Tag Archives: DfE

Green shoots, but still issues with the teacher workforce in schools

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This week the DfE issue the annual data collected in last Novembers census. There are two main sets of data, those on the school workforce and those on schools and their pupils. This blog looks at the Workforce data. The DfE link is School workforce in England, Reporting year 2024 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Here are the key points as identified by the DfE.

  • There are 468,300 FTE teachers, which is an decrease of 400 since last year and an increase of 26,900 since 2010 when the school workforce census began. Trends differ by school phase; state-funded nursery and primary schools saw a decrease (2,900, -1.3%) whereas there were increases in secondary (1,400, 0.7%) and special and Pupil Referral Units (900, 3.2%). 
  • There are 288,800 FTE teaching assistants, which is an increase of 5,900since last year and an increase of 67,300 since 2011 when the census began collecting support staff information.
  • Pupil to teacher ratios are similar to last year: 20.8 pupils per teacher in nurseries and primary schools (the same as last year), 16.7 in secondary schools (down 0.1) and 6.5 in special and PRU schools (up 0.1).
  • The number of teachers entering and leaving service both decreased, though the number of entrants continues to be higher than for leavers. This, combined with changes in working patterns and an increase in teachers without qualified teacher status, resulted in a marginal decrease to the number of teachers in England.
  • 9 in 10 teachers remain teaching in state-funded schools in England one year after qualification. 
  • Teacher vacancies and temporarily filled posts decreased in November 2024after three years of increases.

Here are my comments:

 PTRs: looking over the longer period since 1975, primary PTRs have improved from 24.0 to 20.1, some 3.2 pupils better, whereas in secondary schools the change has just been from 17.0 to 16.7, albeit this is 0.1 pupil per teacher better than last year despite all the comments about funding. By the way, I do wish the DfE would not use up and down in relation to PTRs as it can be misleading.

Workforce: Here there is both good and bad news. The bad news is that the 16999 New entrant numbers were well below the average of the past 14 years, and some 9,400 below the peak reached in 2015/16. The good news is that this should mark the low point of the present cycle, and numbers should increase from next year onwards. Deferred entrants were also below the average for the past 14 years at just 2,710

And now more good news. Returners to teaching were up to their highest level since 2014/15 and entrants new to state schools were above the 14-year average, but below last year’s number.

Taken overall, entrants in total at 41,736 were the lowest recorded for any year in the past 14. Thankfully, this is less of a concern with pupil numbers falling in the primary sector across much of the country and likely to fall in the secondary sector as well over the next few years.

Age of the workforce: While the DfE is happy to note that “A third of the teacher workforce is aged 30 to 39”, this disguises the fact that teachers under the age of 29 now only account for 17.6% of the workforce. This is where the school leaders of tomorrow will be mainly drawn from. In 2016/17 teachers in their 20s accounted for 23.2% of the workforce. With cuts to ITT targets over the next few years more than likely, the age profile of new entrants might be something worth considering in order to ensure adequate leadership candidates in the 2040s.

Ethnicity: there has been some further improvement in the number of teachers from ethnic minorities, but the teacher workforce is not yet representative of the population as a whole.

Support Staff: interestingly, despite all the talk about budget issues, numbers rose. Are teaching assistants being used to replace more expensive teachers as a result of budget pressures. If so, it is interesting to see more administrative and other support staff being employed. More than 2,600 non-teaching staff are once again employed in leadership positions, reflecting the diversity of roles with a school in the 2020s.

Finally, the fact that there were more drama teachers employed by schools than all design and technology teachers should give pause for some thought abut the curriculum schools are able to deliver.

Teacher training numbers set to fall for next few years

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The May 2025 data on applications to ITT courses was published today Initial teacher training application statistics for courses starting in the 2025 to 2026 academic year – Apply for teacher training – GOV.UK The news is almost, but not entirely good, with offers ahead of last year across the board, although only by 14 in Religious Education, nine in Drama and 43 in design and technology. Still, at the macro level, the teacher supply crisis can almost certainly be declared as having come to an end if those offered places all turn up at the start of their courses.

