The Swindon Labour Group’s Education’s Lead, Councillor Cindy Matthews, has said that the cuts in capital funding to schools are either leading to essential maintenance works in schools not being carried out or that schools are having to use funding allocated for teaching and learning for building maintenance works.
The Swindon Labour Group have obtained information that shows that there are £4m worth of outstanding maintenance work in Swindon Council’s maintained schools. This includes more than £1.25m worth of urgent maintenance work which should be carried out within the next year. In 2011/12 the government dramatically cut its devolved formula capital funding for Swindon’s schools from £3.13m per year to just £610K per year. This has meant that primary schools have had their capital funding cut from £32.8K per year in 2010/11 to just £6.94K per year from 2011/12 and in secondary schools the cut has gone from £109K to £22.8K over the same period.
The Swindon Labour Group’s Education’s Lead, Councillor Cindy Matthews, has said that the cuts in capital funding to schools are either leading to essential maintenance works in schools not being carried out or that schools are having to use funding allocated for teaching and learning for building maintenance works.
The Government will be setting out their three year programme (from 2014/15 to 2017/18) of devolved capital funding for Swindon’s schools in the next year.
The Swindon Labour Group’s Education’s Lead, Councillor Cindy Matthews, said:
“I am concerned that there are £4m worth of outstanding maintenance works in Swindon’s maintained schools, particularly when schools have had their capital maintenance budgets dramatically cut a few years ago. I can’t see this leading to anything other than many children being schooled in sub-standard buildings or some schools having to use their funding earmarked for teaching and learning to repair their buildings.
And while the Council should always try and help schools in tackling very expensive maintenance works, at the same time government funding cuts have led to the Council having much reduced budgets to help schools with capital costs. The only other option could be for the Council to borrow even more money to support schools, but that obviously isn’t desirable with the Council already having debts of around £90m.
I would like the government to invest more money in school building maintenance costs. I think this would have a positive effect on the local economy with contractors having more work, which they then can employ more people. And putting more money in to school maintenance costs would have an obvious benefit for school pupils, who will be able to be educated in well-maintained buildings.”