Education didn’t really feature in the budget.
I had hoped that there might be help for 16-18 year-olds in rural areas to access education. Instead, the Chancellor announced that he would help families with younger children through the Bus Fund.
Line 67 Bus Travel: Fund free bus travel for children aged 5-15 in England from 1 August 2026 until 31 August 2026.
I am sorry he didn’t pick up on the 16-18 issue in rural areas, as it is something I have been campaigning about for years now.
The Chancellor also announced a cut in Red Diesel: Reduce duty rates by 3.7p-per-litre from 15 June 2026 to 1 July 2027 Will that help local authorities with their school transport bills? Sadly, I k not. Another missed opportunity?
Other mentions about education in the budget needed hunting out.
6.122 Books for children – The government will provide £5 million a year for three years from 2027-28 to increase the provision of books for pre-school children, supporting organisations such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and BookTrust.
Saldy, that won’t buy many books. For example, if 100,000 children qualified, they would receive £5 worth of books each. Hopefully, the books will circulate, so each child will have access to many books per year. But that approach increases overheads, so I am surprised not to see a match-funded scheme that could leverage more cash for the project.
6.124 School Physical Education (PE) & Sport funding – Funding to the Department for Education will increase by £60 million per year to contribute to the cost of new PE & Sport partnerships, due to be rolled out in England in 2027.
No mention of uprating the music grant by inflation. The grant hasn’t been uprated since 2014, along with a couple of other grants in the DfE’s budget.
Capital spending on education projects is likely to fall as the Treasury raids capital budgets to help fund extra defence spending. The capital spending ‘outurn’ in 25/26 was £6bn, and is expected to £8.1bn in 26/27, before falling back to £7.5bn for the next three years to 2029/30. Hope possibly for schools still awaiting the removal of ‘bad concrete’, but not much sign of a replacement policy for schools that are time expired, especially as s costs have been increasing due to inflation.
Teachers will be glad to know that on page 34 of the Budget book the government is aware that
‘ DfE’s AI lesson-planning tool is saving teachers an average of around three hours a week, reducing administrative burdens and freeing up more time for teaching and other school responsibilities.’ Budget 2026 – Breathing Space for today, Fresh hope for the future
Overall, a very dull budget for education that will give little confidence to the sector.
Finally, the retention of business rates is good for many communities, but not for university towns such as Oxford, where students don’t pay Council Tax, and the universities often avoid business rates. Hopefully, the overnight levy will at least allow some income from conference visitors and tourists to the city.
