Heads in plea to scrap £20m funding cuts
BIRMINGHAM headteachers have issued a last-ditch plea to the Government to scrap plans to cut their funding by £20 million.
Heads are to meet Education Ministers in London to highlight the damage funding cuts will do Birmingham schools and their pupils. A Government consultation on the changes closed on Wednesday.
It comes as Prime Minister Theresa May has been under pressure from Conservative MPs and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to think again about the plans.
The Department for Education said the current funding system needed to change because schools in some parts of the country get far more money than others. For example, schools in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, receive less than those in nearby Birmingham.
But figures published by the Department for Education showed under the planned new system, schools in Birmingham would lose £20.1 million.
By contrast, schools in leafy Kent, in the south east, will gain a massive £25.5 million.
Six headteachers from Erdington are to meet schools minister Nick Gibb at Westminster, along with Erdington MP Jack Dromey (Lab).
Mr Dromey said: “As the Government comes to decide, it must hear the voice of Birmingham’s children. The heads will bring home just how serious the threat is and ask for genuine fairness and proper funding.”
Other Birmingham MPs have also opposed the changes. Independent watchdog, the National Audit Office, which is politically neutral, has warned that schools nationwide need to save £3 billion.
But the Government cannot just scrap the funding formula change – because many Tory MPs say it is needed.
Conservatives in places like Staffordshire and Worcestershire say it is not fair that their schools get so much less money than those in Birmingham – and the new formula will make the system fairer for them.
The Prime Minister defended the funding changes in the Commons, but stressed the Government had launched a consultation rather than announcing a final decision. Mrs May said: “The national funding formula is a consultation and obviously there will be a number of views.”