Education Funding in Leicestershire

Since I was first elected in 1997 I have been actively involved with the question of the funding formula for education and increasing the amount of money spent on children's education in the County of Leicestershire. The Tories introduced the funding formula in the early 1990s and there were few Tories in government at the time who complained!

I joined the E8 Group and along with David Taylor MP my Labour colleague from NW Leicestershire and I have been a consistent campaigner on this issue - long before the Leicester Mercury and some Tories showed an interest and turned this into a political campaign! The E8 Group then enlarged itself to include the 40 lowest funded authorities - now known as the F40. I am a member of the F40 Group of MPs.

This is a complex issue - as are all funding formula issues - and unfortunately (and deliberately) some of the information circulated in the form of headlines and sound bites does nothing to enlighten people.

I held a debate in the House of Commons in late 2003 to highlight the problems, praise the success and offer some solutions.

It must be remembered that since 1997 the government have year on year given Leicestershire above inflation increases in cash - something never seen in a Tory government. It is likely that a decade of sustained investment in Leicestershire education will be the legacy of this government.

For example the County had a £2m a year capital budget in 1997 - last year it was £28m. In 2005 it will be over £30m. This is allowing the rebuilding and replacement of decades of underinvestment and improvements to the learning environments for so many of our children.

Details of the debate on 15th Sept 2004 and the Minister's (Stephen Twigg) response are found on Hansard.

I have met Ministers and experts over the years and we have made progress in having the local issues recognised. But I must emphasise the basis of the issues before us.

All children get the same basic funding for their education in schools across the country. The amount then allocated to Local Education Authorities like Leicestershire is adjusted to take into account a number of other costs - levels of deprivation (to tackle underachieving and inequality) Rurality (to recognise the extra costs of keeping open smaller village schools and transport costs) and the Area Cost Adjustment (to reflect the additional costs of London and the South East). In addition a great deal of money is now given directly to schools from the Department for Education and there are additional direct payments. Therefore the simple headline figures do not reflect the final spending on schools in Leicestershire.

In 2007 another review has been launched to look at the funding formula. I have made positive suggestions in the past to such reviews and I hope that this year some of these will once again be taken into account. There will never be a situation where the exact funding for every LEA in the country will be exactly the same. I would not support such a formula as it would not tackle the fundamental problems in education and tackling deprivation. I have found no serious support for such a case.

In 2007 I have asked even more Parliamentary Questions on this issue and you can search for these via the Parliamentary web site www.parliament.uk

Andy Reed MP

A Few Key Facts:

Education Funding per primary pupil in Leicestershire has risen by nearly £800 since 1997 in real terms.

The number of Teachers in Leicestershire has risen by 450 since 1997.

The budget for education in Leicestershire has risen by over 5% in real terms every year under Labour compared to real terms cuts in spending under the Tories.

The funding formula, which means different areas get different figures per pupil was introduced in 1990 by the Tories. It was reviewed between 1997 and 2000 and the new formula used for 2003/04.

All political parties accept the principal of differential funding. It costs more to fund education in different parts of the country and with different children.

The funding is made up of a number of elements - basic per pupil funding - an amount for deprivation, an amount to compensate for rural areas (sparsity) and an amount Area Cost Adjustment to make up the costs of teaching staff costs in places like Central London.