Poorly-funded authorities give cautious welcome to consultation on education funding reform

LEADING members of f40 – the group that campaigns for fairer funding of education – have given a cautious welcome to the 2nd Stage consultation on school funding reform launched this week.

This new stage follows on from an earlier consultation that set out to deal with the rationale and principles for the intended reform.

The government has announced that it is proposing a new, fairer and more transparent school funding system. The new system will introduce a new national formula to allocate money more consistently across the country, whilst allowing a degree of local flexibility to meet specific needs where agreed by schools.

F40 Chair, Ivan Ould, who is also Lead member for children’s services in Leicestershire, said he was reassured that Stage 1 on the consultation had made it clear that the government was serious about the need for change.

Now the 2nd Stage consultation confirmed that the government is now acting on f40’s well-documented complaints about the inequity and unfairness of the present flawed funding allocation system.

He said: “Naturally f40 is pleased that at last we have a clear recognition of the justice of our long campaign for a fairer system. Over many years the authorities at the bottom of the education funding league table have campaigned to change the very unfair formula that created a ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ situation where there was an extremely large gap between the best and poorest funded authorities.

“However, there is some disappointment that the timeframe for change may be slow and f40 authorities may not see the benefits of the change for quite a few years.

“The current ‘spend-plus’ funding system is opaque, full of anomalies and is unfair. Our aim has been to encourage the government to create a new funding system which is fair, transparent and able to support a diverse range of school provision… and these proposals look promising in that respect.

“We will only be satisfied if the new system that materialises distributes funds in a fair and logical way and directs extra resources towards those pupils who need them. Equally, we want that system to be transparent and easy to understand and explain.”

As a special interest group recognised by the government and LGA, f40 will be actively contributing to the consultation.

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