Schools Need Cash Injection Or Face 'Financial Stagnation'

Schools in England face a period of financial “stagnation" unless the new prime minister orders a new cash injection, a new report has warned.

- Andrew Woodcock

The report by the economic think tank Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the government is on track to miss its target of restoring spending per pupil to 2010 levels in real terms by the 2024-25 financial year.

Instead, school spending will remain 3 per cent below the level inherited by the incoming Conservative-led administration in 2010, once the rising costs faced by schools are taken into account, with “challenging” years of real-terms cuts to follow.

The warning comes at a time when the new PM faces the threat of strike action by teachers over a 5 per cent pay rise, an increase that lags well behind rising inflation.

With teachers’ pay making up the majority of school budgets, unexpected upward pressure on costs has knocked the government off track for the 2024-25 target set in the 2021 spending review, said the IFS.

After falling to 9 per cent below 2010 levels in 2019-20 in real terms, after a decade of austerity, funding for schools has been rising in recent years.

But rocketing inflation in the wake of the Covid pandemic has hit hopes of returning to earlier levels.