IFS report shows hardest hit schools face 'financial cliff edge' in 2020 says GMB
New schools funding formula will see some schools face fresh attacks as Prime Minister finds £1 billion for her pet grammar schools scheme.
The government’s ‘flawed’ new funding formula will see the hardest hit schools facing a “financial cliff edge” in 2020, according to a new study.
A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggests 1,000 schools will be forced to take a massive hit of seven per cent per pupil when ‘transitional protections’ run out.
Every school in the country faces brutal cuts under the current plan – with £74,000 set to be slashed off primary school budgets on average while secondaries stand to lose £291,000.
Protections are in place to ensure no school should see a cash terms cut of more than 3%, or 6% in real-terms, before 2019-20.
However when even these protections end, 5% of schools - an estimated 1,000 - will then have to make huge savings of more than 7% to stay in line with the new formula.
GMB, the union for schools support staff, says these savage cuts are particularly divisive at a time when Theresa May has earmarked £1 billion for her Grammar schools vanity project - as exposed by GMB.
Sharon Wilde, GMB National Officer for Schools, said:
“As if every single school facing cuts from this flawed funding formula wasn’t bad enough, we now find out those hardest hit will be speeding towards a financial cliff edge.
“These so-called 'transitional protections' are so flimsy that they are barely worth the name.
"Pupils, parents - and the staff who support them - are being exposed to a brutal attack on their resources.
“GMB members – the hidden professionals in our schools' forgotten army of support staff - will be in the firing line as these cuts begin to bite.
“Justine Greening is creating a ticking time bomb – a lost generation of children whose future will be snatched away by ill-conceived ideas of austerity.
“Yet despite this funding crisis, the Prime Minister can still find £1 billion for her pet grammar schools project.”
