Category Archives: economic

White flag or shifting the blame

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There is a saying that one should beware of unexpected guests. For reasons obvious to those that know the saying, it is clear why I prefer to compare it with the other saying of ‘not looking a gift horse in the mouth’ – should that be looking an electric car in the battery these days – but without using the actual expression. No matter, what does matter is whether or not local authorities will be able to form and run Multi Academy Trusts/Committees?

Ever since Mr Gove raced the 2010 Academies Act through parliament in the period before the summer break that year, and less than three months after the 2010 General Election, the Conservatives have wanted all schools to become academies. At that time, local authorities were beyond the pale, and a model with no local democratic involvement, similar to that of the NHS, seemed on the cards for education. Peter Downes a former Cambridgeshire Lib Dem councillor and long time secondary head led the Lib Dem charge at their 2010 September Conference, an event where delegates made their support for local democratic involvement in education very clear to Nick Clegg and David Laws.

Over the ensuing decade, most secondary schools have either opted or been forced to become an academy. All new schools are required to become an academy. However, except in a few parts of the country, academisation of the primary sector schools has been slow and patchy. Many primary schools only became academies are a visit from ofsted resulted in compulsory academisation.

The picture that has emerged around the county is of an expensive mess that could make the reputation of a Secretary of State if change is handled properly with a view to the longer-term effectiveness of the school sector.

There are now noises in the press suggesting that the next White Paper from the DfE might allow local authorities to establish and run Multi Academy Trusts or Committees or some new structure such as a Multi Academy Board might be created. Such a suggestion would effectively be a change of direction on the part of central government. Is it either a white flag or preparing the ground to shift the blame for a period of challenge that will face the primary sector where most maintained schools are still to be found?

There is a third possibility. This is that civil servants have been so impressed by how some local authorities have handled the covid crisis that they now recognise their value as part of the middle tier, especially in handling the large number of small primary schools spread across rural England. Certainly, the work by the local authority team in Oxfordshire, where I am a county councillor, has resulted in an email from a headteacher of a private school expressing thanks for the work of local authority staff. Not something you receive every day.

Allowing or even forcing local authorities to take all schools not already academies into a LAB or Local Academy Board would allow the government to tell the public that all schools were now academies. It would allow local authorities to feel that they might be back in the game of education politics and it would allow for more coherent planning for the primary sector less hampered by the legislation on closing rural schools. This may be important should the National Funding Formula create the need to rationalise the school estate.

DfE publishes data on funding for schools

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Hard on the heels of the Treasury Select Committee report, covered by this blog yesterday, the DfE has now issued its own data on funding of schools and their pupils. The data confirms the reflections of the Treasury Select Committee. School funding statistics: 2021 to 2022 financial year – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

locationtime periodPer pupil funding 2021-22 terms in £Per pupil funding cash terms in £
England2010-1163705180
England2011-1263905270
England2012-1363705360
England2013-1463505460
England2014-1563905560
England2015-1664005600
England2016-1762505590
England2017-1861405590
England2018-1961805730
England2019-2062305920
England2020-2162406280
England2021-2265106510
England2022-2367806970
State funding for schools in England

Source: DfE

To quote the DfE’s own words about Per-pupil funding between 2010-11 to 2022-23:

On a per-pupil basis the total funding to be allocated to schools for 5–16-year-olds, in cash terms, in 2022-23 is £6,970, a 35% increase compared to £5,180 allocated per pupil in 2010-11.

After adjusting for inflation, funding per pupil was broadly flat between 2010-11 and 2015-16 at just under £6,400 in 2021-22 prices.

It then fell by 4.0% over 2016-17 and 2017-18, but subsequently increased by 1.4% over 2018-19 and 2020-21. Since then, funding increased by 4.5% over the course of 2020-21 and 2021-22 and then by a further 4.2% in 2022-23, reaching £6,780 (in 2021-22 prices).

These numbers only cover the funding of 5-16-year-olds, so don’t account for the reduction in funding for sixth form pupils during the same period. Assuming that the numbers for the most recent periods were subject to inflation deflators not based upon the current high rate of inflation, then, should inflation remain at high levels, it seems likely that the real increase projected for the year 2022-23 of £410 in 2021-22 terms may turn out not to be as great an increase in real terms. Much of the increase may also be taken up in achieving the £30,000 minimum starting salary for teachers promised by the government.

