Fairer Funding

8th January 2016                                                                                       For Immediate Release Congleton Team takes Fight for Fairer Funding to London   As part of her crusade to ensure equal funding for Congleton education, which saw her present a petition to Parliament in December, Fiona Bruce MP led a delegation of local education leaders to London on Tuesday 5th January to meet with the Minister for Childcare and Education, Sam Gyimah MP, to highlight the issues and seek assurance that the situation will soon be resolved. The group included key representative of all stages of education within her constituency, from early years up to eighteen and comprised: ·         Fiona Bruce MP (Congleton) ·   Steve Hodgkinson (Leader of New Life Church - who provide nursery provision in Congleton – and representing Early Years providers) ·    Martin Casserley (Head of Black Firs Primary and Chair of Cheshire East Formula Working Group - who provide advice to the Cheshire East School Forum on local funding decisions - and representing Congleton primaries) ·      David Hermitt (Executive Principal of Congleton High, CEO of Congleton Multi-Academy Trust and Chair of Cheshire East School Forum) ·         Sarah Burns (Head of Sandbach School) ·         Ann Webb (Head of Eaton Bank Academy) ·         John Leigh (Head of Sandbach High and Sixth Form College) Currently there is somewhat of a postcode lottery when it comes to education finance, with no current standard formula for calculating funding across the 151 local authorities. As a consequence, each authority receives a different amount based on historical factors that have resulted in it requiring more or less funding than another. Congleton, as part of Cheshire East, is located in the sixth most poorly funded authority in the country, receiving £200 less per student per year than its next-door neighbour, Cheshire West and Chester, who, itself is seventy fifth out of the 151. This £200 equates to a shortfall of over a £1,000,000 across five years, a significant amount that would make a major difference to the students and schools of our town. Looking at the country as a whole, the disparity between the highest funded and lowest is immense. In 2015, the ten best supported areas were awarded grants averaging £6,300 per pupil, compared with an average of just £4,200 received by the poorest financed. This massive discrepancy of £2,100 represents a difference of over £2.5 million pounds of annual income for an average high school! Ann Webb, Head of Eaton Bank Academy, spoke of her frustration with the situation, reflecting the sentiments of the group: “We are a good school with outstanding features and wish to continue our success but have had to make some very bold staffing decisions moving forward with our budget. The unfairness of the current system makes this even harder” Mr Gyimah has been charged with the responsibility of introducing a new national fairer funding process for education. The visiting group were able to provide the minister with the background to and concrete examples of the impact of this unfair distribution of finance in their particular schools. They posed questions about important issues such as regional differences and the response to national cost pressures such as increased national insurance and pensions. Sarah Burns, Sandbach School Head, commented on this particular concern: “The new formula needs to take account of the regional differences when dealing with changes in national insurance and pension contributions. Changes to employment on-costs are the same but the available funding to deal with this is not. Schools and Academies in better funded local authorities are able to absorb these costs more easily. Cheshire East Schools are already poorly funded per head and a typical school has now had to absorb an additional £73,000 of pension and national insurance costs per annum” The impact of the lagged funding mechanism, by which the deficit is repaid in instalments over time, in causing cash-flow problems where student numbers are rapidly rising, was also highlighted. This has been a particular issue in Cheshire East, where the lack of a Local Plan for housing developments has impacted on educational provision, with the steep increase in new housing not reflected in funding of education. Martin Casserley, Head of Black Firs, shared his school’s experience of this: “At Black Firs Primary school, the local house building has resulted in increased demand for places. With no local guidelines or requirements as to providing financial support for education provision, housing developers are building next to popular oversubscribed schools without making any contribution to the infrastructure costs in Cheshire East.” The role of the Local Authority, the Education Funding Agency and School forums was also discussed, as was the funding of early years education and the impact on nursery provision. Steve Hodgkinson, Leader of the New  Life Church, voiced his optimism for the outcome of the meeting: “ We are pleased that the issue of nursery funding has been clarified and reassurance given that pre-schools would have some flexibility about how they work in the future” Throughout the meeting, the delegation received a favourable response from Mr Gyimah to the issues raised, confirming his awareness of the situation and understanding of their concerns. On conclusion of the session, the minster reassured the group that he would be introducing ways to provide “greater visibility” and ensure that local authorities act in a “consistent way in the new formula”. David Hermitt, Executive Principal of Congleton High, summarised the feelings of the group following the meeting: “We are pleased that the government has made the commitment to introduce this from 2017. We share Mr Gyimah’s desire to change the model to provide equitable funding across all the Local Authorities. Cheshire East is not asking for more than other authorities, just the same, fair amount of funding.”