I was pleased today that the Secretary of State announced £1300 million more for English schools across 2018-19 and 2019-20. I had been pressing her and the Treasury hard to make more money available in total for schools, as had others.
She went on to explain that “we are able to increase the percentage allocated to pupil led factors and this formula settlement to 2019-20 will provide at least £4,800 per pupil for every secondary school”. Again I with others had pressed for more of the money to be granted as a per pupil payment so that Councils like Wokingham and West Berkshire would benefit fully.
The government is still planning on introducing a fairer funding formula for 2018-19 and beyond. For the first two years the “national funding formula will set indicative budgets for each school” but “local authorities will continue to set a local formula as they do now for determining individual schools budgets in 2018-19 and 2019-20.” The details of the new national formula will be set out in September.
I will follow up with the Secretary of State on the detail of the formula as I am keen to see a decent result for local schools.
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