Many secondary schools are enjoying economies of scale at present as their pupil numbers increase, whereas many primary schools outside areas with new housebuilding face the opposite, with diseconomies of scale, as pupil numbers fall. A class of 25 pupils needs the same teaching support as a class of 30 pupils, but will generate somewhat less than £30,000 in income for the school.   Tough times ahead for the primary sector if the government doesn’t want to support them, especially for small rural schools that many need the protection nearly two decades ago should insufficient funding lead to potential closures.

The data used by the DfE on funding covers the following grants:

Dedicated Schools Grant (excluding early years and post-16 high-needs funding);

Grants outside the DSG to the City of London, Isles of Scilly and City Technology Colleges;

Pre-16 high-needs funding in non-maintained special schools,

Special and alternative provision free schools;

Pupil premium (all pupil ages);

Schools supplementary grant (reception to year 11);

Supplementary free school meals grant;

Teachers’ pay grant (reception to year 11);

Teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) (reception to year 11).

The DfE points out that the funding in 2022-23 is based on a combination of published funding allocations, and the budget settlement agreed at the 2021 Spending Review, and some estimates of small-grant and high needs spending.

Schools have had a tough time over recent years and many have made great strides at achieving financial stability. The risk now is of high inflation and falling rolls continuing that period of challenge into the foreseeable future.

Academies increase cash balances

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Hard on the heels of the Treasury Select Committee’s Report, with its comments on government funding of education – see previous post on this bog – comes the 10th Annual Academy Benchmark Report from Kreston Global Kreston-Academies-Benchmark-Report-2022-Web.pdf (krestonreeves.com) This detailed report raises a set of interesting questions, and also offers pointers as to why the labour market for teachers in the secondary sector may have been so buoyant during January 2022.

The Kreston Report comments that

“Once again, we are seeing record breaking in-year surpluses for MATs, whilst secondaries are showing a small increase and Primaries have fallen to 2019 levels. But this top level statistic hides the complex mix of variables giving rise to the surpluses. This result is likely to be a by-product of Covid-19 factors rather than an intentional result. The good news is that fewer Trusts are now in a cumulative deficit position and only 19% had an in-year deficit (2020: 25%).”

And

“The size of the in-year surpluses has gone up to record levels; there are less Trusts making in-year deficits, there are less Trusts with cumulative deficits, free reserves are up, and cash balances are up.” (page 12).

The Kreston Report adds that: “From conversations we have had with our Academy clients many were budgeting for in-year deficits or to break even, and were on track for this to happen. “(page 11).

Now, does this mean that a lot of the cash for catch-up programmes is already sitting in secondary school bank accounts? Why wasn’t the saving on supply teachers and other budget heading immediately transferred into support for pupils?

To allow reserves to increase during the pandemic raises questions abut either a lack of congruence between values and budgets or a less than perfect understanding of financial affairs by school leaders? Surely, neither is the case. However, the increase in balances, even if unexpected, does raise some interesting questions about the relationship between decision-making and educational values.

Way back in the 1990s, when I first worked on Assessment Centres for would-be headteachers, this was an issue of concern. Those in education are good at talking, but do they always possess the skills to put their values into actions? What is the relationship between the values of school business managers and education leaders, especially when faced with challenges for which there is no rulebook?

One reason for high cash balances cited by Kreston in the report is my old bugbear, saving for future capital spending. The Kreston Report says this “Some MATs do have a strategy of accumulating funds within the central fund to meet the costs of future capital projects, so this could explain why there are sizeable balances carried forward in some cases.” (page 20) My view has always been that revenue spending should be for today’s pupils, not those of tomorrow, especially when the non-physical environment is so challenged as it has been during the pandemic.

The Kreston report concludes with some interesting benchmark data, but not, as far as I can see, anything on staff recruitment costs. In view of the amount schools can spend in this area, that seems like a curious admission not to extrapolate it from the measure where it is no doubt currently buried.

