Schools facing catastrophic winter

[noblegiraffe]

Schools are starting their Autumn term facing an unprecedented funding crisis. Headteachers are becoming increasingly frantic in their disbelief that the government has done fuck all about it, and appears to be planning to continue to do fuck all about it.

There are few issues contributing -

The energy crisis - school energy bills are not capped, unlike household ones. To give an idea of the scale of the issue, Ormiston Academies Trust which sponsors 43 schools will see its energy bills rise from £5.1 million to £14.3 million. Grant Shapps, transport minister, says that schools could consider switching to LED lightbulbs.

Teacher and support staff payrises - the government have recommended payrises for teachers and support staff, but crucially will not be giving schools extra money to fund them. If schools give staff the recommended pay rise, they will have to cut services to fund this (even before you consider the energy bills)

The cost of living crisis - schools are facing increased prices just as households are. Food for the canteen, stationery orders, everything is more expensive. Sam Freedman tweets "Very rough calculation is that energy bills plus teacher pay increase plus higher food costs are going to add around £5bn to school budgets nationally. Just under 10% of the total budget. And none of it was built into the funding model."

On top of that, covid still needs to be considered. Last Jan/Feb schools were in chaos due to staff absences (the government widely trumpeted their call for an army of volunteers to step in, which didn't appear). At the end of the summer term, all the education unions wrote to James Cleverly, temp Ed Sec asking for a covid plan that included increased funding to schools for supply teachers to cover staff absence. Given that we haven't actually got a functioning government at the moment, I'm pretty sure he hasn't replied. Signs are that we're facing a bad flu season too, vaccinating school staff should be a consideration. Some schools already pay for the flu jab for staff, most won't be eligible for a covid booster, no idea what the impact of that will be. Obviously there will be pressure to close windows to keep any heat in, which goes against covid guidance for ventilation.

Some academy trusts appear to have large reserves which will help them weather the storm, most very much don't. twitter.com/ajjolley/status/1564562763443277825?s=21&t=nmM2Q_vFCmo5GzILNNKhfg

School leaders are reporting that they will have to make support staff and/or teachers redundant or pause recruitment, restrict heating, cancel school trips and extra curricular activities. This will inevitably have an impact on children, and on the quality of education on offer.

I'm not sure what either Truss or Sunak have said about the crisis facing education, all I've heard is wittering about grammar schools. An intervention is needed urgently.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/energy-bills-cost-of-living-crisis-schools-face-catastrophic-winter

The Daily Mail has published another serious story about schools. And the best rated comments are supportive. Bloody hell, it must be bad.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11174831/Schools-slash-teaching-staff-school-trips-heads-grapple-300-energy-bill-rises.html

What the hell?! Have people belatedly realised that shafting schools is shafting children?

I manage the finances for 4 schools.

I've had a high level meeting about this (again) today and we have decided to take a bury heads in sand approach. We have decent reserves compared to our peers so can manage for longer than some. If we have to we'll declare a deficit. Government won't/can't let all schools go bust.

We won't be turning the heating off, that's just ridiculous.

If we have to we'll declare a deficit. Government won't/can't let all schools go bust.

The DfE line is that schools should be able to afford stuff because they've increased funding (despite per-pupil funding being below 2010 levels). Just like they keep parroting that teaching remains a popular and attractive profession.

I'm not sure exactly what will force them into action.

I wonder if all schools will go ‘fuck it’ and overspend their budgets and many of them go into deficit. They can’t just put all deficit Trusts into those few Trusts that seem to have amassed a fortune (love to know how)

I saw on twitter that some school governor was planning to not pay the bill as the company 'wouldn't cut off a school'.

Apparently they will cut off schools.

Could we turn all schools into forest schools to save on heating? The way things are going our future generation might need survival skills!

In the comments section of the daily Mail article one poster claims

“In Germany we have appeals every week to send food and blankets to children in the UK who are left destitute. It's simply awful and shocking, what an uncaring nation.”

surely this is a lie?

Probably a lie, but we have appeals to donate to food banks to feed hungry kids and warm banks are being set up to warm them up, so it's certainly a need.

What a country we are living in where Tories tout food banks as a success and pose for photoshoots at them instead of a mark of shame.

We don’t have a school field, let alone a forest as it was sold off for housing!

That might be a solution for any schools that do have any playing fields left to sell, to bridge the funding gap

A1 effort but not even the worst kind of troll would write this. Get away with you.

So short sighted, reducing TAs is going to drive even more teachers to throw in the towel...it is a funny economy with soaring costs but as yet no evidence of any impact on unemployment, in fact many shortage areas.

Well why don't we just recreate the Lapland experience for all kids, come to school, borrow some ski gear, in to the classroom you go.

In Truss we Trust I suppose...

Apparently in Truss we don't Trust.

So what happens if schools can't pay their bills? Goverment isn't going to have them all close.

We have already had two members of support staff resign and we’ve only been back two days! They have found better
paid jobs and are off, leaving two very high need pupils with EHC plans unsupported. The parents will be distraught. The local school job page is absolutely full of 1:1 TA vacancies-the pay is just dreadful though.

For a maintained school first step is leaders and governors agreeing to a plan which will correct the deficit. LA finance officers oversee this. Leaders and governors are accountable.
The LA can remove the governing board if the plan is not agreed or followed.
However, putting an IEB in place, rather than the local board, raises the profile with OFSTED.

However, we have many schools with deficits. They are rural, needed for places and distance to children homes ; academy trusts will not touch them. They can't be closed as the LA is legally bound to provide school places.