Of course, there are still three months of the recruitment round left, and those subjects not yet likely to hit their DfE targets, announced in April, may yet do so. I think it is possible that Chemistry and English will meet the targets, but I am doubtful about business studies 212 offers (900 target); Classics 44 (60); design and technology 466 (965); drama 235 (620); music 276 (565); religions education 347 (780) and subjects in the ‘others’ group 2,520 (375).

The 1,762 offers to applicants classified as from the ’rest of the world’ amount to 6% of all offers and, I suspect, somewhat higher percentage in some secondary subjects. Still, it is good to see more younger applicants applying, even if the percentage of those 21 and under – i.e. new graduates – being made offers has dropped from 84% to 77% as a result. By comparison offers to those career changers in the 25 to 29 age group have stayed stable at 52% last year and 51% this year.  

Male applicants are doing slightly better this year with 45% offered places compared with 42% last May. For women applicants, the offer rate has remained at 59%. London still leads the way, with around 15% of all applicants.

One of the reasons why some subjects won’t meet their targets is the decision of the DfE Teacher Workforce Model team to include some element of carry-over where some subjects failed to meet their target last year. The DfE Postgraduate initial teacher training targets, Academic year 2025/26 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK document explains the decision as follows:

“The drivers behind changes in target vary by subject. The key factor as to whether the 2025/26 targets have increased or decreased for specific secondary subjects is the extent to which those targets have been adjusted to build in the impacts of recruitment being below target in the two ITT recruitment rounds before 2025/26. This is done via the under-supply adjustments [1], which account for approximately a sixth of the combined primary and secondary target.” My emphasis

“[1] Under-supply adjustments calculated in the TWM assess the impacts of retention and recruitment via all routes. They use ITT recruitment data, and ITT completion & post-ITT employment rates to estimate the number of NQEs entering the workforce, having trained via PGITT, from the two ITT cycles immediately before 2025/26. It uses these figures, along with estimates for both the corresponding numbers of entrants into the stock via other routes (e.g. returners) and leavers, to estimate the size of the workforce in the target year. This figure is then compared to previously estimated teacher demand & supply, to identify if enough teachers were recruited/retained/re-entered to meet the needs of the system. If there is a supply shortage, an under-supply adjustment is made. The model does not apply an over-supply adjustment.” DfE Postgraduate initial teacher training targets, Academic year 2025/26 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Now, this is a perfectly respectable method of helping schools replenish their teaching stock in ‘shortage’ subjects once recruitment starts to pick up. However, it comes with policy implications. Firstly, changing targets each year so late in the process makes life difficult for ITT providers to manage the staffing for their courses. What is going to happen in the three subjects where offers already exceed targets? Thirty years ago, targets were issued on a three -year cycle with years two and three being indicative, but rarely subject to wide swings, unless there was a policy change.

Then there is the issue of whether schools will have the vacancies for any increased recruitment by September 2026. These targets were set ahead of the Spending Review. Schools staff their timetable to be fully staffed each September even if some staff are less than ideally qualified.

As long-time readers will know, I think there should be a closer alignment between ITT targets and the actual behaviour of the labour market. By waiting until the end of April to announce targets, the DfE has managed to use data from recruitment in 2023, and that helps, but is still a risk when pupil rolls are falling and school funding is also under pressure. However, as many of the targets adjusted upwards still won’t be met, even with increased recruitment, this is all a bit academic, but worth discussing for future years.

The next few years, especially for anyone contemplating a career as a primary school teacher, might well be challenging when it comes to finding a teaching post after training.

Defence Review sets growth target for Cadet Forces

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The Defence Review published yesterday, and it was interesting to see that it has implications for education. Specifically, the Review includes some recommendations directly aimed at education and young people. The first of these is:

Work with the Department for Education to develop understanding of the Armed Forces among young people in schools.

I assume that will mean allowing recruiting teams into schools to offer career advice, and also, where an understanding of the role of the armed forces and home defence might fit into PSHE lessons.

More specifically, and with a cost attached to it, is the recommendation that:

Expand in-school and community-based Cadet Forces across the country by 30% by 2030, with an ambition to reach 250,000 in the longer term. There should be greater focus within the Cadets on developing STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills and exploring modern technology. Defence, wider Government, and partnerships with the private sector must provide appropriate leadership, support, and funding to deliver this expansion.