Taken together, both the Select Committee Report on future spending and the Kreston Report on past trends make for interesting reading for anyone concerned with the education of the nation’s young people.

Education spending: government less than generous

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The House of Commons Treasury Select Committee has today published its Report on the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021. Normally, this blog doesn’t read Treasury Select Committee reports, but this Report did have something to say about government spending on education.

In paragraph 48 the Committee noted the evidence it received from Dr Tetlow and in paragraph 54 it made its own comment, noting that the DfE …’ , did not receive such a generous settlement’ and that ‘School funding per head has only now returned to 2010 levels following the latest Budget.’

The two paragraphs are reproduced below.

48. While the Department for Education (DfE) will have received a real-terms increase in its budget of 2.3 per cent compared to 2009–10, Dr Tetlow told us that the DfE had not done as well in the Spending Review as the sector may have hoped for, given how it had been impacted by the loss of learning during the pandemic, and the need there would be for educational catch-up: Education was clearly one of the relative losers from the Spending Review. Certainly, the £5 billion that has gone into education isn’t large enough to meet our estimate of what might be needed to catch up on lost learning. […] Poorer skills in the cohorts going into the labour market over the next few years does run the risk of having longer-term impacts on productivity.58 […] Even though the Chancellor hailed in his speech that per pupil spending would go back to its 2010 level, it is pretty remarkable to have a decade with no real-terms growth in spending in schools. That is quite unusual and not a strong signal of prioritising improved skills in the UK.

54. While some departments which had been significantly disrupted by the pandemic, such as the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Transport, received large increases, the Department for Education, which was also affected by the pandemic, did not receive such a generous settlement. School funding per head has only now returned to 2010 levels following the latest Budget.

Budget report (parliament.uk) 27th January 2022

No doubt in their defence The Treasury would point out that more children are being educated because of the increase in the birth rate and the move to all staying in education or training until age 18 than in 2010. They might also point out there are more students in higher education, but most of their costs are probably being taken on the student loan account.

Without a more generous settlement over the next few years, spending per pupil on education is once again going to be tight, and probably will fall in real terms. The DfE needs to look at the costs of running a mixed system of academies and maintained schools. Why are there several hundred Chief Executives of Academy Trusts when previously there were only around 150 Chief Education Officers in local authorities. What is the extra salary bill costing and how many more civil servants are needed to manage the Department to School budget process compared with discussing with just a limited number of local authorities? It really is time to sort out the middle tier of schooling and the extent to which there should be democratic accountability.

Finally, if I can suggest a simple cost saving measure to the DfE. Compare the cost and effectiveness of your job board for teacher vacancies with other products offering similar services and check that you are now spending more than necessary on this service.

Teacher Supply – long term strategy needed

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Here is a short piece commissioned by the ‘foundation for education development’ that first appeared on their website as a think piece .

The long-term planning of teacher supply in England is once again in a ‘bit of a mess’. After renewed interest by graduates in teaching as a career at the start of the pandemic, there is now little chance that the government will hit its 2022 target for the number of secondary trainees required to meet the demand from schools in 2023 as modelled by DfE statisticians.

2022 marks nearly a decade of missed training targets in subjects such as physics, business studies and design and technology across the country as a whole and for a wider range of subjects in much of southern England where the state sector is competing in the labour market with private schools and tutorial colleges for the services of teachers. In recent years, the new factor of a growing global market for teachers, fuelled to some extent by schools founded in England opening campuses overseas, has created new competition for the scarce resource that is secondary school teachers in some subjects.

Any shortage of teachers affects the campaign to level up outcomes. Ever since I joined the teaching profession over 50 years ago, schools in challenging circumstances and serving communities with high levels of deprivation have usually suffered the effects of teacher shortages more than schools where teaching is a delight and ofsted awards good grades.

So, if the problem isn’t new, and is well known, what are the solutions? Making teaching an attractive career starts with three basic requirements. These are pay; conditions and reputation. The last is the easiest to deal with: Ministers need to talk up teaching and recognise the work of classroom teachers and not just school leaders. A great deal of work was undertaken on conditions of service in the first decade of this century: now is the time to revisit and review that work. Finally, if new lawyers in London are starting with top firms at £150,000 a year, £35,000 or so to start in a challenging school in London may not look attractive to many graduates in key subjects: pay matters.

