out” on catch-up funds.

But this turned out not to be the case. Presenting his spending plans to MPs today, Rishi Sunak announced that nearly £2 billion would be added to the Covid recovery pot - bringing the total catch-up investment to almost £5 billion.

He also said that schools would get an extra £4.7 billion by 2024-25, which, combined with plans announced at the spending review in 2019, would restore per-pupil funding to 2010 levels in real terms - equivalent to a cash increase for every pupil of more than £1,500.

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The Treasury has since clarified to Tes that the £1.8 billion for Covid catch-up will be a separate, additional investment to the £4.7 billion uplift to the core schools budget.

However, the recovery funding falls far short of the £15 billion that the government’s former catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins had asked for, and is “a long way short of what is needed”, according to education leaders.

More cash for school-led recovery

Of the £1.8 billion announced today for Covid catch-up, the majority (£1 billion) will fund a recovery premium for schools over the next two academic years.

This is essentially a continuation of the existing £302 million recovery premium for state schools. However, secondaries are getting extra cash, while the allowance for primaries will stay the same.

The 2021-22 recovery premium is worth around £6,000 to the average primary school, and £22,000 to the average secondary.

The DfE said that, under the new premium, primaries will receive the same per-pupil rates as they do now. Secondary schools, however, will see their allowances double.

The means the average secondary school could attract around £70,000 a year in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The department said the decision to offer extra support to secondaries “reflects evidence showing the greater gaps in older pupils’ learning and lower amount of time those pupils have left in education”.

As is the case with the 2021-22 premium, the DfE said the funding for future years will be used to support disadvantaged pupils in all state-funded primary and secondary schools.

Schools will continue to have freedom to use the cash in “ways that best support their young people to catch up”, the department said. This could include offering specialist small group support in reading and maths, after-school provision or summer schools.

Schools to fork out for teacher pay rise

As feared by heads’ leaders, today’s Budget suggests schools will be expected to fund teacher pay rises out of their own budgets.

The Treasury said the 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 implies that the government considers funding for the salary hike to be included in the £4.7 billion uplift.

The government initially pledged to raise starting salaries to £30,000 by September 2022.

But the Treasury said last year that the higher payments would instead be introduced “by the end of this Parliament”, meaning the move could potentially be delayed by up to two years.

Today’s announcement gives no extra indication of exactly when the £30,000 minimum salary will kick in.

Thousands of extra SEND places

The chancellor confirmed today that the Budget will cover the cost of tens of thousands of new school places for pupils with special educational needs.

The Treasury told Tes earlier this week that all of the money was new, and that it would be able to set out more details on the spending breakdown on Wednesday. However, it is yet to do so.

So far, the government has said the investment will be used to fund:

• More than 30,000 new high-quality school places for pupils with SEND to support their learning in both mainstream and special educational needs schools;
• Improvements in the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings, recently recommended in the government’s National Disability Strategy; and
• New special and alternative-provision free schools.

Training for early years staff

The Treasury also reaffirmed plans to invest £150 million in the training of early years staff, to “support children’s learning and development”.

This will be funded by the £1.4 billion catch-up package announced in June 2021.

Schools will have to fund national insurance rise

The Treasury revealed today that schools will be expected to use the additional cash pledged in the Budget to cover the increased cost of national insurance contributions, which are rising by 1.25 per cent from next April.

The government previously said it planned to “compensate departments and other public sector employers in England at the spending review” for the cost of its new health and social care levy.

In a footnote to today’s Budget, the Treasury said the £4.7 billion uplift to the core schools budget includes this compensation.