Action | Fair and
adequate school funding
You will recall Devon is part of a joint campaign for fairer funding along with 16 other authorities. Following the general election outcome on 8 June, schools are strongly encouraged to contact their parent communities again with this latest communication regarding school funding.
The salient points are
as follows:
* The
Conservative manifesto pledged an additional £4bn to fund schools over the next
five years
* Schools across
England are still awaiting a detailed announcement relating to the introduction
of an urgently needed National Funding Formula
* School funding
– and severe teacher shortages – are having a profoundly negative effect on
school provision.
Please send a copy of this L E T T E R to your parents which
outlines further details and reassures them that schools are determined to work
collaboratively to ensure fair and adequate school funding for every school.
'School Funding' Letter to Councillor John Hart | 20 June 2017
DASH submitted a letter on behalf of Devon secondary headteachers to Councillor John Hart, requesting that Devon County Council look again at their decision to slice £33 per pupil from school budgets so that we can better serve the children and school for whom we work. Read the letter H E R E
Councillor John Hart responded within 24 hours to the latest letter stating the following points:
Firstly, over half of the surplus was from the Dartington School settlement. The current budget book 2017/8 you will see that DCC are taking £11million out of reserves to balance this year spend.
You will also see that there is also a gap of £30million in the projected budget for 2018/9.
Austerity is not yet over for Local Government……….
In the current year there was need to increase funding in the High needs block.We did not reduce the Education Budget. We re-distributed the Education Budget as many Local Authorities have also done for the same reason - an increasing demand on this budget line.
The new Education Formula that has been consulted on was criticised by all Devon Councillors and MPs.
I met with Justin Greening 3 weeks ago and she admitted that there were problems with it.
I also know that most if not all County Councils have objected. Even the Home Counties.
We will continue to argue for fairer funding. I will bring it up again next week when I meet with MPs.
At the Cabinet meeting last week some money was put aside to help schools over the Pension issue. It was part of the out-turn statement.
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