The pandemic has also shown the value of technology and the balance between teachers and learning technology needs to be addressed. This may be the simplest way to pay teachers more. Finally, good employers recognise the need for professional development. The government now needs to fund programmes that keep teachers in the profession and nurture them during career breaks. Is it time for a Teaching Czar?

Start Recruiting now

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This is the stark warning to schools across much of Southern England that may need staff this September and especially to secondary schools. TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk data has shown that the first three weeks of January have witnessed a continuation of the trend at the end of 2021 with a considerable increase in vacancies recorded.

TeachVac hasn’t changed its vacancy collection methods since 2020 but it has seen vacancies listed in the first 19 days of the month in 2022 increase by 14% over the recorded numbers recorded in early January 2020 pre-pandemic, and by a whopping 135% over the depressed level of last January.

As reported in a previous post, design and technology staff will be especially hard to recruit in 2022. Already in 2022, vacancies recorded are 48% up on the same period in 2020. Vacancies for teachers of music are up by an eyewatering 73% on 2020 vacancies in early January.

All these vacancies mean that the pool of new entrants will be reducing at a faster rate than in previous years. High quality trainees will be offered vacancies by schools that understand these trends and are aware of the state of the pool of trainees, either because they run school-based programmes or because their mentors have told them what higher education providers are saying.

TeachVac’s low-cost service can keep school up to date with trends for as little as £100 and a maximum of £1,000 per year that includes listing and matching all the school’s teaching vacancies with TeachVac’s growing pool of register users.

Registration also provides access to far better data than on the DfE site and also intelligence on the state of the recruitment round for trainees for September 2022 and hence the labour market in 2023.

Signing up today at www.teachvac.co.uk and the tab matching service will also bring a free copy of TeachVac report.  Message me if you want more information or use the comment box.

London attracts would-be teachers

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The DfE has now published the data on both applications and applicants for postgraduate teacher training courses recruited through their portal up to the 20th December 2021. As they helpfully point out, the data are not always directly comparable to that provided in previous rounds by UCAS. However. The general direction of travel is discernible enough to provide a measure comparison with previous UCAS data.

Apart from the data on applicants and applications – applicants may make a number of applications – data on those offered a place and those accepting the offer can be determined from some of the tables. In the case of that data the subjects do not aways align with those previously used by UCAS.

So, what to make of the data? A previous blog looked at the data early in December, the data considered here is for the month as a whole, up to the Christmas holiday break, and are best compared with 2019 data rather than 2020, as 2019 was the last year before the pandemic distorted the data.

Of most interest is the number of applications made in secondary subjects. Here the comparison with 2019 reveals a mixed picture. 43% of applications are for three subjects: PE (21%) English (13%) and history (9%). Add in biology (5%), and those four subjects account for almost half the applications for secondary subjects. Of course, as the courses in those subjects fill their places, their percentages will fall and those for other subjects will increase. Indeed, PE now takes a smaller share than in early December, demonstrating the early demand to train as a PE teacher despite the relative lack of teaching posts for those that do train as a PE teacher.

With language teaching in the news this week, it is interesting to see the subject accounts for just five per cent of applications, compared with the 13% each for English and mathematics that may account for a similar amount of curriculum time. Only 146 offers have been made in languages. However, this is one subject where comparison with UCAS isn’t really possible because of the change in method of recording the subject.

Compared with December 2019 data, in terms of offers, mathematics is doing well, as is design and technology, but from a very low base, and not yet offering the prospect of the subject meeting its target.

Applications for primary courses appear much healthier than they were in 2019, and the data would suggest there will be few problems in this sector. London still appears to be a good source of applicants with almost 17% of candidates. However, offer rates are much lower than in the north West. Maybe the timing of applications was later in London, and hasn’t yet allowed enough time for processing. However, this is something to watch as the recruitment round unfolds.