To reach this goal around 7% of the secondary school population need to be enrolled in cadet forces, or perhaps 10%, if you discount the youngest pupils in Years 7 and 8. If this happens then there is going to be a need for a whole lot of new staff in areas where the schools have been failing to meet recruitment targets for teaching staff for years.

What is the purpose behind this move. What will these young people be expected to do with the skills acquired after leaving school? Last year, at the start of the general election campaign there was a brief discussion about reintroducing conscription. As there is no mention of conscription in the review, might this be the alternative solution.  Although the voluntary scheme is much cheaper and less intrusive than conscription, it begs the question of who will sign up for the new places?

The last sentence in the recommendation suggests a new body might need to be set up to deliver the aims, especially if all the groups mentioned are to be brought together. Would such a new body be led by the MoD, and how will the new community groups recruit the staff for evening and weekend sessions when these days volunteer organisations are regularly struggling to find youth workers? Will local authorities be asked to help play a role in developing this expansion of uniform bodies.

As might be expected, there is a big emphasis in the Review on both the uses of and the protection from drones – the new weapon of war. The war in Ukraine has probably played a role similar to that of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s in demonstrating how the technology of war can change in one theatre, delivery of the destruction of civilian population centres and other targets, while remaining the same on the ground: opposing armies slogging it out on front lines that resemble the trench system of World War 1.

I was part of the first generation to avoid conscription, and benefitting from that reduction in defence spending being used for improvements in the education sector from the 1960s onwards. It is sobering to remember that in the late 1940s there were something like 1,000,000 British forces personnel in Germany waiting for a war that thankfully never came. But, most of them were conscripts.

I fear now that defence of the realm will consume a much larger part of national resources, and that education as a sector may suffer as a consequence.  

More thoughts on funding schools, ahead of the spending Review

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Yesterday, I published a post about my initial thoughts on the forthcoming spending review, due next week, and how saving might be made in the education sector.  For a more detailed analysis at the macro level there is also the Institute for Fiscal Studies review Schools and colleges in the 2025 Spending Review | Institute for Fiscal Studies that lays out the options for the government against the background of falling rolls and the challenging economic situation, and now The Defence Review, and all that entails for government spending priorities.

My guess is that the government will direct any extra funding in education to skills and the college sector, especially where it is related to spending on training for employment, and let the schools sector sort out its own future. One exception to this general thesis is SEND, where the government will have to take some action. Sadly, without yet a Report from the Select Committee that has been looking at SEND for the past sixth months.

The nuclear option on spending open to the government, and one that local authorities might have used in the past when they controlled the financing of the schools’ sector, would be to top slice the Schools Block and transfer that funding to the High Needs Block, used to fund special needs, and leave the schools sector to sort out the consequences.

Afterall, education is low down in the polling pecking order for national elections. This also makes sense with the supposed reorganisation of local authorities making the issue of the SEND balances and off-balance sheet deficits being carried by local authorities more of a challenge to fund in the future. However, my bet is that local government reorganisation will be off the agenda while Reform is riding high in the opinion polls. As a result, a top slice this year could be an option.

The Secretary of State has also solved the issue of how to deal with the underachievement of poor White families, by setting up an inquiry. In my view that approach is just kicking the can down the road to avoid taking difficult decisions in the Spending Review. Everyone in education knows the issues, and probably the answers as well: bring back Sure Start or something like it for the under-5s, and focus on making the secondary school curriculum more meaningful for those pupils not heading for higher education at eighteen, and who will probably leave school for college at sixteen.

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?

The Spending Review and savings

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Next week will set the direction for government spending over the rest of this parliament. Although education is a ‘protected’ department that may not mean as much now as it did last year at the time of the general election.

Changes in the geopolitical situation, and an economy where the green shoots are barely peeking through the surface, and could be killed off by the equivalent of one night of freezing temperatures doesn’t bode well for the education sector. This is especially the case when set against falling school rolls and the crisis in the higher education sector. The skills sector might be the one bright spot, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that is where most of the investment will be directed.

The present government is lucky in that the weakening job market means recruiting new teachers will be easier, and the pressure for pay rises might also abate if the choice is more pay for some and redundancies for others. Unions would, in my view, be wise to tackle conditions of service rather than majoring on pay rises and the risk of confrontation with a government that has been generous so far, but might not want to see the limits of that generosity tested.

