The issue

There has been 15 years with no overall growth in school spending. This squeeze on school resources is effectively without precedent in post-war UK history.
Schools are now facing new and significant cost pressures e.g. surging energy prices, covid-related costs, falling primary pupil numbers, the National Insurance increase, and pressures due to significant underfunding of SEND.
Changes to the government’s national funding formula (NFF) have seen a redistribution of funding away from schools serving the most deprived communities in recent years.
Funding for pupils with special educational needs (SEND) is in crisis, with overall High Needs budget deficits estimated to be more than £2billion and growing
The value of pupil premium funding designed to support the most disadvantaged pupils has fallen in real-terms since 2015.
The government has only invested a small fraction of the covid recovery funding that its own recovery commissioner said would be required.
Between 2009-10 and 2021-22, capital spending declined by 25% in cash terms, and 29% when adjusted for inflation.
Specific types of schools including small schools and maintained nursery schools remain under extreme financial pressure and many of facing the real risk of closure.

What we want to see

The government needs to be more ambitious for schools and set out a proper funding plan that addresses the 15 funding squeeze.
The government needs to offer more support for schools experiencing severe financial pressures as a result of rising energy costs.
The government should set out a proper long-term capital funding plan to bring all schools up to ‘good’ condition.
The government should commit to a truly ambitious recovery plan based on the work of its own recovery commissioner.
The government should commit to at least restoring pupil premium funding in real-term terms, and increasing the Early Years Pupil Premium to reach parity with the primary pupil premium.
A consultation on the long-term future of the approach to maintained nursery school funding should be launched without delay.
The government must use the ling-awaited SEND review to develop a truly needs-led approach to SEND funding.
Sufficient and sustainable funding for small schools.

What we want you to do

Convene an MPs roundtable in your region (see our briefing document on how here)
Write to your MP using our template letter
Share the PowerPoint and other resources (see below) with your school leader networks and governing body
Let us know when you plan to run local campaign activity so that we can help you promote the event and support you
Promote your campaigning work across Twitter using the campaign hashtags (#) and including @NAHTnews
Get active in your NAHT branch
If your colleagues aren’t members of NAHT already, encourage them to join

Our conference motion

“Conference instructs National Executive to develop a national fair funding campaign to press government to provide a sufficient overall level of funding to meet the needs of all pupils, through the national funding formula and the high needs national funding formula. This is required now to enable schools to set budgets from 2022-2023. It would allow them to meet all their statutory responsibilities and provide an extended curriculum offer that supports all children and young people to thrive academically, socially, physically and spiritually.

Conference further instructs National Executive to campaign for an increase in capital funding that will address the nation’s decrepit school estate, to ensure that school buildings and grounds are safe, fit for purpose and appropriate for the needs of the 21st century.”

Useful links

MP roundtable resources

Relevant articles and reports

Complete the school resource management self-assessment tool

The Department for Education has updated the self-assessment tool for academy trusts. The tool is intended to help assure governing bodies and trust boards that they are meeting the right standards to achieve a good level of financial health and resource management.

The tool consists of a checklist, which asks questions of governing bodies and trust boards in six areas of resource management. Alongside this there is a dashboard, which shows how a school's data compares to thresholds on a range of items judged by the Department to be a good indicator of effective resource management and outcomes.

The updates include:

A revised set of questions in the checklist
Improvements to the dashboard, including layout changes and allowing the data for up to 20 academies to be inputted in one dashboard
Updated Red, Amber, Green (RAG) ratings in the dashboard to reflect the latest data and the recent pay award and pensions contribution changes.

All academy trusts must complete the self-assessment tool and submit their completed checklist to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) by 14 November 2019. The online form to do this will be available in October 2019.

You can access the full details here

First published 24 September 2019

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Fix School Funding