Overall applications are ahead of December 2019, by around some 2,000 with applicants domiciled in England around 500 ahead of December 2019 once applicants from outside England are removed from the total. This data reinforces the importance of the London region as a source of applicants.

Compared with December 2019, there are both more male and female applicants. The increase is spread across most of the age groups, with notable increases from those in the over-40 age-groups, including 29 candidates over the age of 60.

There is a regrettable lack of a breakdown by phase between the different types of courses. However, it is obvious that the School Direct salaried route is still out of favour, no doubt being partially replaced by the apprenticeship route.

With an overall buoyant labour market, and many areas of the public sector running TV advertising campaigns at the present time, teaching as a career for graduates will need to continue to do everything possible to attract applicants, especially in a wide range of secondary school subjects. 2022 may be hard work.

Design and Technology: End of a road?

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The end of the second week in January is usually a bit early to be making predictions about the state of the teacher labour market for September. However, in the case of design and technology, the signs of a really difficult job market for schools have been there for some time, and certainly since the publication of the DfE’s Census of Trainees in December 2021. Those signs are now backed up by early data on jobs being advertised.

Using exclusive data from TeachVac, based upon an analysis of recorded job adverts in the first two weeks of January 2022, there are sign of an early increase in demand for such teachers.

Datejobs 2015jobs 2016jobs 2017jobs 2018jobs 2019jobs 2020jobs 2021jobs 2022
Week 110251916792958
Week 220525047417167164
Week 320877787103156123
Week 440110120105183244183

Source: TeachVac

Now, this may just be prudence on the part of schools in bringing forward vacancies, rather than a growth in real demand for such teachers. We won’t know the answer to that question until at least the end of January, and possibly not until even the end of February.

However, with this level of vacancies it is possible to demonstrate by matching vacancy levels to the potential supply of new entrants into the profession for September 2022 that schools may have to rely upon sources of supply other than new entrants much earlier in the recruitment round for September than they might either expect to or like the idea of doing.

TeachVac’s exclusive formula suggest that the ‘free’ pool of new entrants is already lower than at any point at the end of Week 2 of the year since at least 2015.

Date 20152016 2017 201820192020 2021 2022
Week 1368412.5371217219343580231
Week 2363399356201202312561178
Week 3363381.5342181191270533
Week 4353370321172131226503
Vacancy index – lower the number the more challenging filling vacancies will be

Source: TeachVac

The data also shows that compared with 2020 and 2021 the pool is lower than at the end of January by last Friday and week 2. Should the end of January 2022 number be lower than the end of 2019 number, then the remaining recruitment round may be grim for schools looking to recruit a design and technology teacher of any description.  January 2023 vacancies don’t even bear thinking about.

Schools that have signed up for TeachVac’s new matching service at  TeachVac Reports – The National Vacancy Service for Teachers and Schools can have access to this type of data for a range of subjects.

What are the implications for schools unable to recruit qualified design and technology teachers? Staffing the curriculum is the obvious problem. What are the longer-term effects of young people not studying this subject? That’s for others to say, and the DfE to act as it sees fit.

‘A drop in the ocean’

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Much has been made of the government’s campaign to recruit ex-teachers back into the classroom as supply teachers to help out during the latest phase of the covid pandemic.

Here is the actual wording from the DfE about the success of the campaign by early January 2022:

Findings

• There were at least 585 ex-teachers coming forward to either Teach First, or 47 of the estimated 400-500 teacher supply agencies, between the 20th December 2021 and 7th January 2022.

• Of this total, over 100 expressions of interest have been reported by Teach First.

• A further 485 sign-ups of ex-teachers were reported by the 47 supply agencies who responded to the DfE survey.

• Given this survey response only covers a small number of agencies, this will not reflect the true total as other agencies not surveyed, or which did not respond, are likely to also have had sign-ups, and the call for ex-teachers to return is still ongoing. The true number of sign-ups since the call was launched will be larger.

Number of ex-teachers coming forward to join the school workforce (publishing.service.gov.uk) 12th January 2022

Interestingly the government doesn’t so far seem to have spent much money on the campaign. In answer to a written Parliamentary Question Robin Walker, the DfE Minister replied that:

As of 5 January, the spend relating to marketing and communications in support of the national appeal for former teachers to return to the profession is £3,882.69. This amount consists of:

  • Design work for a toolkit of assets to be used by partners of the department: £2,227.80.
  • Paid Search Advertising: £1,654.89.

