In a letter to the Cabinet Secretary last week, Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson requested the National Audit Office investigate the mishandling of the education budget, which is set to leave schools in England at a £370 million loss.
Earlier this month, the Department for Education (DfE) announced it had over projected the budget for schools ahead of the 2024/25 academic year. Ministers underestimated the number of pupils in primary and secondary education, and schools will now receive an average of £50 less funding per student than initially proposed.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb was quick to rationalise the impacts of the error, emphasising that headteachers have not yet received this funding and will therefore not be required to make repayments.
The mistake is still set to put pressure on headteachers across the country however, who will be required to redraw budgeting plans. The average secondary school is now expected to find itself at a £57,000 loss in funding.
The error, first identified in September, was not announced by the DfE until after the Conservative Party conference earlier this month. In her letter to the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, Phillipson proposed that the investigation should assess whether the information was purposefully withheld in order to delay accusations of incompetence in government.
Speaking in the House of Commons earlier this week, Phillipson attacked the government in its handling of the error, stating that “it is shambolic, it is chaotic, and our children deserve a lot better.”
This budget blunder is the latest of a series issues putting pressure on the DfE and the government. It follows trouble in September, when hundreds of schools were told they would not be able to open after they were identified as having RAAC concrete in their structures.
It is within this context that Phillipson referred to the budget bungle as “another hammer blow to the relationship of trust between schools, families and government.”
