By Dale Bassett, Senior Researcher, Reform
There is much ongoing discussion about whether and how to cut public spending, especially in universities (as the subject of cuts) and the NHS (as the subject of ringfencing). But no-one is talking about the second most expensive public service – schools. The Government has pledged to protect the schools budget; the Conservatives have not but are vague on specifics. A Reform lunch seminar today discussing how to save money in the schools system showed that there is a lot of scope to reduce costs.
Two things became immediately clear from the discussion – national funding arrangements will make it very difficult to uniformly trim schools’ budgets, and the amount of central direction and bureaucracy have played a major role in increasing the cost of schools in recent years.
John McIntosh, the former head of the London Oratory School, observed that the arbitrary nature of the funding system makes it difficult to impose a uniform percentage budget cut on every school. Huge variations in per-pupil funding (due to central prioritisation, various add-ons for pupils and schools and differences between local authorities) mean that a budget cut of 10 per cent would devastate some schools but barely impact at all on the curriculum of others. The current system, geared to reward failure, would mean that the best schools were the worst hit.
It is also apparent that while there are savings to made within any given school on, say, administration and procurement, this doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. The real problem is not “within” schools themselves; it is the national system that creates the excess costs that are borne by schools. The Every Child Matters agenda, national pay and conditions agreements and the Ofsted inspection regime all impose costs on schools and necessitate the creation of bureaucracies and management layers to respond to government initiatives.
One comprehensive school manager said that his school employs four full-time staff solely to prepare and analyse the data demanded by Ofsted. National agreements on “planning, preparation and assessment” time, class sizes and cover arrangements have resulted in a substantial increase in the staff-to-pupil ratio. A typical classroom in almost every primary school now contains two adults – the teacher and a teaching assistant. Meanwhile local authority control of funding and procurement makes it difficult for schools to achieve value for money in their purchasing of goods and services.
What is clear is that the wrong approach would be cutting 10 per cent off each school’s budget. Instead 10 per cent (or however much) should be cut off the total schools budget and national funding reform (John McIntosh proposed a national per-pupil amount) should be introduced alongside to ensure that some schools aren’t disproportionately hit. The result would be fairer and more efficient schools for all.
