A group of England's lowest-funded local education authorities has had
its bid for extra funding turned down by the Education Secretary Michael Gove.
Schools run by members of the group, known as f40, get up to £600
less in basic grant per pupil than the local council average.
The group of schools had asked for £99m to share between them
until a new national funding formula is introduced in 2015.
Turning them down, Mr Gove blamed the economic situation and the
group heard the decision just days before Mr Gove announced approval for about
100 new free schools.
He added that because of the "reality of the current economic
situation" any extra funds would have had to have come from elsewhere in
the funding system.
Group secretary Doug Allen said what made the news particularly
difficult was coverage of grants to free schools.
"I read recently that Mr Gove is giving £2m to a school in
Beccles for a small number of pupils. You have to question where is the sense
in that, where is all that extra money coming from?"
The group was asked specifically by Mr Gove in March to produce
some financial modelling to show how the issue could be addressed. He
highlighted the disparities in funding using the example of schools close to
each other in Leicester City and Leicestershire.
"You could be living in one street and go to a school in
Leicestershire that gets £800 per pupil less than the one someone else in that
street goes to because it is a Leicester city school."
No comments:
Post a Comment