The new Conservative Government will be delivering on its pledges to increase schools funding by providing schools with an additional £14bn across three years, the largest funding boost in a decade. Next year – 2020/21 – this will mean a £2.6bn increase to core schools funding.
Analysis by the independent House of Commons Library shows what the Government’s action means for our schools in Esher and Walton. Next year the average primary school will receive £3,869 per pupil – a real-terms increase of 3.7%. The average secondary school will receive £5,118 per pupil – a real-terms increase of 1.7%. Both of these percentage increases are greater than the average across England.
Alongside this, the Government is pursuing an important reform in schools funding. At the moment, the Department for Education uses a national formula to produce funding allocations for individual schools, adds together the individual amounts for each school and, then, sends a lump sum to the relevant local authority. The local authority is then free to decide how that money is shared out between its schools, using its own formula.
From next year, local authorities will be obliged to give primary schools at least £3,750 per pupil, and secondaries at least £5,000 per pupil. The following year, this will increase to a minimum of £4,000 per pupil for primary schools. This is the first step towards making sure that schools receive the amount they are supposed to under the national formula. I will be meeting with Tim Oliver, Leader of Surrey County Council, to discuss the Elmbridge allocation shortly.
These measures will help to make sure we have the excellent schools that children in Esher and Walton need.