How much extra money is being provided to schools?

A total of £1.3 billion over two years, between 2018-19 and 2019-2020. This is aimed at providing an annual per-pupil cash increase of at least 0.5 per cent for every school in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Is this a real-terms increase?

It’s a real-terms freeze to the per-pupil budget between 2017-18 and 2019-20.

However, because schools have already had to make significant savings since the Conservatives’ election victory in 2015, they will still face a 4.6 per cent real-terms cut in the four years leading up to 2019-20, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

That, added to the continued cost pressures facing schools, is why teaching unions are calling for an extra £2 billion a year.

Is this money more, or less, than the Tories set out in their 2017 general election manifesto?

The Conservatives’ manifesto said they would raise the schools budget by £4 billion by 2022, ensuring that no school would lose out under the national funding formula being introduced in 2018. It did not specify how much would be allocated in each individual year. 

Direct comparisons are therefore difficult to make with yesterday’s pledge, which only takes us to 2020. The Department for Education says it cannot provide any details beyond the end of the current five-year “spending review period”, which started in 2015.

However, the IFS believes that Ms Greening’s latest funding pledge is more generous up to 2019 than the plans in her party’s election manifesto. The IFS’ Luke Sibieta also says that the school spending plans between 2017 and 2019 now appear to match those in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto.

What else has changed?

The government is also introducing a minimum level of per-pupil spending up to 2019-20, set at £4,800 for secondary schools. However, it is thought that this is unlikely to benefit a high number of schools, as the average spend is currently somewhere between £6,100 and £6,200 per pupil.

The minimum funding level for primary pupils is set to be announced later in the year.

Where is the money coming from?

Elsewhere in the education budget. Unusually, the Treasury is letting the DfE raid its capital funds, which are normally used for school building projects. “Savings and efficiencies” in this area will provide £420 million, according to Greening. Of this, £280 million will come from cuts to the free schools programme. This will involve “working more collaboratively with local authorities to provide free schools to meet basic need”. But, so far, local authorities and education policy experts seem unsure on exactly what this means.

Cuts of £200 million will also be made to central DfE programmes to release money for schools, although it has not been announced which programmes will be affected.

What about the national funding formula?

As expected, the national formula will be brought in from 2018 but local authorities will continue to play a role in allocating money to schools for the foreseeable future.

However, Ms Greening suggested that there will be greater scrutiny over how they do this. The DfE is set to publish a new “operational guide” on how councils should distribute the money. And it looks as if there will be some attempt to restrict how much money can be transferred from the general schools budget to the under-pressure “high needs” pot, for pupils with complex needs.

Will schools still be expected to find savings?

Yes, and it looks as if they will be more rigorously held to account over how they achieve this. Ms Greening yesterday highlighted the national procurement deals available to schools, and warned: “We will expect schools to be clear if they do not make use of these deals and consequently have higher costs.”

She also wants to improve the “transparency and usability” of spending data, so that “parents and governors can more easily see the way funding is being spent and understand not just educational standards in schools, but financial effectiveness, too”.

And efficiency experts will be parachuted into struggling schools, she implied. This year, the DfE “will take action” to “provide targeted support to those schools where financial health is at risk, deploying efficiency experts to give direct support to these schools,” she said.

Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook