Government statistics whose dates have already been announced before an election is called generally escape being caught up in Purdah during the run-in to the general election. Thus, it was that the DfE announced its Education and Training Statistics for 2018/19 earlier today, along with some revisions and updates to the 2017/18 data.

Much of the data on education and training are uncontroversial, but there are some tables that may cause ripples. The most notable is the table on Pupil Teacher Ratios and Pupil Adult Ratios.

In the primary sector, there was no change in PTRs nationally at 22.9 pupils per teacher. However, this is still way worse than the 15.7 pupils per teacher of 2000/01. In the secondary sector, ratios worsened over the last year from 16.0 in 2017/18 to 16.3 in 2018/19. Again these ratios were well adrift of the 14.0:1 of the millennium.

The secondary school ratio almost certainly reflects the fact that sixth form numbers are either static or still falling, while the number of pupils at Key Stage 3 is on the increase. The latter are, of course, taught in larger class for the most part. The fact that the adult to pupil ratio also worsened in the secondary sector is a testimony to the financial pressure schools have found themselves under and why, in the new post-austerity world, political parties of all colours, including my own (the Liberal Democrats) are announcing more cash for schools.

The pressure on education spending is best illustrated in the table that shows education spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. This equates to a spending of some £88.6 billion in 2018/19.

There is a long way to go just to return to the levels under the Coalition. Much of the increase, when it finally appears in schools’ bank accounts, is likely to be absorbed in higher staffing costs.

This is especially likely to be the case in those parts of England where house prices are high and private sector graduate wages for many professionals have risen to recognise the competitive state of the labour market. Teachers’ wages will have to increase to allow teaching to remain competitive. How far and how fast may become obvious next week, when the ITT Census for 2019 is slated for publication.

More pupils means a demand for more teachers, and anything less than an improvement on the figures for trainee numbers in 2018 will make uncomfortable reading for Ministers, especially if mathematics and physics were to record reductions on the 2018 numbers.

Further improvements in workload will also come at a price, but may be necessary to retain teachers overloaded with unnecessary busy work driven by a culture based around quality control rather than one of quality assurance and professional development.

Ministers might also reflect that improving the morale of the school workforce is probably the least expensive route to greater satisfaction, and should be used alongside improvements to pay and conditions.