The f40 Group, which has campaigned for fairer funding of education for over 20 years, has broadly welcomed the latest government announcement on school funding.
Responding to an announcement by the Secretary of State for Education, the Rt. Hon. Justine Greening MP, to the House of Commons today, f40 Chairman, Cllr Ivan Ould, said: “There are some positive elements to the national fair funding announcement that we must welcome, including the extra funding over the next two years, the guarantee of minimum funding that each primary and secondary school will attract and the potential for fast gains in per pupil funding for the very lowest funded schools.
“On the face of it, the promised protected funding for additional needs is also welcome, though once again we need to see how the funding allocations are applied.
“But importantly, I hope that the government looks upon what is on offer today as just another step towards fairer funding and the removal of significant inequities in the funding allocation system.
“The immediate task is to check the many figures and percentages presented in the announcement to see how they apply to the poorest funded local authorities and schools and to determine whether they produce the kind of results that f40 has called for.
“As with previous announcements on this extremely complicated topic, it is important that we look behind the headlines to check what is really on the table. We will be getting to work on applying the new figures to our spreadsheets straight away and discussing the latest position with our member authorities.
F40 Vice Chair Alex Chalk MP (Cheltenham) added: ““This is a major step forward and will mean significant additional funding going to the front line in schools that have been penalised by an unfair formula for too long. It is clear that the government has listened to the concerns that were expressed by f40 and others and has improved the initial draft formula produced by officials. Although regional inequity will not be eradicated by these changes, it’s good news that they will at least be substantially mitigated.”
