Robert Marshall-Andrews

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School funding 2004-06

During the summer the Government announced the following measures to ensure that schools had a better basis for planning their budgets and avoid the problems that arose this year:

1. A minimum increase in funding per pupil
2. Allow head teachers to plan more effectively
3. Reverse planned cuts to the Standards Fund
4. Capping LEA's central education budget
5. Special help for LEAs and school will particular problems

This week the Government announced that next year it would guarantee a minimum increase in funding for every school. Most schools will get more than the guarantee. The LEA will decide which schools in their area need more money.

Here in Medway the council will receive an extra £2.1 million in transitional funding. Medway Council will be expected to target their extra monies at schools with unavoidably higher costs, e.g. those Medway schools that have experienced problems this year.

Bob Marshall-Andrews said, "This excellent news for Medway pupils and their parents has been the result of vigorous lobbying of Government by Labour MPs and Labour local councillors. Now unlike in previous years, next year every head teacher will be able to work out the minimum increase based on their estimate of pupils."

This is how the Guaranteed minimum increase works in practice, a school whose pupil numbers stay the same between 2003-04 and 2004-05 will be guaranteed a 4% per pupil increase in its overall budget next year.

A school whose pupil numbers decline will be guaranteed a funding increase of more than 4% per pupil, because schools in this position still have to pay costs such as cleaning, repairs and heating, which do not reduce when pupil numbers go down. However, despite this protection, with a reduction of around 50,000 pupils in the primary sector this year, and a similar reduction expected next year, there will still be a reduction in cash budgets - and so possibly staff numbers - in a significant number of schools.

A school whose pupil numbers are increasing will be guaranteed at least a 4% increase for all their existing pupils. Because costs such as cleaning, repairs and heating do not go up when their pupil numbers rise, they will not receive so much for their additional students. However, these schools will be guaranteed an overall budget increase of at least 3.4% per pupil.