Both Local Authorities and MATs support their schools’ budget planning by providing projections beyond the current academic year and for at least the following two financial years, as required by the government.
The mistakes made by the DfE are to do with the projections they have provided to relevant bodies, such as Derbyshire County Council, to be able to plan for the future based on money schools believed that they would get in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 funding cycles. So from the DfE point of view, they can claim that schools have not lost out because this was only about projections, rather than actual funds; but from everyone else’s point of view, a change in the future funding creates a lot of challenges, especially for those who had only just managed to put a plan together this year that avoided a 3-year deficit.
It would appear that schools are now facing approximately a 1% decrease in their budget allocation for 24/25 and the same again in 25/26 versus what we have been told since at least April. For many schools, this will run into the £10,000s: money they thought they would have, but now discover they won’t.
This article in Schools Week summarises the responses to the suituation by the various teaching unions, and this one from the National Assiciation of Headteachers gives more detail on the precise nature of the error and its impact on schools.
The government has ordered an inquiry and the department has apologised. The error was known about in September (according to Schools Week) but wasn’t announced until after the Conservative Party Conference had ended. It won’t be at all surprising if there is corrective action in the Autumn Statement with headlines along the lines of ‘Government increase all school funding by an extra 1% for the next two years’.
If any Chair of Governors wishes to write to the Secretary of State on this matter, we have provided a template here that you can download and alter to suit your purposes – click the button below to downlaod it.
dsga.org.uk 