Category Archives: economic

1,500 posts and counting

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When I wrote my first post on this blog, on the 25th of January 2013, I little though that I would reach 1,500 posts. However, despite stopping posting for 18 months, between the autumn of 2023 and May this year, while I was otherwise occupied as a cabinet member on Oxfordshire County Council the blog has now reached the milestone of 1,500 posts, including 40 so far this year since I started the blog up again this May.

Since one of the features of the blog has been commenting on numbers, here is a bit of self-indulgence. The blog has had 175,983 views since its inception, from 93,875 visitors, and has attracted 1,459 comments. The average length of a post has been between 550-670 words, although there have been a few longer posts in response to consultations and Select Committee inquiries.

How much holiday do teacher have? is the post with the most views – more than 6,500 and rising. Some posts have had no views, but are still an important record of my thoughts. The United Kingdom has been responsible for the most visitors: not a surprise, as most posts are about education in England. However, the USA comes second, with more than 15,000 views. Apart from some former French speaking countries in West Africa, Greenland and Paraguay, almost all other countries have had someone that has viewed the blog at least once.

Later this year, I will be publishing a book of the 2013 posts from the blog, and at that point they will disappear from public view. If you want to register for the book, check on Amazon after August 2025 or email dataforeducation@gmail.com for publication information. Alternatively, ask your favourite bookshop or library to order a copy.

I am sometimes asked about my favourite post. With 1,500 to choose from, that’s difficult, as many haven’t seen the light of day for a decade or so. However, Am I a blob? From 2013, was fun to write, and the posts about Jacob’s Law finally brought about a change in the legislation over admissions in the current bill going through parliament.

Most posts have been written, as this one is, in one session from start to finish, with editing just to tidy up my thoughts. Some are more passionate than others, and many are about teacher supply issues, where I am also researching a book on the subject covering the past 60 years of ‘feast and famine’. Much of the recent history has been well chronicled in this blog.

Thanks for reading, and for the comments. Who would have thought that someone that failed ‘O’ level English six times would end up writing a blog!  Funny old world.

Will the 6,500 new teachers be heading for schools in disadvantaged areas?

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Increasing teacher numbers in disadvantaged areas and core subjects. I was very happy when I read this heading in today’s Public Account’s Committee report on ‘Increasing Teacher Numbers’. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

However, when I turned to paragraphs 25-29, this section just seemed like an afterthought. How depressing was it to read that

‘Schools and further education colleges are responsible for deciding the staff they need and recruiting their own workforces. Local authorities employ teachers in maintained schools.’ Para 25

There is nothing factually incorrect in the statement, but although local authorities are the de jure employers of teachers in maintained schools, ever since the devolution of budgets in the 1990s, local authorities have had little to do with the hiring policies for teachers in these schools, and nothing to do with the academy sector.

The Committee did acknowledge that

‘Those schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils tend to have higher turnover rates and less experienced teachers. This impacts the government’s mission of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and means disadvantaged children are at risk of being locked out from particular careers.’

Teachers in schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils are also less experienced

‘In 2023–24, 34% of teachers in the most disadvantaged schools had up to five years’ experience (20% in the least disadvantaged schools).’

They cited the examples of computer science and physics

‘In the most disadvantaged areas, 31% of schools do not offer Computer Science A-level, compared to 11% of schools in the least disadvantaged areas, due to a lack of trained teachers. For Physics A-level, this is 9% compared to 1%.’

This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog. Here is the link to a post from the 21st July 2023, almost two years ago.

Free School Meals and teacher vacancies | John Howson

Thos who know my background will know that I started teaching in a school in a disadvantaged part of Tottenham in 1971, and this issue has been one that has concerned me throughout my career in education. I was, therefore, disappointed to read that

‘We asked the Department when we could expect there to be less variation between schools in the most and least disadvantaged areas, but it did not commit to a timeframe. Instead, it noted that its retention initiatives providing financial incentives were targeting schools and colleges with the highest proportion of disadvantaged students.’

This seems to me to be as close to a non-answer as one can expect. Indeed, looking in detail at the oral evidence session, this is an area where answers from the senior civil servants in my opinion suggested little hope, and not as much concern for the values implied in the questions that I would have liked to have heard. In reality, past experience tells me that it is falling rolls and fewer job opportunities that will propel teachers towards schools where they would otherwise not take a teaching post. Iti s the economy, not the DfE that will improve the life chances of children in those schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. This is at the same time as the lives of their parents may be worsened by unemployment and welfare cuts. It’s a funny old world.

6,500 extra teachers; myth or realistic aim?

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Hurrah for the Public Accounts Committee at Westminster (PAC). Today the Committee published a report into the government’s plans – or lack of them – to meet their target of 6,500 extra teachers – and lecturers. Increasing teacher numbers: Secondary and further education (HC 825)

The Committee is as sceptical as this bog has been about how the government intends to meet this target that was to be paid for by the addition of VAT on private school fees from January 2025.

One recommendation that the PAC doesn’t make is the creation of a Chief Professional Adviser on Teacher Supply. I held such a post between 1996 and 1997, but was never relaced when I left the then Teacher Training Agency. Such a designated post would draw together the work of civil servants who may change roles almost as frequently as ministers- What odds would one give on the present Secretary of State surviving a cabinet reshuffle before the party conference season? A central role with professional oversight might help the government achieve its aim.

Anyway, the PAC Recommendations included

  1. The Department should set out how it plans to deliver the pledge for 6,500 additional teachers to provide assurance that this will f ill the most critical teacher gaps. This should set out: • how the pledge will be split across schools and colleges; • the baseline and milestones so Parliament can track progress; and • how it will stay focused on teacher retention alongside recruitment.
  2. The Department should develop a whole-system strategy to help frame how it will recruit and retain school and college teachers. This should be based on a fuller evidence base, establish the preferred balance between recruitment and retention initiatives; set appropriate targets for those joining teaching through different routes; and include value for money analysis of different initiatives.
  3. The Department should work with schools and colleges to understand the reasons behind variations [in recruitment and retention], particularly within deprived areas and core subjects, setting this out in published information to help identify and share good practice and ideas on what works best.
  4. The Department should work to better understand why teachers leave and then better support schools and colleges in addressing these factors. This includes looking at changes to contractual and working conditions, such as flexible working, and at how teacher workload can be reduced. It should also collect data on the effectiveness of the newly-announced behaviour hubs, rolling them out further if they prove to be successful.
  5. The Department should assess the effectiveness and relative value-for-money of pay against other recruitment and retention initiatives, to make an explicit decision on whether it needs to do more to ensure teachers are paid the right amount.

The final recommendation will not be welcomed in HM Treasury if it means finding more cash for teachers’ pay, especially coming the day after resident hospital doctors threatened strike action over pay benchmarking. In paragraph 22 the Committee stated that

‘However, teacher pay has lagged behind others – in 2024, those working in the education sector were paid around 10% less in real terms than in 2010, with the wider public sector being paid on average 2.6% less than in 2010.’

Will a return to the 2010 benchmark now be the goal of the teacher professional associations?

In the next blog, I will discuss the committee’s idea for dealing with the thorny issue of providing teachers for deprived areas.

Reform of Home to School Transport needed

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This week the Local Government Association published an important report into home to school transport  The future of Home to School Transport: Report | Local Government Association This is an area of responsibility that always concerned me when I was a county councillor, as the rules of the governing eligibility were set in the 1944 Education Act, in a very different era to that of today.

As the LGA report noted:

“Effective home to school transport plays a vital role in our education system. Fundamentally, it is the safety-net that ensures no child or young person misses out on their entitlement to education because they cannot otherwise get to school. However, current home to transport duties were designed for a different age, societally, educationally and economically. For local government, continuing to fulfil the current statutory responsibilities for home to school transport is becoming increasingly financially unsustainable, posing a real threat of bankruptcy for some, and necessitating cuts to other vital aspects of children’s services provision in many more.”

Much of the report deals with SEND transport, as that costs local authorities the most money, the issue of whether the NHS should bear part of the cost. Sensibly the report concluded that this was a national issue:

“We would recommend that, in the context of budgetary pressures across public services and with health being under no less pressure than local government, this is not an issue that can be left to local negotiation to resolve. The Department for Education and the Department for Health and Social Care should clarify an equitable split of responsibilities, including financial responsibilities, for transport for children with the most common health needs that require substantial and additional support, and set that out in statutory guidance both for local authorities and ICBs.”

With the review of the NHS currently underway, this seems like a timely recommendation.

Surprisingly, the report seems in places to assume that parents must send their child to a state school, rather that state schools being the default position if a parent doesn’t make any other arrangement for their child’s education.  Fortunately, this assumption doesn’t affect their arguments.

I think their conclusions are sensible in both being clearer, with less change of challenge than at present, but the authors appear to have missed the opportunity to discuss how to deal with the issue of selective schools and distance. Making such schools ineligible for home to school transport as they are regarded as a parental choice is as discriminatory as any other criteria. It is a pity this wasn’t addressed more fully.

Nevertheless, I think I can agree with their conclusions for a system that:

“In summary, we are advocating that in future children and young people should be eligible for assistance with home to school travel from the start of reception to the end of year 13, based on a simple binary distance criterion: if they live more than 3 miles away (by the most direct road route) from their nearest suitable school then they would be eligible for transport assistance; if they live less than three miles away then they would not be eligible for transport assistance. This formulation of eligibility would get rid of the current link between eligibility and the ability to walk to school for both children and young people with SEND and those accessing mainstream home to school transport.”

AI in education: tackling the third revolution

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Earlier this week, I sat in on a webinar hosted by the Education Policy Institute about Workforce Sustainability in the modern school system. The recording of the webinar can be accessed at Workforce sustainability in the modern school system Inevitably, much of the discussion was around how AI might make a difference to schools. AI is the third wave of the IT revolution, after the initial microprocessor revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the arrival of the web and the development of means to access it from desktops to mobile phones, and even watches, from the mid-1990s onward. AI has the possibility to significantly impact on the school system as we know it even more than the previous two ‘revolutions.

The impact might be in four areas

Recruitment – this will be cheaper, faster and more complex as both candidates and recruiters strive to make use of AI to help them secure either the perfect job or the best candidate, whether it be a teacher or any other post in a school.

Administration – compared to the days of pen and paper, typewriters and adding machines, technology in the past 50 years have vastly changed how processes are handled, and especially how data can be analysed. EPI even have a Model, described in the webinar, for assessing how MATs are operating. AI offers much more power to create systems with less need to burden teachers. Tracking individual learning will be far enhanced, well beyond what is possible even today.

Learning – AI could transform how students learn. No longer will teachers need to worry about coping with a range of abilities in the same learning setting: AI will tailor the learning package to the individual and make the learning experience stimulating enough to motivate every child. In doing so it could fundamentally change the role of a teacher, removing some of the drudgery and enhancing the personal interactions with learners. But, will the lightbulb moments teacher value so much disappear?

The contract between The State and families – will the current 190-day requirement to attend a ‘school’ or face sanctions that has existed since 1870 in England be replaced by a different sort of model where learning is at the pace of learner, and qualifications are obtained when ready. Could AI be used to identify those children not making progress, and offer support that families would be required to accept? I don’t expect such a radical change anytime soon, but it would be worth looking at how different groups in society see schooling today and what they want from it as the twenty first century enters the second quarter of the century.

What is certain is that the State needs to participate, and not leave everything to the market. There is a lot of profit to be made from AI, and schools represent a large potential market. The first step will probably be to agree on standards and certification for learning materials so individual schools and teachers can be sure what they are using are high quality learning materials. This is much more important that the debate over banning mobile phones in schools, but receives much less attention from politicians.

Ministers; music matters

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Yesterday, in this blog, I wrote that music courses preparing new teachers for our schools had the highest conversion rate of applicants to offers for any subject. By June this year, some 63% of candidates have been offered places. This compares with just 27% of candidates applying to become a business studies teacher. This data comes from the DfE’s monthly updates on recruitment into these courses.

I also pointed out that the 325 candidates offered places by June this year, of the 565 that have applied, meant that the DfE’s target for new entrants of 565 was unlikely to be met ,making 10 missed targets in the last 11 years.

Music ITT recruitment

Recruiting yearJuneSeptemberdifferenceITT censusTarget% filled
2014/153103605035348173%
2015/163403703035739989%
2016/172903102029539375%
2017/182503106030040973%
2018/192403208031239280%
2019/20360480120469385122%
2020/213904203038654071%
2021/222282875929247062%
2022/232012302921679027%
2023/242883789033182040%
2024/25326565

The table shows that the only time the DfE target for music was met was during the initial covid year, when there was a surge of applications for teacher preparation courses. Even in that year, the 469 trainees recorded at the time if the ITT census in the autumn would not have been enough to meet the target for this year of 565.

Between June and September new offers made have ranged from 120 in the covid year to as low as 20 in 216/17. Based upon last year’s figure of 90 new offers, and assuming this year is a little better and that 100 new offers are made, would mean a figure of around 426 offers by September, still more than 100 adrift of the target for this year that has been set at a more sensible level of 565 compared with the targets for the previous two years.

In passing, it is worth recording that adding shortfalls into future targets is not a helpful exercise, especially as all schools start the year fully staffed. Doing so also makes the percentage of target filled number misleadingly low, as with the 27% of the 2022/23 recruitment round.

Collecting this data together isn’t just of interest to data watchers. There is a serious issue here that is also linked to the cutbacks in university courses currently underway.

Imagine a scenario where the civil servant in charge of teacher supply and training meets his opposite number in charge of universities over coffee one lunchtime this summer. ‘I have just seen the data on ITT music offers and we risk not hitting our target again this year’.  ‘Bad luck’, the other replies, ‘but if universities cut music courses, won’t that make it even more difficult for you in future years?’ ‘You cannot let that happen, as we need graduates for teaching’. ‘Sorry, universities are free agents, and music courses are not in fashion right now.’ ‘What shall we do?’ ‘Perhaps we can write a joint paper for the PS mentioning apprenticeships’ ‘Good idea, job done.’  ‘After all music is an important export industry, and we mustn’t let it go the way of design and technology in our schools.’

Last week I attended a concert in Dorchester Abbey where in the course of a week pupils from 41 primary schools came together to sing their hearts out. We must ensure that music is available to all of them when they transfer to secondary schools.

Big range in candidate’s chance of becoming a teacher

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The latest ITT data for applications and offers for course starting this autumn was published by the DfE this morning. Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK Normally, the data appears on the last Monday of the month, so this moth’s data is a week early. However, at this stage of the year the early publication probably doesn’t make much of a difference to any analysis of the data.

The good news is that the DfE allocations or targets, call them what you will, have already been exceeded in some subjects; even before any Teach First data has been added to these numbers. However, what matters is how many of the ‘offers’ turn into trainees on the ground when courses start. Based on previous years, it seems likely that this will turn out to a good year for the government and schools, but challenges still exist in some subjects.

At least four subjects, business studies; design and technology, music, and religious education won’t meet their targets this year. This is despite music having the highest conversion rate of applicants to offers of some 63%. By comparison, business studies has the lowest conversion rate of just 27%. It is possible that both classics and drama might also fall short of their targets this year, but the jury is still out.

SubjectTarget 2025/26June offersJune applicationsoffer to candidates’ ratio
Business Studies90025593427%
Chemistry730730243230%
Physics1,4101431476330%
Others2,520399117934%
Mathematics2,3002321621637%
Religious Education780397102939%
Biology9851275330339%
Total Secondary19,270161003848142%
English1,9501648393742%
Classics60419543%
Computing895895201544%
Art & Design680817165050%
Geography935854171250%
Design & Technology965587117450%
Modern Languages1,4601418272352%
Drama62026950154%
History790924166356%
Physical Education7251514263957%
Primary7,65087901527358%
Music56532551663%

For some subjects the ‘offers’ are well in excess of the targets/allocations, with physical education have offers double the requirement, and a high ratio for offers to candidates. The cash this will bring to universities through fees will no doubt be welcome, but is it a good use of taxpayers’ money? If the Teacher Supply modelling is correct, many of these trainees might struggle to find a teaching post in 2026: not a phrase I have written recently.