A mess!

I suppose the DfE could ask OFSTED to focus on budget but if that resulted in an inadequate judgement and academisation....we are back to the same, no trust will take on the school.
We already have schools where academy trusts are unwilling to take them on, even though the school has been inadequate for ages. The RSC ( or whatever they are called now) does not seem to have the power (or use the powers given) to make trusts take on these schools. Where there are enough school places in a town, schools like this are closing, Parents have less choice and further to travel. In some cases, the heart of the community is lost.

Some of the small, rural secondary school deficits are eye watering. Year on year there just isn't enough funding coming in.

@Appuskidu Our council website is full of school jobs too! Not just TA’s, school admin, school business managers, cooks, caretakers and cleaners.

A school business manager explained.
She'd been offered a building society post, 4 days a week rather than her 5 days in school. Her new 4 day BS role, is working from home - and is £9,500 more than her school, 5 day week.
As she is working from 9.00am for the BS she doesn't need child care before school either.
Win, win for her.
With national school BM pay scales and a really tight budget, there is nothing the HT can do to match the pay nevermind terms and conditions.

The United Kingdom spent approximately 100.3 billion British pounds on education in 2021/22, 51.3 billion of which was spent on secondary education and 32.9 billion of which was spent on primary and pre-primary education.

Source: www.statista.com/statistics/298910/united-kingdom-uk-public-sector-expenditure-education/#:~:text=The%20United%20Kingdom%20spent%20approximately,primary%20and%20pre%2Dprimary%20education.

What I find truly shocking is that after the Government spaffed £450 billion on Covid measures taking the total Government debt to £2.5 trillion the interest bill on this debt is currently £90 billion and rising (higher inflation and interest rates the higher the bill).

www.ft.com/content/f4298409-c817-498f-885c-3f6527457116

So we are currently spending about the same just on interest on the national debt as we are on education.

Meanwhile Government borrowing is still rising and with pressure from the public to help out on the cost of living plus Liz Truss promises to cut taxes and increase spending the debt and interest bill will just get bigger.

Latest mutterings are that new Ed Sec will not be Badenoch (perhaps even Liz realised that's not a good idea) but either Edward Argar, or a return for Michele Donelan , previously Ed Sec for 0.000001 seconds.

The United Kingdom spent approximately 100.3 billion British pounds on education in 2021/22

"Schools have faced tough times in recent years. Per-pupil funding fell by 9% between 2010 and 2020, what the Institute for Fiscal Studies describes as the largest cut to school funding in more than 40 years. Schools serving the poorest communities suffered the worst: they saw a drop of 14% in per-pupil funding in real terms. Since 2020, the government has increased funding but it is still slightly lower than in 2010 and, again, schools in the poorest areas have been awarded just over half the increase of those in the most affluent"

From a good article in the Observer today:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/04/the-observer-view-energy-crisis-price-of-warm-schools-mustnt-be-fewer-teachers

The article also points out "Yet Liz Truss, the leading contender in the Conservative leadership contest, the result of which will be announced tomorrow, has pledged a series of tax cuts that experts believe will cost £50bn a year. This will be impossible to achieve without a significant scaling back of government spending, which will come at the time just when the public realm can least afford it."

So Liz Truss will need to cut public spending at a time when more is desperately needed. How is she going to achieve that?

Bleak times ahead.

@noblegiraffe

"So Liz Truss will need to cut public spending at a time when more is desperately needed. How is she going to achieve that?"

+++

So starting from the biggest spends first - she can't cut State and Public Sector pensions because older people vote and young people don't. She can't cut Health spending because post Covid the NHS is a sacred cow and any cuts / restructuring would be electoral suicide.

Which next leaves the education budget. Young people don't vote and let's be honest the Tories have never been the biggest friend of teachers.

Oh and she has also committed to increase the defence budget by £2o billion which currently stands at £50 billion.

The article is correct that increasing debt further is not the answer. Creating more money is like throwing petrol on a fire and will simply increase inflation further. It will significantly increase interest payments on the debt to overtake spending on education.

Sadly we are all to blame for this (including myself). The vast majority supported £450 billion of Covid support measures, the closure of schools, many enjoyed the benefits of furlough, a lot of people thoroughly enjoyed their half price Nando's under eat out to help out and we all went along with it clapping like performing seals in support of the NHS. And anyone in the minority who dared to go against the orthodoxy was branded a Covid denier / anti vaxxer or granny killer.

All of this was because Covid was a once in a 100 years pandemic that we needed to "beat". Except it hasn't been beat, it's still around although with official figures no longer being published daily we can all pretend it's no longer there. The great vaccine roll out did not stop people getting Covid as was originally believed and its effectiveness to reduce symptoms is negligible after 270 days.

The problem is the voters live in the now and always want easy answers. Answer to Covid - lock the economy down and create massive debt which in turns fuels inflation. Problem with cost of living crisis? - let's create more debt which makes for an even bigger problem later.

But you are absolutely right that this winter will be incredibly tough for the majority and for a minority actually fatal.

But politicians that give the truth, hard reality or tough but necessary measures don't get elected.

It is rather hard to believe that there is no money to sort out energy bills when the companies are making huge profits.

In the same way that it's hard to believe that there's no money to come up with solutions other than pumping sewage into the sea when water companies are making huge profits,

Energy companies are on track to make £170b over the next couple of years. Nationalise the energy companies, halve the prices charged to curb the crisis and use the profits now going into the treasury to increase the education budget.