Council backs call for fairer school cash allocations

The council is backing a nationwide campaign by the country’s worst funded authorities to change the way the school funding system works.

The f40 campaign for fairer funding in education claims some of England’s brightest young brains are penalised by the school funding system and has lobbied for change in a formal response to the government’s consultation  “The School, Early Years and 14-16 Funding”.

Herefordshire Council joined the f40 group earlier this year following the publication of school funding league tables for the period 2006-07.  The tables illustrated that Herefordshire is the third worst funded authority in England.  Some of the county’s schools have the lowest budgets in the country and consequently are finding it increasingly difficult to provide the education pupils in Herefordshire deserve.

The f40 group aims to achieve fairer funding for all pupils regardless of where they live so they can fulfil their individual potential. The group believes that the ideal solution would be a revised allocation formula that ensures base entitlement per child that is sufficient to meet base needs before additional factors such as deprivation and scarcity are factored in.

The present funding formula has created large differences in cash levels between authorities and the gap has grown wider as annual percentage increases are added on. As the bulk of school expenses such as salary levels, energy costs, equipment and other resources are similar, it means there is a large variation in what schools can provide their children with.

In recent years many education grants have been allocated to areas of deprivation concentrated on cities so children who live in rural areas like Herefordshire still miss out on extra resources.

David Kidney MP for Stafford and chair of f40 says: “Over the years the f40 group has presented well-reasoned arguments aimed at achieving improvements to the funding of those disadvantaged by the current system. We have had many meetings with government minister and officials to highlight the main difficulties and are confident that our views will be taken into account in this consultation.

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Mr Kidney added: “Deprivation should be pupil-based and not relate to general conditions in the local area of the school, which reduces the level of inclusion and the school’s ability to provide personalised learning.  Low funded authorities and schools will continue to struggle and our children will be short-changed.”

Councillor Jenny Hyde, Herefordshire Council’s cabinet member for children and young people, said:  “Herefordshire’s schools perform consistently well in comparison with national averages, but they feel too much time is being spent trying to juggle inadequate budgets which could be spent better on teaching and raising standards.

“Herefordshire schools have been under funded for many years but despite this, great efforts have been made to maintain high educational standards. This is due to the efforts of our schools. However, we are adamant that our children deserve the same financial support as those in other authorities so that they can have the same opportunities.

“The costs of educating pupils in a rural authority are high and our scarcity of population gives us additional costs. Many of the same issues exist in rural counties as in our larger cities, but it is more expensive and more complex to deliver a service to children and their families when they are living in rural communities.”

Reginald Thomas, head teacher of St Paul’s C of E Primary School, Hereford added, “The system is simply unfair. Herefordshire schools strive to achieve the highest academic standards and to provide a rich educational experience for our pupils.

“We share the government’s wish to develop our curriculum, to have greater personalised learning, more specialist teaching in music and modern foreign languages but we are denied the financial means by an inequitable funding system.

“Herefordshire children deserve the same chances as children elsewhere in England. The system has to be changed.”

The f40 group hopes to hear how the government intends to respond to the concerns raised this autumn before next year’s school budgets are set.

For further background about f40, the league table of funding for education authorities and the consultation response from the f40 Group, please go to the website at www.f40.org.uk and follow the link on the Homepage.