So, might there be saving to be made?

If there are school closures, will this allow the most expensive and inefficient buildings to be removed from the estate. Why spend time taking out asbestos, if you can just close the school? How would such a policy be managed? Frankly, I have no idea, but to let market forces prevail might have an unnecessary cost attached. So parental choice or rational use of buildings?

And then there is the muddle of academies and the maintained sector.

I looked at the accounts for the period up to August last summer for the 30 single academies and Multi Academy Trusts with schools in one local authority area. The total pay bill for their single highest paid employee came to around £4 million pounds. Now, take out of that total the Trusts where the headteacher is the single highest paid employee, and the total might be around £2 million. Cut this to just five trusts: one each for the two main Christian Churches (CofE and RC) and one each for other primary, secondary and special schools and what might be the savings?

Then there is the audit, legal and professional fees. I doubt whether the private sector charges the same rate as local authorities do to maintained schools. Perhaps academies should be required to employ local authority services, if the quote is lower than that from the private sector?

SEND is the other area where spending needs reviewing. For many, the cost of an EHCP started early in the primary sector should be the first point of focus. Are there differences between schools in different locations, and if so, then why? Can an early diagnosis save costs.

What of Education Other than at School packages? How much are they costing the system, and why are they necessary in such a growing number of cases?

With 150 plus local authorities, how much might be saved from present budgets in order to support investment in teaching and learning in the new world created by the latest technological revolution?

How will the Apprenticeship Levy changes affect schools?

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Will the changes to the Apprenticeship Levy announced today affect schools? I have argued before I this blog that the Apprenticeship Levy is in fact a tax on schools, and especially primary schools, as their individual budgets often all below the threshold for paying the levy, but, unless they are small stand-alone academies, they pay the Levy. This is because they are either maintained schools, where the local authority is the employer, or they are part of MATs or other arrangements where the salary bill crosses the threshold for paying the levy.

Now, a tax may not be a bad thing per se, especially if the proceeds are used for the good of those paying it. When it was first introduced some local authorities were slow to ensure the proceeds of the Levy were used by schools, and ended up returning unused cash to HM Treasury. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen anywhere today.

The announcement by the DfE this morning of the effective abolition of the Level 7 apprenticeships, expressed by the government as: “Refocusing funding away from Level 7 (masters-level) apprenticeships from January 2026”, (DfE Press Notice) comes hard on the heels of the announcement on the 9th May for the school sector about teaching apprenticeships that said:

“postgraduate teaching apprenticeship (PGTA) courses will be slashed from twelve months to nine, aligning to the school year and getting newly trained teachers into the classroom sooner.  

Courses currently run from September to September, meaning trainees typically have to wait months before kicking off their careers, and making it challenging for schools to support apprentices while training.  

The change will be made from August this year and is expected to open up more opportunities to train to teach, as well as accelerating trainees’ journeys to the front of the classroom.” Red tape slashed to get more teachers into classrooms – GOV.UK

On the one hand, the government gives, but on the other hand it could take away in-service opportunities for teacher development where these were paid from the Levy for Level 7 courses. The outcome must not be unspent levy cash once again being returned to the government by employers of teachers and other staff working in schools.

Incidentally, school leaders should check whether the employers of those services they contract out have a policy for using the Apprenticeship Levy that they pay. If they don’t, then schools may not be receiving full value for money for their expenditure.

How will the news affect higher education departments working with pre-service and in-service teachers, and others in the education field? If there is a move away from courses where trainees pay fees towards an employment-based apprenticeship with a salary and associated benefits that might reduce interest in higher education courses. If the removal of Level 7 apprenticeships cuts enrolment on higher degrees that could be a double whammy, coming just at a time when training targets are being affected by falling pupil numbers.  This may not be an easy summer for those responsible for training teachers, even if interest in the profession is once again on the increase.

Is the teacher supply crisis over?