I am curious as to where the more than 4,700 physics candidates have come from? If those with offers turn up, then that will be really good news, but I think we need clarity about the numbers and their reliability in predicting trainee starters this autumn.

Although all regions have seen an increase in candidate numbers, the Midlands have seen a fall in candidate numbers as measured by the region of the training provider. There is an imbalance between provider regions with just three regions; London, the North West and the South East accounting for the bulk of ‘offers’. As some providers are located in one region but provide wider, and even national coverage, this should not be an issue, but is worth monitoring, especially in the subject that won’t reach their targets, for any regional shortages.

Still, for many admissions tutors in ITT this will be their easiest summer for more than a decade. 2026 might be even better.

Solve the High Needs Block statutory override issue now

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June is the time of year when local authority Directors of Finance start thinking about the budget for the following April. HM Treasury is doing the same thing for the government but, with a Spending Review just announced, their task this summer should be much easier than usual as Ministers have already negotiated with the Chancellor. Directors of Finance have no such protection and are bound to produce a balanced budget for councillors to approve or face the prospect of having to issue a s114 notice and default, as some councils have already had to do in recent years.

It was very surprising not to see an announcement in the recent Spending Review about the statutory override many upper tier councils are carrying on their balance sheets,

The statutory override on council balance sheets is a result of overspends on council’s High Needs Block spending that finances the pupils and young adults with special educational needs in their local area. (SEND)

There are suggestions that a significant number of upper tier authorities with be unable to present a balanced budget for 2026/27 to councillors next February for approval unless something is done about the present statutory override that currently ends in March 2026. If nothing else is put in place, some councils will not be able to present a balanced budget and hence will default.

The simple answer would be to extend the override until March 2027 to see what the White Paper on SEND, now promised for the autumn, will bring. That move just buys time for a longer-term solution.

I wonder whether the DfE thought local government re-organisation might be a way of dealing with the deficit when new councils were being formed. After the results of May’s elections, I cannot see the present government wanting to push ahead with reorganising councils and creating new elected Mayors if such a move were to hand more victories to their opponents, and notably to the Reform Party. If reorganisation grinds to a halt that route out is no longer available for solving the issue of the override.

Another alternative is to switch the 2% precept on Council Tax from adult social services to SEND and let the NHS take the strain on funding for the mostly elderly residents currently being paid for out of the local government funding 2% precept. Such a move would not be popular but could be possible. As it wasn’t in the Spending Review it seems unlikely.

The DfE could rearrange their spending and transfer the consequences of falling pupil numbers from the Schools Block to increase the High Needs Block and do the same for the Early Years funding to keep it constant on a per child basis but recognise fewer children means less total spending. Such a move would affect funding for schools and early years setting with falling rolls.

Do nothing and councillors in Parties running councils will return from their summer breaks to be confronted with a list of serious reductions in services and personnel that might be needed in 2026. Such reductions won’t be efficiency gains, but unacceptable cuts on the level of a fire sale.

Solving the problem of the statutory override between now and the parliamentary recess for the summer should be the number one priority for all involved with education and local government. Not to do so would have consequences that are unthinkable.

The situation regarding the statutory override should not have reached the present position. In my view, it would be a gigantic failure of political will if it is not solved now.

6,500 more teachers: is Labour’s pledge dead in the water?

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Last week, I wrote the following in this blog:

“The Spending Review also needs to come clean on what the pledge around the 6,500 extra teachers means, and how they will be paid for? The IFS makes the point that the college sector needs more than 6,500 extra lecturers to cope with the fact that rolls there won’t be falling over the next few years, and any added working in adult learning will put up the demand for lecturers even more. Switching funds to the college sector solves the issue of how to pay for these extra staff, but will leave the secondary sector with a pupil-teacher ratio in many areas little different to what it was 50 years ago. Hard times for schools ahead?” More thoughts on funding schools, ahead of the spending Review | John Howson

Will, we will know if it is hard times, status quo going forward or genuinely more cash for the school’s sector on Wednesday, when the waiting and teasing will finally be over.  

