‘Fairer funding’ to ‘strip city schools to the bone’ Head hits out as Birmingham could be biggest loser in region
BIRMINGHAM schools face being ‘stripped to the bone’ by the Government’s so-called fairer funding formula, a city head has claimed.
The city’s schools stand to lose £20.1 million a year under the Government changes which redistribute education spending from large urban areas to rural and county schools.
All but seven of the 400 schools will see their budgets cut with many secondary schools losing between £100,000 and £225,000.
Education Secretary Justine Greening announced long-awaited plans to change the way schools are funded last week.
It is designed to end complaints that schools in some parts of the country get more cash per pupil than others for no good reason.
But the figures published by the Government show Birmingham schools will lose £20.1 million under the plans, from a city-wide budget of £852 million.
Coventry schools lose £5 million, and schools in Walsall lose £261,000.
Andy Bird, chief executive of the Fairfax Multi-Academy Trust chain of schools, said that providing a quality education was becoming increasingly difficult in the face of Government cuts.
Mr Bird oversees Fairfax Academy in Sutton Coldfield, which is set to lose £169,000, Bournville School (losing £116,000) and Erdington Academy (gaining £56,000) under the Department for Education proposals. He said the new formula follows an eight per cent real-terms cut in school funding by 2020.
“Whilst I appreciate the public sector has to find efficiency savings, continuous funding cuts are leaving us stripped to the bone,” he said.
“To compound matters further, we now discover the new funding formula will see Birmingham schools being hit particularly hard in what can only be described as a postcode lottery.
“Providing pupils with a quality education is becoming an increasing challenge with too much of our time being diverted from concentrating on what matters to instead trying to make ends meet. Our children only get one shot of their education – how can you put a price on that?”
Waverley School, in Bordesley Green, which will lose £222,000 from its £7.5 million annual budget. principal Kamal Hanif said: “Through deprivation and expansions our schools are already facing difficul- ties. They should bring other school budgets up, raise the benchmark, not make these cuts.”
Birmingham City Council’s Labour education chief Brigid Jones accused the Government of piling further misery on the city.
“We are looking at the figures in detail but we do know that the vast majority – all but seven - of Birmingham’s 400-plus schools will lose out to this new formula,” she said. “This is yet another funding cut on an under-pressure city and its services.”
But there’s good news for some other parts of the West Midlands.
Schools in Solihull are set to gain an extra £4.2 million in funding.
Worcestershire schools include a cash increase of £6.5 million.
The figures were published as part of a consultation and show how funding for schools would be different if the new system was in place right now.
Precise allocations will be different by the time the new system begins to be introduced in 2018 because of inflation and because pupil numbers may have changed.
Education Secretary Ms Greening said: “Our proposed reforms will mean an end to historical unfairness and underfunding for certain schools.
“We need a system that funds schools according to the needs of their pupils rather than their postcode, levelling the playing field and giving parents the confidence that every child will have an equal opportunity to
reach their full potential.”