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“As part of our Plan for Change, we are already seeing green shoots, with two thousand more secondary school teachers training this year than last and more teachers forecasted to stay in the profession.” DfE Press Release 22nd May 2025

Good news is always worth repeating, so the release continues later:

There are encouraging signs that this is working with two thousand more secondary school teachers training this year than last, a 25% increase in the number of people accepting teacher training places in STEM subjects, and more teachers forecasted to stay in the profession.  DfE Press Release 22nd May 2025

Good to see the DfE confirming the data showing the improvement in teacher supply, at least at the national level. The secondary trainee numbers increased from 13,000 in 2023 to 15,000 in 2024. This was a substantial increase on the previous year. With targets lowered for 2025 entry in some subjects, and the primary sector, perhaps the sector can breathe a small sigh of relief, at least for the rest of this decade?

For those that missed it, here’s what I said on LinkedIn in April

What do English and Classics have in common? They are the only two subjects where ‘offers’ on PG ITT courses are still below those of April last year. As I predicted last month, the decade long teacher supply problem may be finally coming to a end. Falling school rolls; underfunded pay settlements squeezing PTRs – watch for my analysis of PTRs from 1974 to 2024, coming soon – and a tightening labour market in graduate level jobs for new graduates all mean good news for the DfE. The task then is to hang on to those teachers already in the system; a 4% pay rise will help here. Around 1,300 of the additional applications this year are from those under-24: just what is needed for the long-term health of the profession. Even better, most of the additional applications are coming from within the UK, with RoW applications 1,000 lower than last April. too early to crack open the champagne, but could make the research the DfE are going to commission on the workforce interesting. Also, need for help with teachers looking for jobs writing their letters of application and careers advice.

And what I said on LinkedIn in March

The ITT numbers for March 2025 are interesting. The gentle trend downwards in primary, and upwards in secondary applications (in most subjects) continues. The former is of concern, the latter is not enough to see all vacancies filled in 2026, even with the expected cuts schools are facing in their workforce between now and then. Dig a little deeper, and a couple of interesting facts emerge: a third of applications come from just two areas, London and the rest of the world.
The second fact is that career changers numbers are on the decline, but new graduate numbers are once again on the increase. This is entirely to be expected with a labour market where jobs for new graduates may be harder to come by this year, and those in work are less likely to take the risk of becoming a teacher with no job guarantee at the end of your training; a fresh student loan to repay, and a loss of earning for a year. If we do see a real downturn in the job market, then expect the decade long crisis in teacher supply to disappear. At present, the jury is out on this point. The question mark about interest in English and drama continues this month, with ‘offers’ in English some 200/300 where they might be expected to be. Generally, it is the arts and humanities where there has been little growth (art and design excepted) in interest. Despite the continued decline in applications to train as a primary sector teacher, it looks as if all the growth in applications to train as a secondary teacher have come from women.

Are teacher redundancies inevitable?

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The blunt answer is probably yes. Falling rolls, and a pupil driven National Funding Formula mean that even if a pay settlement is fully funded, some schools won’t be able to cover their present levels of expenditure with fewer pupils.

In the past 50 years, during periods when school rolls were falling, some redundancies took place, but new entrants from ITT often bore the brunt of the disappearing jobs. I recall doing a radio interview around 2010 about new teachers stacking shelves in Tesco because they couldn’t find a teaching post. For some primary school trainees, it might yet come to that state of affairs again.

The key issue for the next few years is, how will HM Treasury react to falling rolls when it sees funding for schools is now largely pupil driven. The creation of a National Funding formula so heavily tied to pupil numbers was a big risk. It was easy enough to turn a blind eye at the time the Formula was being created, as rolls across the country were on the increase. However, those of us with a longer vision could foresee that when rolls were falling, school budgets would quickly come under pressure. With staffing the largest component of school spending: less cash means less staff, even when there was the buffer of high levels of reserves accumulated for a ‘rainy year’.

In the past, HM Treasury has generally allowed the spending department at Westminster responsible for schooling o keep the same funding levels, even as rolls were falling, and when schooling was a local service councils could also prop up schools from Council Tax. I doubt that such an approach will be possible this time.

Falling rolls will mean falling income for schools and hence, redundancies. Such a scenario allied to parental choice means that some popular schools will up their marketing, and ride out the crisis, but less popular schools, and I include some faith schools in that group these days, with either face closure or the need to operate with lower costs and fewer staff.

