This proposal is the first to come before the StarChamber that originates from Labour. It is also probably the least defined.
Although The Sunday Times reported Ed Balls MP as offering £2bn of spending cuts it is not clear if the Schools Secretary's economies do actually add up to that figure but they certainly offer savings.
The BBC reports:
"[Balls] said he planned to make sure wage rises were kept low in the next three-year deal, starting in 2011. He went on to stress there were no plans to cut the number of teachers and teaching assistants, but said reductions could be made to the number of bureaucrats and senior staff without the quality of teaching suffering. Mr Balls spoke of comprehensives merging to form federations, so a head teacher and a team of deputies would work across the different schools. He estimated this option could save the department about £500m a year.
He told the BBC's Politics Show that "pooling leadership together" in primary and secondary schools could free up resources to release back to the front line. "If a third of schools did that, that would be getting us about a third of a billion pounds savings," he said. Another £250m could be saved by losing about 3,000 senior school jobs, mainly through "natural wastage", he told the Sunday Times. It was also likely that more than 300 jobs in Whitehall which involve advising schools about the curriculum could go, he added in the interview."
Savings id: Reductions in the number of education workers and consolidation of school leadership.
Department: DCSF
Annual saving: Up to £2bn.
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Previous idea for saving: (18) One year pay freeze across the public sector, excluding members of the armed forces serving in conflict zones.
