Impact of new cuts to state school funding

[Novotelchok]

There are a lot of headlines just now about further cuts to state school funding - through inadequate central government funding of pay rises & NI increases, and pupil premium not going up enough. I'm not in England so only know what's in the papers - I'd be very interested to hear how this is impacting schools/ children / families.

I'm not a journalist, just an interested parent & a voter who is pretty worried by what seems to be Austerity 2.0.

I actually agree with restricting PIP - the cost has ballooned out of control - but it would have been far better to firstly bring in means testing. If winter fuel allowance and child benefit are means tested why isn't PIP?

Many disabled people are literally being starved and forced to homelessness as disability benefits do not cover private rent and there is no social
housing available.

There is nothing to "means test".

London streets are flooded with homeless people.

It's an utter, horrible disgrace.

🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂 funny!

I was looking at my tax breakdown the other day - how all the tax I (and everyone else I presume) pay gets allocated. I was shocked to see that more of our tax contributions go on servicing the INTEREST of the country's debt (not repaying it, just paying the interest) than on education. Welfare gets almost twice as much as schools, and the NHS the most. Yet benefits are being cut, people can't afford to feed their kids and people are dying waiting for an ambulance. Sadly, education is in a long line of areas needing more funding.

My DC attends private school so I'm not familiar first hand with what's going on at state schools but I was bullied into believing that the VAT I now pay on my DCs school fees was going to improve the system? Pay for more teachers? How are we now in a place where massive cuts are on the way??

I think you're confusing different benefits - PIP is not currently means tested, therefore people on a high income can claim. I think it should be means tested so those on an income above a certain threshold aren't eligible- just as they are not eligible for child benefit. I can't speculate on what money that might save as there is no available data on the incomes of PIP recipients (or certainly none I can find online).

How many disabled people with severe needs (as PIP is needs based) are on high income??
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thanks for this thread and bringing me up to speed with the latest crazy Labour policy.

When something used to cost £0 and now cost £7k per child, it’s obvious the finance will worsen only - resulting in less funding per state student. the pie needs to get bigger by the government providing more funding, not robbing one part of the pie to fund another and even worse now, making the whole pie smaller!!

Speaking of donations - some state schools in affluent area get a lot like £500k per annum (and then chooses to spend some of this on fancy cladding 🙈) and all the pupils get free school meals (even those in £2m+ houses). Something isn’t right when these schools can throw money at stuff that is only a nice to have when some schools are barely surviving.

I tell you what, threads about cuts to state education funding never got this much interest under the Tory government, before they could be used by private school parents to whinge about how hard done by they are.

There were plenty of complaints about education funding under the previous government. The point is that the Labour government promised more investment in the state system, funded by VAT on fees. The reality is that they are now cutting funding.

Yes, I know, I was making them. Private school parents were nowhere to be seen on them....the threads were actually about state school funding.

Exactly. It’s stark. A pledge that VAT would boost state and now the opposite.

Not much to defend there.

So incredibly disappointing, frustrating and soul-destroying. They're just paving the way for a Tory comeback further due the line.

Why would people who are horrified at hugely damaging cuts to education vote Tory?

Because it appears - almost unbelievably - that Labour is doing more to destroy state education and welfare than the Tories ever did during their 14 year stint.

I can't speak for welfare, but the Tories used every single one of those 14 years to attack state education, and Labour are nowhere near close to having the same impact.

The Tories stretch all the way back to Michael Gove and his complete overhaul of the curriculum and assessment system, remember. And scrapping the Building Schools for the Future plan that contributed to the current RAAC crisis. Mass forced academisation, the introduction of MATs, taking outstanding schools out of the inspection regime, the demonisation of the teaching profession that has led to the country running out of teachers, crippling budget cuts, the defunding of CAMHs in a mental health crisis, the SEND crisis....

Don't get me wrong, Labour have made cuts to e.g. the Advanced Maths Support Programme which are really bad, their Ofsted reform is shaping up to be a pile of shit (fill out the consultation, folks), and these proposed further cuts are worrying. But doing more to destroy state education than the Tories in their 14 years? Long way to go.

