'London schools face £600m budget cuts in next four years'

Pic: A class room
Educational reporter(wp/es):

London schools face more than £600million worth of budget cuts by 2020, unions have claimed.

An average of £570 less could be spent on each pupil in the capital within four years, according to calculations by two teaching unions.

It means 16,000 teaching jobs could be lost in the capital, the unions said.

The startling statistics were calculated by the National Union of Teachers and ATL Education Union following government plans to reallocate the way grants are given to schools across the UK.

But the government disputed the unions’ estimates, claiming they were based on “speculative figures” and deemed it “irresponsible scaremongering”.

The NUT said the figures - which have been released with a map showing how London postcodes could be affected - pointed to an “uncomfortable truth” about school funding.

The unions are predicting London authorities’ school budgets will face cuts of 10 per cent by 2020 as money is redistributed elsewhere and budgets are not protected against inflation.

Among the worst hit boroughs could be Southwark, Lambeth and Hackney, which could all face cuts of more than £1,000 less per pupil in four years, the unions claim.

They added that Newham could face a budget loss of over £41 million while Southwark is expected to lose out by £38 million – putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk.

The top five highest risk boroughs are the City of London, Southwark, Hackney, Haringey and Kensington and Chelsea, it was claimed.

The shake-up is part of government plans to introduce a national funding formula, which determines how much councils receive for their schools budget.

Currently the amount of money local authorities are given by the government can vary wildly – with the best funded areas given a grant of nearly £6,300 compared to £4,200 in other areas.

The Department for Education opened a consultation on the national funding formula with hopes of rolling it out by April 2018.

The NUT said the figures said there would be a budget cut equivalent to eight per cent based on predicted inflation rates between now and 2020.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “As the NUT and ATL’s own report admits, they do not even reflect the Government's proposed fairer funding formula for schools, which is yet to be published. 

“In reality the schools budget has been protected and in 2016-17 totals over £40 billion, the highest ever on record. 

“The government's fairer funding proposals will ensure that areas with the highest need attract the most funding and end the historic unfairness in the system."

Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the NUT, said: “Far from being irresponsible the NUT and ATL are pointing to the uncomfortable truth about school funding. 

“The government is not protecting the schools budget against inflation and higher costs.  

“In its response, the government does not seek to challenge the fact that school funding per pupil will be cut in real terms by £2.5bn a year so that schools are worse off by at least 8 per cent per pupil by the end of this Parliament.”