The fast-changing funding landscape is driving uncertainty and the latest revisions to funding formulae will not help one bit, says Sam Ellis.

Goving nowhere

In Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’, there is a recurring theme: “But something is happening here/ And you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?”

I know how Mr Jones feels. There is so much change in education at the moment that the only certainty is change itself. We cannot even guess where, or even if, it will land. Funding is supposed to underpin things. That is changing so fast that it drives uncertainty.

We have the statement from Chancellor George Osborne that the education budget is ring-fenced. While protection of education in the current climate is to be warmly welcomed there is some spin here. What he means by ‘education’ is ‘five to 16 education’. Schools with post-16 know well that they are facing significant funding changes, probably in a negative direction.

The base rate of funding for a full-time A level student will be £4,000. Link that to other factors, such as the cost of teachers and inflation, and it looks like post-16 provision in institutions with fewer than 200 students is going to be very difficult to deliver.

Most institutions will need an average approaching 20 pupils in teaching groups in order to be financially stable. The very useful rule of thumb for post-16 from ASCL Colleges Specialist Stephan Jungnitz is on the ASCL website in the presentation that he and I gave at the ASCL Annual Conference (see www.ascl.org. uk/post16_funding_dip)

In some areas, post-16 provision in smaller schools is not only desirable but is also arguably essential. Like Mr Jones, we do not have the faintest clue where this is going. We only know it is changing.

National consistency

The minus 1.5 per cent minimum funding guarantee (MFG) is trailed as the saviour for funding in the 11 to 16 area. Any business manager will tell you that it is not as simple as that. There are exceptions to the MFG and when you add in changes to special needs funding, local formula changes and, for academies, changes to the additional grant system and lagged funding effects, strategic planning in pre-16 is as clear as mud.

What concerns me most of all is the approximately £5,000 per pupil difference between the highest funded areas of the country and the lowest. That is not a misprint: It does say approximately £5,000 per pupil!

The 2013 reforms do not change that distribution; they simply move funding around within an area on the basis of the historic allocation. The stated aim is to simplify and move local formulae towards national consistency.

The next promised step is to change the national distribution after 2015 so that broadly similar schools receive broadly similar per-pupil amounts. Shifting a distribution with a range of £5,000 per pupil will certainly put us in the same tent as Mr Jones.

Nevertheless, it needs to be done. I have argued for modelling a national formula before looking at any local situation but the sensible idea of putting your socks on before your shoes is firmly off the agenda. For once I think I know why. My inner cynic tells me that the Department for Education (DfE) has an urgent and important need to solve its capacity to deliver academy programme funding. Coincidentally, the local formula revision will do just that.

Let me focus for a moment on the ‘per pupil amount’ concept and the idea of having a similar funding process in all local authority (LA) areas. Revision of local distributions to a simple, transparent and nationally consistent process is spun as the first step to national fair funding with similar schools getting similar per-pupil amounts. I have repeatedly made the point to the DfE that schools do not spend in per-pupil amount, which makes the concept somewhat tangential to the activity required of a school.

Furthermore, having a similar process in all LA areas does not necessarily lead to similar outcomes.

Outcome not process

Fans of The Great British Bake Off will realise that 12 cooks all following similar processes can produce vastly different cakes from wonderful to rubbish. It is something to do with ingredients, proportions and a few other factors. Process is frequently less critical than most realise. We need to focus on outcome rather than process, another point that is off the DfE agenda.

Michael Gove is reported as saying that clarity comes at the end of the process. At least that tells us that we are not there yet. I think we are heading for some major problems. I would expect him to disagree.

Perhaps we should both note Dylan’s ‘One Too Many Mornings’ with the immortal truth: “You’re right from your side/I’m right from mine/We’re both just one too many mornings/And a thousand miles behind.” Put the brakes on, sit down and think!

• Sam Ellis is ASCL's funding specialist

Designed with IMPACT

© 2024 Association of School and College Leaders | Valid XHTML | Contact us