News

Spring Budget: ‘A dereliction of duty’

School funding and finance Government policy Vocational education
As schools continue to warn about the huge funding pressures they face, the Spring Budget last week offered no relief, instead diverting funding to support new selective free schools. Pete Henshaw reports

“Schools are running out of things they can cut” – this was the pre-Budget message from headteachers to chancellor Philip Hammond, a message that seemingly has been ignored.

Mr Hammond was this week accused of a “dereliction of duty” after his Budget handed millions to potentially selective new free schools but gave nothing to existing schools.

With schools being forced to find savings of £3 billion by 2020 (see panel, School funding), education bodies, unions and headteachers themselves had called on Mr Hammond to offer some respite in his Budget.

The plea above came in a letter to the chancellor from the National Association of Head Teachers and National Governors’ Association (Funding crisis: Last-ditch bid to influence Spring Budget, SecEd, March 2016: http://bit.ly/2mhGoY4).

Register now, read forever

Thank you for visiting SecEd and reading some of our content for professionals in secondary education. Register now for free to get unlimited access to all content.

What's included:

  • Unlimited access to news, best practice articles and podcast

  • New content and e-bulletins delivered straight to your inbox every Monday and Thursday

Register

Already have an account? Sign in here