Council joins national campaign for fairer schools funding

Herefordshire Council has joined the f40 group of local authorities to lobby government for better funding for schools.

The f40 is a campaign group comprising the 40 lowest funded authorities in the UK.  The group seeks to influence government for a better schools settlement for its members.

According to the 2006-07 school funding league tables issued by the government, Herefordshire Council is 147th out of 149 authorities in the country and although the amount for 2007/08 has risen by 6.7% per pupil, the county still ranks as the third worst funded in the UK. Some of our schools have the lowest budgets in the country and because of this they find it difficult to provide the minimum statutory entitlement for their pupils

The f40 group has focused its attention on influencing a change in the way the government allocates education funding to local authorities and schools.  It believes that the changes to the formula in recent years have been shown to be as unfair and unjust as the old system, claiming that the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in education continues to widen.

The f40 group has made significant progress in recent years and has had positive discussions with the DfES about the education funding arrangements for 2008/09 and beyond with the aim of achieving a rational and fair funding system for each and every child based on costs so that pupils in similar schools in similar parts of the country get the same level of funding..

Councillor Don Rule, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Herefordshire children get less funding per head for their education than most other children in the UK, yet our examination results are always good. 

“The collective effort and hard work that goes into ensuring our children do well means the county’s schools offer excellent value for money. 

“But we cannot be complacent, and with the number of children set to reduce over the next few years, we do not want to wait for performance to suffer before we get a better funding deal.
 
“It is therefore important for us to join forces with other poorly funded authorities to work on successfully influencing the next funding review for 2008-09.