Written questions and answers – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament

To their credit, the government recognises that the 485 sign-ups don’t account for the whole total. Now assuming the 10% response rate can be grossed up, the national figure might be around 5,000. (The DfE footnote to editors said that ‘We estimate this number of responses represents around 10% of the agencies operating in the market. This figure is based on estimates provided by trade bodies. Agencies will vary in size and so this figure should not be taken as an indication of market share.’)

Now, we don’t know the geographical spread of these new supply teachers. We don’t know whether they are willing to work in both primary and secondary schools. We don’t know whether they will work five days a week or just for a couple of days.

We can assume that like other teachers the normal stock of supply teachers are affected by covid in the same way as the rest of the population. The 2020 School Workforce Census identified that there were 11,574 ‘occasional teachers’ in schools at the time of the census. So, and additional 5,000 to the stock is clearly a useful number. But, with a teaching force of 461,000 it only takes just over one per cent of the workforce to be absent due to covid to use up the whole of the possible new recruits to supply teaching.

Could the government have done more. Certainly, the cash spend seems low compared to other campaigns. What of unemployed history and PE teachers that completed training last summer, but couldn’t find a teaching post. Has the government worked with training providers to identify those still wanting to enter teaching and offered some support to help them do so even on a temporary basis?

No doubt as this term unfolds more information will become available about how successful the government was at helping schools to stay open, and the part the national campaign played in achieving that end compared with the actions taken locally by schools, Trusts and Local Authorities.

Recruitment 2022: a rough ride to come

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Can you tell anything about the 2022 recruitment round for teachers in England based upon just four days of vacancy data? One of the advantages of a job board such as TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk is the it has sufficient cumulative data on vacancies that can be allied with data about the numbers of teachers on preparation courses to be able to provide some helpful comments on the labour market, even after just four days of data.

For those that are sceptical of such a claim, consider sampling theory. A simple example is to assume a bowl of soup. A small spoonful will tell you whether or not the bowl if full of hot soup. Now scale up to a vat size container. Will a small sample tell you the same answer for the whole? Now purists might maintain that the bottom of the vat could be hotter than the top; I would agree. Taking that comment to vacancy data means that the comments for England as a whole might well include differences across the regions. Such an objection is true, and that is why each month TeachVac produces regional data for most secondary subjects and the primary sector. But it doesn’t invalidate sampling as a useful tool.

Anyway, back to our sample of 2022, and what I think it tells schools about the recruitment round this year. The first point is that it confirms what was being said at the end of 2021, appointments for September 2022 will be more of a challenge almost across the board as the 2020 bounce in interest in teaching as a career drops out of the supply side.

How bad will 2022 be? Well, nothing of concern in art, PE and history. Indeed, schools might well be starting to consider whether they can make use of an extra history teacher and perhaps an extra PE teacher to make use of the best of the trainees with second subject expertise in the pool of jobseekers.

At the other end of the scale, the usual suspects of design and technology where there will be real issues with recruitment have been joined this year by geography, modern languages and English. In the case of the latter two subjects this is partly because of the number of trainees on courses that will either already have placed them in the classroom or make it likely that they won’t be looking on the open market for a teaching post. Independent schools should take especial note of this fact when considering how easy it will be to recruit a teacher.

Most of the other subjects have seen the size of their ‘free pool’ decline this year compared with 2021, and that will have implications for January 2023 appointments. Such vacancies may be hard to fill in many subjects in those parts of England where recruitment is a challenge; namely London and the Home Counties.

Schools that have signed up to TeachVac’s £1,000 maximum annual recruitment package will receive regular updates on the state of the labour market, including local knowledge. On registration, and at no cost, schools receive a detailed report on the labour market.

Recruiters tell me that TeachVac is ‘too cheap’ to succeed because nothing that cheap could be any good. My principle in founding the job board was to show that recruitment advertising need not cost a lot of money. I still believe that to be true. Do you?