Exeter Labour leads the call to improve funding for Devon schools
The full council meeting of Exeter City Council on 25th April passed a motion opposing central government education funding cuts and calling for revision of the proposed funding formula which otherwise would together result in an average cut of £420 per annum for Exeter students.
Councillor Hannah Packham moved the motion arguing that: “When leaders in our local schools, the Devon Association of Secondary Heads, and the Devon Association of Primary Heads, describe the current funding situation in Devon schools as reaching “a real crisis point in the immediate future” we need to listen and act.”
Councillor Packham also stated:“Schools across the country are already being forced to make impossible decisions; with increased class sizes, curriculum choices being cut, SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) pupils losing vital support and school staff losing their jobs.”
The motion highlighted the cumulative impact of real-terms cuts in education funding of £3 billion by 2020, equivalent to 8%, identified by the National Audit Office and the proposed National Funding Formula on Exeter and Devon schools.
In addition to this Devon schools face the further impact of a £2.22 million transfer by the Conservative-controlled Devon County Council from the Schools Block to the High Needs Block in the Dedicated Schools Budget to cover a deficit for children with special educational needs and disabilities, which will result in a further reduction in funding of £33 per pupil in every Devon school.
Following a plea for unity at the meeting, Councillor Bob Foale said: “We are pleased that the Conservative councillors have recognised the cost of Conservative education policy to Exeter schools, and have joined with us to call for action to ensure Exeter children and families have the fully funded and properly resourced schools the city deserves”.
The Education Funding motion was supported unanimously by Councillors of all political parties meaning that Conservative councillors, including those who have been sitting on Devon County Council, supported the Labour Group motion. This commits Exeter City Council to writing to Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Education, and Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, to express concern about the serious funding situation facing Devon schools. The letter will demand that central government funding is provided to erase the 8% real terms cut and that the National Funding Formula is revised so that Devon schools are no longer disadvantaged.
The proposed National Funding Formula would by 2020 increase the overall funding for the County by just 0.38%, described by Hugo Swire MP as “woefully insufficient to meet the rising costs pressures”.
Even so 61.9% of pupils in Devon would find themselves in schools which would lose funding. In Exeter the level of funding overall would decrease by 0.14%. Of the 30 state-funded schools in Exeter 11 would gain but 18, so more than half of our city’s schools, would lose and one would receive the same as now.
The Devon County Council Conservative Group leader, with reference to the recent national budget, bemoaned the fact that “there is no new help for the revenue budgets of our schools when every child in Devon is still worth £290 less than the national average”.
The Exeter Labour Group has highlighted that even those schools that would gain from the National Funding Formula would find their increases wiped out by the 8% real-terms cut in education funding overall.
Ben Bradshaw MP said: “Once again our Labour city councillors are taking a lead to defend public services in the city at risk under this Conservative government and supporting their Labour county council colleagues in holding the County Council to account”.
