We have been waiting and waiting and now we know.

There are no school funding cuts coming up.

First there was the worry that desepite having awarded funding for 2010/11 back in November 2007 in the three year plan, this government funding pledge would be broken.  But no.  The school funding for 2010/11 is what it was expected to be. 

Put another way, all the way up to April 2011 schools will be getting exactly what they would have got had there been no recession.

Given that we might have thought that what was to follow would be a disaster area.  But not a bit of it. 

Here’s what the Guardian says about the funding after the next financial year in a story which appeared on www.UKEducationNews.co.uk

“Schools will get modest real-terms increases in their budgets.”  

Schools will get 0.7% real-terms increase between 2011 and 2013, while funding for 16- to 19-year-olds in sixth forms and colleges will get a 0.9% increase in the same period.

The organisations most likely to see a cut are in the FE and HE sectors.

On pay the Guardian says, “Teachers face a 1% cap on their pay rises for two years from 2011. It means the 2.4% pay rise promised for 2011 will go ahead, but teachers, heads, classroom assistants as well as everyone working across the public sector will have their pay restrained beyond that.”

The Department for Children, Schools and Families will have to make savings of £350m from their central budgets and quangos before 2013. 

This all puts the issue of efficiencies in context.  Schools are being encouraged to make efficiency savings but that is not being balanced against cuts.  If the schools make savings through efficiency then that is to their benefit.  If they don’t then that’s their problem.

All in all this is much better news than many feared, and indeed should herald a resumption of regular spending from schools both in the rest of this financial year, and through the next financial year.  Schools now know exactly how much they have, and can plan how to spend it.

Tony Attwood