Schools will be facing tight budgets this year as their costs are set to rise faster than inflation, a new report has found.
Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found school funding and costs are growing at similar rates between 2021-22 and 2024-25, leaving school budgets to “largely stagnate in real terms”.
Researchers said this will mean English school budgets will have a purchasing power in 2024 that is about 3 per cent lower than it was in 2010.
It was projected that school spending per pupil would be 3 per cent higher in 2024 than in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. However, the IFS explained that the standard measures of inflation weren’t accurately reflecting the increasing cost pressures on schools.
The researchers added that the late timing of announcements and agreements on salaries had made things worse as schools are left with “huge amounts of uncertainty and concern about what they can afford”.
The IFS said a final decision on teacher pay should be published in March of each year, and the process for agreeing support staff pay should also be brought forward.
Increased costs for schools are not a result of higher teacher pay, which is funded, the IFS said. Rather, increased costs come from increased support staff pay, inflation of non-staff costs, pupil number growth, and the growing costs of high-needs provision.
School spending increasing
The IFS added that there would be significant variation within these estimates, with some schools seeing costs grow by more than the funding increases they receive.
This could include special schools as they fund pay increases for more support staff.
School spending is set to increase to above 2010 levels, with budgets rising 13 per cent in real terms between 2019-20 and 2024-25. But once costs are taken into account, this real-terms rise in spending over that period reduces to less than 6 per cent.
IFS research fellow Luke Sibieta said that, once costs are taken into account, “school funding per pupil is in fact increasing by only just about enough to keep pace with overall school costs”.
He added: “Policy debate should reflect the acute pressures on school budgets.”
School funding to reflect inflation
Julia Harnden, funding specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, called for school funding to reflect real-terms inflation and supported the call to bring the pay agreement process forward.
“This unnecessary delay hampers school leaders when trying to plan and manage already tight budgets for the forthcoming school year,” she said.
Ms Harnden added: “The government loves to talk about the amount of money it is spending on education, but this report shows up these facile boasts for what they are.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “This is why the government’s talk of ‘record funding levels’ feels so far from the reality of what school leaders are experiencing when it comes to their budgets.
“The truth is that, in real terms, the government has failed to invest adequately in pupils’ education for over a decade.”