However, there appears to be news about the pledge to create an additional 6,500 teachers that formed part of Labour’s 2024 general election campaign. Labour said that they would:

Enable school staff to help our children to succeed

  • With over 6,500 more teachers in schools
  • All new teachers to be qualified
  • A new national voice for school support staff
  • A Teacher Training Entitlement for all our teachers
  • Everyone in our schools treated with the respect they deserve. Labour’s plan for schools – The Labour Party

According to the tes, and other sources, the pledge of 6,500 more teachers is dead in the water. Labour ‘abandons’ manifesto pledge to hire more teachers This follows the publication of the annual workforce data by the DfE showing that unsurprisingly showed that with falling rolls, the number of teachers in the primary school sector actual fell between November 2023 and November 2024. The primary school total of teachers dropped by about 2,900, while the number of secondary and special school teachers, as well as those working in pupil referral units, went up by about 2,350.

Now, Labour can argue that the November 2024 data was based upon the funding of schools under the previous Conservative government, and they would be correct. However, it would make the pledge even harder to achieve if it was assumed that the 6,500 additional teachers were to be added to the November 2023 total that was the latest figure at the time of the general election.

Creating more than 7,000 additional teaching posts was just never going to happen, especially as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that there is a staffing crisis in the further education sector, and that’s where funding for any addiitonal staffing probably ought to be directed first.

Will Labour pull a rabbit out of the hat between now and Wednesday, after all it was VAT on private schools that was supposed to be used as hypothecated cash to fund the extra staff. We shall see what is announced.

And what of the other pledges? Will there be a new national voice for support staff already being told that they are less valuable that teachers by being awarded a lower pay increase: bad news for the beleaguered special school sector.

A broken system: not just mismanagement

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When searching the DfE website this morning for the latest numbers about schools and pupils to allow me to compare the number of teachers per school for different subjects, I was distracted into looking at the number of ‘open notices’ from the DfE to Councils across England. Currently they total around 30 such notices and there are others that have been closed in recent times. These notices refer to the provision of either special needs (SEND) or children’s social services.

There really must be something wrong with a system where nearly 20%, or one in five, of all upper tier local authorities have such notices that are issued to councils for ‘poor’ or ‘inadequate’ performance. I had expected the majority of such notices to be for SEND services, but in fact half are for Children’s Social Services. This raises the question of whether in some authorities, and especially smaller unitary authorities, there is the funding to cope with both SEND and Children’s Social Services?

Of the local authorities with ‘open’ improvement notices for children’s social services, most are small metropolitan districts of unitary authorities.: Liverpool, Nottingham City and the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire are the exceptions. The pattern for SEND notices is different, with six counties, four metropolitan districts, four unitary councils and one London borough with ‘open notices.

What is striking about both lists is the geographical split. The relative absence from the list of well-funded London boroughs – only three appear, and only one in the SEND list, compared with eight metropolitan districts really is worthy of note and discussion. Comparing the distribution with my recent report on pupil teacher ratios does suggest that funding, or the lack of it, may play a part.  

If the 16 other authorities with closed notices since 2020 are added to those with ‘open’ notices, then almost a third of all local authorities have been on the ‘naughty step’ with the DfE and Care Quality commission so far in this decade.

If that percentage and the split between types of authorities doesn’t raise questions about why and why some authorities are more likely to be faced with improvement notices than others, then I think we have a serious lack of inquiry.

The relationship between the size of an authority and competence to deliver high quality services is important, both because of the Reform Party’s pledge to cut out waste, and the Labour government’s intention to reform local government. Both need to be seen in light of this list. Is bigger better, or is local government outside London just not well-enough funded

Of course, I must declare a personal interest, since I look over as Cabinet Member for Children’s Service (excluding SEND) after Oxfordshire received a ‘notice’ in the autumn of 2023 about the quality of its SEND provision.

To some extent with SEND, authorities are at the mercy of the NHS, over which they have little power, and that relationship with SEND needs to be investigated thoroughly. Penalizing democratically elected local government for the failing of a nationally run NHS is neither fair not equitable. That the government’s funding of the High Needs Block may add to local government’s problems also needs to be taken into account. Oxfordshire is in the bottom 30% for SEND funding.