Fiscal Phil puts potholes before pupils in “little things” Budget
The Chancellor of the Exchequer outlined his spending plans in the Budget on Monday but had little to offer schools. The key points for educators are:
- School equipment and maintenance uplift – Schools across England will receive £400m this year to spend on their equipment and facilities. The Chancellor sparked controversy with his use of language, stating that the money was “for the little things”. This will be a single capital payment to schools, with an average of £10k primary and £50k secondary. How the money will be apportioned is not yet known.
- CYP mental health crisis service – The Chancellor has alloted up to £250m a year by 2023/24 for new mental health crisis services. Part of the crisis service will be focused on children. The Chancellor said further information would be in the 10-year NHS plan which will be published shortly.
- Maths and physics teacher retention trial – The Budget provides funding for a £10m regional trial to test how to improve retention of early career maths and physics teachers. No further detail was provided on this announcement.
- End of WWI centenary and Holocaust commemoration – To mark the centenary of the end of the First World War, the Treasury will provide £1 million to pay for battlefield visits. A further £1.7 million will be provided to a charity to pay for projects in schools marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.
- Full fibre broadband in rural schools – The Budget allocates £200m from the National Productivity Investment Fund to pilot innovative approaches to deploying full fibre internet in rural locations, starting with primary schools. The first wave will include Northumberland primaries.
- End to PFI – The Chancellor said the Government would no longer use private finance initiatives (PFI) to fund new building projects, including schools. Existing projects will be unaffected.
- Uncertainty around policy ‘intentions’– The OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook listed 15 separate policy ‘intentions’ where firm Government policy is yet to be announced. These areas were left out of the Budget.
Responding to the Chancellor’s speech, Director of Schools North East Mike Parker said:
“The Chancellor started his Budget off in jovial fashion declaring he was ‘Phil the Fiscal’ but his crass comments on funding the ‘little things’ in education is more akin to Phil the Flippant. His comments deny the depth of under-funding in schools, forcing them to write to parents to beg for support and seeing teachers made redundant, curriculum narrowing and slashing the vital enrichment in schools that support the most deprived.
“It is also striking that the Chancellor is more committed to filling holes in the road than he is to filling the holes in education with the announcement of a £420 million ‘pothole’ fund.
“No Head will turn their nose up at this one-off handout but it’s time Philip Hammond went back to school to see at first hand the funding crisis and its impact on all children, especially those the Prime Minister’s social mobility drive is intended to benefit. A longer term, properly resourced plan is urgently needed to more adequately support schools in these austere times for education.”
On the announcement of improving access to Children and Young Peoples’ Mental Health services, Mike Parker said:
“Schools North East strongly backs the creation of a Children and Young Peoples’ Mental Health Crisis Service in every part of the country. This is huge area of concern for school leaders who are seeing children presenting with more difficult and complex problems than ever before.
“It is essential that a greater focus is placed on the causes of children’s’ mental health problems, some of which are inextricably linked to the higher stakes nature of current education policy. Prevention is vital as this will reduce the cost of funding the symptoms of mental ill health run the long term.”
“Schools North East launched the UK’s first and only schools-led mental health commission – Healthy MindED – in response to demand from schools in our region for support, and together we are committed to improving the mental health of children across our region.”