Government should accept “efficiency savings” are cuts, IFS tells Select Committee
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) was among the organisations giving evidence to the Education Select Committee this week.
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the IFS, said the recent announcement of a further £20bn for the NHS to 2024 “poses quite severe challenges” for the Department for Education.
As reported elsewhere in this newsletter the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has allegedly ruled out any extra spending on schools as well as several other areas in light of the NHS funding announcement. The Government has offered few details on how the £20bn commitment will be paid for.
When asked by the committee chair, Robert Halfon, how education could be affected by the announcement, Mr Sibieta said there could be tax rises, borrowing, or “spending cuts elsewhere….it clearly poses quite severe challenges for high-spending departments like education,” the funding expert told MPs.
Mr Sibieta said the government should accept that the £3bn of “efficiency savings” Ministers have asked schools to make amounts to “cuts”. “You should call it what it is – it is cutting spending. And it is very hard to work out what the impact of cutting spending will be on pupil outcomes later on down the line,” he said.