Home

Schools are at breaking point as funding is not keeping up with the expenditure schools face. The government’s funding commitment for schools is not adequate and equates to a real-terms cut in education spending. The situation is critical for schools, so NAHT is campaigning to:

Lobby the government to provide sufficient funding for the education of all pupils

Support the School Cuts campaign
Lobby for provision of accessible and available health, social care and other therapeutic services to support pupils' educational progress and attainment
Lobby for sufficient funding for the High Needs block
Lobby for sufficient funding to support pupils with SEND in all mainstream schools
Lobby for more funding for early years education; including specific funding to stabilise and protect the maintained nursery school sector
Support the Raise the Rate campaign to ensure sufficient funding for students in sixth form / FE / KS5 education
Maximise the funding for pupil premium for schools through auto enrolment
Press the government to provide appropriate support to schools for financial planning and resource management
Develop a better understanding of the unique challenges facing small schools and lobby the government to ensure their long-term sustainability
Lobby government to introduce the hard funding formula

Lobby to ensure that schools have sufficient funds to provide a safe environment for pupils and staff

Press for the phased removal of asbestos from the school estate
Lobby the DfE to secure sufficient capital funding and restoration of the school estate where required
Press the government to ensure that health and safety regulations maintain the highest standard of safety within schools
Lobby the DfE to support members to effectively manage the school estate

NAHT writes to Lord Agnew to raise concerns about the new requirements for CiF funding

The Condition Improvement Fund's core purpose is to support condition projects. The focus of the fund is to keep school and college buildings safe and in good working order. Most CIF funding aims to address building issues with significant consequences that revenue or Devolved Formula Capital (DFC) funding cannot meet. These include issues with poor building condition, building compliance, energy efficiency or health and safety.

At the end of October 2019, the Department for Education released new information for 2020-21 applications to the Condition Improvement Funding (CiF). This set out new criteria for applications to the CiF funding for 2020-2021, including:

"Excessive Executive Pay (EEP) – Applicants that have been identified as having excessive executive pay, will have four points deducted for applicants based outside of London and one point deducted for applications based in London."
"School Resource Management Adviser Visits (SRMA) – Applicants that have received an SRMA visit but have not provided an appropriate response to the recommendations will have four points deducted. Agreeing to an SRMA visit will be a condition for all successful applicants that have not had one."
"Financial Viability and Governance concerns – Applicants whose financial and/or governance viability is of concern to the department will have between one and four points deducted or conditions applied if they are successful."

NAHT was extremely concerned about the inclusion of such criteria, and as such has written to Lord Agnew to stress this, and to request a rationale for the inclusion of these areas. We are clear that the new criteria has no relevant bearing on the condition of a school(s) estate, and should not be a consideration for any type of capital funding.

You can access NAHT's full response to the new criteria below. Members will need to log in to view this document.

First published 21 November 2019

;