Heads denounce 'exorbitant' costs

By Gary Eason
Education editor, BBC News website, at the NAHT conference

David Hart called cost rises a 'scandal'

Head teachers say they are facing sometimes "exorbitant" rises in the charges local education authorities make for their services.

Examples given by the National Association of Head Teachers included an increase of 50% for legal services, 51% for building maintenance and in one case 146% for property services.

General secretary David Hart called for a cap on such rises equivalent to the guaranteed minimum increase in funding schools in England were getting.

The Local Government Association said its members did not recognise the figures and queried their validity.

'Monopoly'

Mr Hart said the issue was all the more urgent as funding for schools was being moved to three-year budgets.

The guaranteed minimum increase this year was 4% for secondary and special schools and 5% for primary schools.

Many schools had received more, he conceded - but still "far short" of most of the price rises.

One of his members in a Midlands primary school said his service costs had gone up from £49,700 to £60,400 - an increase of 21%.

This included 34% on insurance, 23% on personnel services and 15% on information technology support.

Mr Hart said this was by no means exceptional. It was "a scandal".

Schools could and often did use the private sector instead, but this was not a realistic option for small schools.

"The local authorities are effectively in a monopoly position in many instances and are abusing that," he said.

School reserves

But local government leaders hit back at the "dubious" claims.

The Chairman of the Local Government Association, Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, said: "Schools can purchase services from whomever they like but local authorities do provide excellent value for money and this is why they are popular with schools as service providers.

"There is no monopoly for services and contracts can always be renegotiated. Heads can always challenge any charges through schools forums."

The NAHT had been unclear about how had arrived at its figures or whether any comprehensive research had been undertaken.

"One-off examples do not provide evidence for a national trend. The examples NAHT cites may reflect particular local circumstances or supplier cost increases which means these services would cost more whoever provided them."

The head teachers' complaint was made as it was revealed that primary schools in England had nearly £750m in their bank accounts in 2003-04.

Figures from the Department for Education and Skills showed the average surplus was about £50,000, though one school in Manchester had £697,362.

But members of the NAHT dismissed the issue as "an old chestnut".

They said official guidance for primary schools was to carry over no more than 8% of the budget - which was about £50,000.

There might be many reasons for this, typically associated with accumulating funds to carry out a particular project.

Workload deal

Another, pressing reason was the implementation of the national agreement for England and Wales on reducing teachers' workloads.

This requires that, from September, teachers get 10% of their time out of the classroom for planning and assessment work.

The NAHT has voted to withdraw from the agreement, claiming many of its members cannot afford this - with David Hart even suggesting some might have to close to pupils on Friday afternoons.

He told journalists on Friday that although they had a legal obligation, challenges if they failed to comply would not be against them but against school governors and local education authorities, as the teachers' employers.

But he did not really want to see any member of the NAHT get themselves into that position because the fallout would hurt them.

Liz Paver, a member of the union's national council, said she did not think parents had realised what the changes would mean - and would not want their children taught by learning assistants.