Shire schools missing out on cash

By Nick Watson Producer, West Midlands Politics Show description here

Shire schools missing out on cash

Schools spending in some Midlands shires is among the lowest in England.

Herefordshire gets the worst deal in this region followed by Shropshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

The government is reviewing its spending formula but nothing is expected to change until 2011/12.

In the meantime children in and around Hereford will have almost £4,000 a year less spent on their education than those in the City of London.

The message about the inequalities in funding could not be clearer

Herefordshire is ranked 149 out of 151 local authority areas in England with £3,830 spent per pupil under the Dedicated Schools Grant.

Top of the list is the City of London which gets £7,603 to spend per child. In fact 19 of the top 20 spots are filled by London boroughs.

Rural locations

Shropshire is ranked 146th with £3,850 per pupil, Worcestershire (142nd) gets £3,864 and Gloucestershire (140th) £3,880.

The reason for this is that, under the current funding formula, deprived inner city areas get more money at the expense of leafier rural locations.

That is reflected in the West Midlands where the areas which get the most cash are Birmingham (26th) £4,605, Sandwell (43rd) £4,371 and Wolverhampton (48th) £4,309.

Campaign group f40 has been fighting for a number of years now to get a fairer deal for the areas at the bottom of the list.

And at a conference on Tuesday (November 3, 2009) they were able to put their case directly to the Schools Minister Vernon Coaker.

Speaking after the event Mr Coaker said that he recognised that there were issues around the funding formula which need to be addressed.

"We are in the middle of a review at the current time," he said.

"We are listening to the concerns that they've got and we intend to come forward with a new system in the financial year 2011/12 which we hope will address some of their concerns."

Mr Coaker pointed to Staffordshire as an example where extra money had been allocated after lobbying from f40 and the local authority.

Unfair system

Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb, who was also at the conference, said there was an urgent need for an overhaul of the current funding system.

"It has to be unfair that funding for pupils in Herefordshire is so much lower than areas such as Tower Hamlets. There are different challenges in different areas but the gap is so wide now that it's become inexplicable," he said.

Vernon Coaker says the funding formula used is under review.

If the Conservatives win the next General Election Mr Gibb said they would "try to iron out" the unfairness in the current formula which has 80 to 90 different variables.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat's Education spokesman and also at the event supported reform saying the funding system needed to be fairer.

"The picture in the West Midlands is that some areas are really penalised," he said.

"What that can mean is that a secondary school with a thousand pupils may have £1m less in funding than a secondary school of a similar size in one of our urban centres and many people feel that is very unfair."