Tories’ schools spending cuts take us back to 1990s – Powell

The Tories’ attitude towards state schools is “irresponsible and reckless” with schools, Lucy Powell has said as she published data showing schools must save £7.5bn by 2020.

Funding is slumping back to the era of John Major with schools facing the first real-terms budget cut since the mid-1990s.

Schools are likely to cut staff numbers and extra-curricular activities in order to find the savings, Labour said, with two-thirds of school leaders saying they will be unable to balance the books by 2020.

There will be a real terms cut per pupil due to the value only being protected in cash terms. Inflation will reduce schools funding by £3.2bn of the overall total, with the rest of the savings coming from extra cost pressures, such as the costs from the conversion into academiesm which the Government has made compulsory for all schools in the Budget.

Lucy Powell, shadow Education Secretary, said the Conservatives’ decisions would “harm standards” in schools.

“Whilst the Tories try to pretend that they are protecting school budgets, parents and school leaders are finding out that the reality does not match the rhetoric. Many parents will be extremely worried to learn that over the course of the Parliament schools will be forced to reduce teacher numbers, extra-curricular activities and the courses they offer, risking the quality of education that children should receive.

“At the same time, this Government’s costly reorganisation to force every school to become an academy, will remove even more money, time and effort away from where the focus in schools should be – on raising standards. With such financial challenges facing education under the Tories, this unnecessary and unfounded distraction to ‘academise’ all schools is irresponsible and reckless, and can only harm standards in our schools.”

Last month Jeremy Corbyn accused the Tories of having an “asset stripping” agenda, when he appeared at the National Union of Teachers conference, following revelations of a £560m “black hole” in funding for the forced academisation programme.

One in six schools are now over-capacity, with staff redundancies likely to worsen the problem. Local authorities cannot compel academies to increase the number of student places available, only request that they do so. Some 84,000 families failed to secure the preferred school place for their child this year.