Judge schools on achievement, not spending

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IT must be the autumn, for this week we have seen more talk of the education “funding fog” and resources “held back” from schools. But this autumn is also the time when children have gone back to smaller classes in schools which have seen unprecedented levels of capital investment. They continue to achieve highly in public examinations: much higher than their equivalents in England. Inspection reports show strong parental satisfaction with schools and with the standards they achieve. So why then the annual complaints that schools are underfunded, and that somehow money intended for schools has gone missing? Local councils all face tough demands on their budgets. Everyone knows that pressure on social services budgets is increasing, roads need extra maintenance and new services such as kerbside recycling have to be provided. There are new burdens such as landfill fines which mean that if targets are not met, there will be less money available for councils and their schools in the future. But the reality is that despite these additional pressures, local council funding for schools has risen by £330 per pupil, well over 7%. That’s three times the rate of inflation. Increases in some individual councils are in double figures. The amount of funding making its way through to teachers and pupils in classrooms is therefore greater than ever.