Not just advanced maths. Also: Latin, language hubs, behaviour hubs, stem accessibility programmes.

Oh and some of us were posting criticising Tory policies on education + lack of funding but that just doesn't fit in with your narrative does it?! I have repeatedly supported you on teacher bashing threads yet you persist in claiming that we just don't care about state? It's worrying that you are a teacher and able to hold such biased views about 1 sector of education.

https://inews.co.uk/news/education/rachel-reeves-national-insurance-hike-cancel-out-new-teacher-pledge-3605006

Not that anyone with any level of intelligence believed those mythical 6500 teachers when they can't even recruit basic target numbers, let alone find 6500 more!

Exactly, the RAISE THE TAX ON THE RICH!! When 'the rich' is going to be anyone and everyone with an earned income is going to become apparent, and not the Valhalla of what the supports of it mean by 'anyone who is richer than me, but not me' is likely to be next!

I remember her in an interview on the rest is politics saying that she really did not care about private school children losing their place because too expensive. She was concentrating on making the lives of those in state schools better. I was appalled that she could say that so openly about something that wasn’t those children’s fault. However now it looks like she also doesn’t care about other children.

The bottom line though to me is, if there’s no money to fix this, where should the money to fix it come from? We are moving towards a USA-style system where education is less important than armament and I’m not sure we can afford not to.

She’s not the only one. Plenty of schools are using their short budget on marketing, enticing activities and merch to attract new pupils and their funding.

While the students they do have are in classes of 35+, filling the gaps in booklets due to a lack of specialist teachers resulting from this ‘natural wastage’ strategy.

“I can't speak for welfare, but the Tories used every single one of those 14 years to attack state education, and Labour are nowhere near close to having the same impact”

Give them time….! Labour have been in power for what, nearly 9 months - I’m not sure the Tories managed create quite such devastation in education in their first 9 months as Labour is seemingly about to do. We will shortly have a better idea.

And of course it seems doubly egregious that Labour is doing this when they are supposed to be the party of higher public spending.

I assumed when they came to power they would maintain the status quo more or less, so education would continue in the same pretty dire position that the Tories left it. School funding would receive inflationary rises so no effective increase at all.

The VAT policy was obviously only ever going to be a distraction to allow them to say “but look, look, we have improved things!”

Never in a proverbial million years did it occur to me that they would come in and start wielding the axe so much further. And yet here we are.

Labour will be pretty happy if they can cut without losing votes from those still loyal.

It was similar on the early welfare threads with posters defending Labour even though they’d be hit by their cuts.

Now there’s even more welfare cuts incoming. Education looks like an easy target. All that VAT nonsense and cuts already.

You can't join the dots between the dire state the Tories left the country in and the need to make cuts? We were literally told before the election that they weren't going to sweep in and spend lots of money. We were told it was going to be hard.

We were told that they wouldn't scrap the two child benefit cap and we were told that they wouldn't necessarily give teachers the recommended pay rise.

And we were told as soon as they got into government that they'd looked at the finances and it was even worse than they thought.

Then Trump happened.

Do you think there's a secret stash of money that they're hoarding?

Labour talked about improving state education for a start. They also didn’t campaign on the massive cuts we’re seeing.

People are unbelievably forgiving which Reeves will be delighted about. And doing the black hole to Trump comms for her. If she needs to do more cuts education is looking willing on here.

As for money Labour should have avoided wiping out billions in headroom via anti growth NI policies. Incompetence and poor economic policies are the reason for cuts.

The economy is only worse because of what Reeves did with NI, she suffocated growth just as it was germinating!
They are also making an ideological choice as to how they account and keep pursuing Quantative Tightening.
They are also making a choice as to people investing their money including in pension funds in overseas companies primarily, rather than our own British companies. They are choosing to disincentivise our own companies listing here due to stamp duty being at such a rate it doesn’t look competitive compared to eg the US. They are selling us out, long term.
Our smaller companies in Britain are going to the dogs, they need protecting!

Exactly, Labour are deflecting by blaming Trump. Of course it doesn't help BUT they fucked up by incompetent economic policies in the first place