Government New Schools Formula “Unfair” on Swindon Students

The Government new proposed schools funding formula has been criticised as “unfair” by the Conservative Cabinet Member for Education, Fionuala Foley, with her signing joining with 38 other Cabinet Members for Education in signing a letter condemn to the Prime Minister expressing their concern for the government’s proposals.

The Government new proposed schools funding formula has been criticised as “unfair” by the Conservative Cabinet Member for Education, Fionuala Foley, with her signing joining with 38 other Cabinet Members for Education in signing a letter condemn to the Prime Minister expressing their concern for the government’s proposals.

In a letter the Swindon Conservative Cabinet Member signed, the F40 group said:

F40 and its local authority membership never expected that a new ‘fair funding’ formula could end up being so unfair to so many authorities and schools. We are alarmed that so many schools are losers and we fail to understand why this should be the case when those schools were already poorly funded and well below the national average.”

Schools in lower funded areas have been making cuts for many years now and have reached the limit of where cuts can be made. We recognise the work that the Department for Education has undertaken in supporting schools in making efficiencies, but we are struggling to understand where more cuts can be made in the lowest funded authorities. On top of this, all schools are facing significant additional costs which the government does not intend to pay for, including the removal of the Education Support Grant later this year.

Since being elected in 2010, Swindon’s two Conservative MPs have committed to obtaining a fairer schools funding formula that will benefit places like Swindon and yet 7 years after the two MPs made the commitment the government have now reformed the formula but it is still considered by the Council to be unfair on Swindon.

The criticism of the government’s fair funding formula for schools has come amidst a backdrop of staffing cuts being made in Swindon’s schools that will make it harder for local schools to improve. Ofsted also said last November that educational leaders in Swindon were “failing at all levels”.

The Labour Group Leader, Cllr Jim Grant, said:

“After years of saying they would be making funding for schools fairer for Swindon, it would seem the Conservatives are reneging on their commitment. The government has said that this is a once in a generation settlement so if their current proposals are approved it could solidify Swindon’s unfair schools funding for over a decade.

What makes this funding formula so wrong is that Swindon’s schools are in desperate need of support right now. In the last year Ofsted have identified Swindon’s education leaders as failing in the education of our young people at all levels. And nearly all of Swindon’s schools are having to make staffing cutbacks with some secondary schools having to make quite dramatic cutbacks in teaching staff. For the government not to recognise that Swindon has a real need for extra financial support is really disappointing.

I understand that a group of Conservative MPs have now said they will vote against the government schools funding proposals unless they make changes to the funding formula, and this could jeopardise the government’s parliamentary majority. I would hope that Justin Tomlinson and Robert Buckland will join these MPs and make sure Swindon’s schools are not unfairly disadvantaged from the government’s proposals.”