With education probably lower down the pecking order in the forthcoming Spending Review than many other departments of state, certainly below defence and the NHS, and also not scoring highly in polling with voters, I can see HM treasury wanting to clawback some of the expenditure on education necessary when rolls were higher as an alternative to tax increases.

The macro picture doesn’t look great, and the new General Secretaries of the main teacher unions are going to face a tough battle, and almost certainly industrial action against a Labour government. In such action, the losers will be those living in our most deprived communities and not the parents that can make alternative arrangements: just look back to 2020, and what happened when covid hit our schools.

We are already seeing entrepreneurs marketing courses on ‘how to recruit pupils’ to schools worried about falling rolls.

What will be done for teachers either made redundant or unable to find their first teaching post? In the 2000s, I ran a regular career clinic for the ‘tes’, and offered career guidance and seminars for those worried about their futures. Maybe, it is time for some of the bigger MATs to work together to provide a service for teachers. The first action might be to allow those facing redundancy priority look at any vacancies as they arise. With modern technology, posting jobs to a defined group before general circulation seems like a good idea, and could save on redundancy costs if redeployment is possible. Perhaps, I should restart TeachVac now I am no longer a councillor in Oxfordshire?

Are there savings to be made in education?

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One of the tasks faced by someone no longer a councillor is to dispose of the vast accumulation of papers and reports collected over the years. While doing so it is possible to come across long forgotten articles. One such was an article that I wrote for the TES in their edition of 17th September 2010 that was headed ‘how to cut millions of pounds without harming the chalk face’.  Well, I suppose that ought to be the interactive whiteboard these days rather than the chalk face.

How relevant today are the suggestions I made at the end of a period when the Labour government led by Gordon Brown has favoured spending on education?

Back then, at a time when rolls were rising in primary schools, but still falling in the secondary sector: the opposite of the current situation, I focused firstly on the pension scheme and the cost of allowing private schools to be members of the teachers’ pension fund. I warned that uncapped salaries could risk bankrupting the scheme if there was either no cap on salaries or contributions didn’t rise.

In the event, the decision was taken to increase contributions and to ensure new entrants were on average salaries for their pensions rather than the more expensive final salary scheme previously available. However, the scheme is still massively expensive, especially as many pensioners are living longer. (note as a recipient of a public sector pension, I have an interest in anything the government does to public sector pensions).

My second suggestion was to reform teacher training to a more school-based system that required secondary schools only to train for the staff that they would need. In a period of falling rolls, it is easy for the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model that uses historical data to calculate the number of teachers needed to overestimate the needs of schools to recruit teachers. With a period of falling rolls currently facing schools, this is certainly an area where discussion might be helpful, especially after the recent announcement of more training places for graduate apprenticeships. Wasting training places, either for teachers that cannot find a teaching post in England or that start work in the private school sector, can lead to a mis-direction of funds.

Allied to the previous point of training, in 2010, I highlighted the issue of redundancies, and whether a system should be employed whereby all vacancies on offer by all state-funded schools should first be offered to those teachers facing redundancy: otherwise, the cost of redundancy payments for teachers that might then walk into another teaching post was a waste of money. How to handle the labour market for teachers during a period of falling rolls is something the DfE might still need to consider.

My concluding point related to Labour’s flagship projects. Of course, the one of those that mushroomed under the Conservative governments was the creation of Multi-Academy Trusts, each with its own chief officer and backroom staff. In Oxfordshire, there are around 20 MATs. Reducing that to say, five, could reduce central office costs, and allow the cash saved to be diverted into in-service training, and the recreation of an advisory and inspection service to stand between schools and ofsted, as well as identifying the future leaders of our schools, something the present system does not always do well. Saving just ten MAT CEO posts at £150,00 each might save around £2 million a year after on-costs have been taken into consideration.

Where there are falling rolls, unless overheads are reduced, the cash available for teaching and learning will undoubtedly be reduced in a period where the demands on government spending for areas such as defence and policing are uppermost in the mind of a government that doesn’t want to raise taxes, and thus may struggle to find extra cash for schooling.

‘Fully funded’ often doesn’t mean what it says for school budgets

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As usual, there is discussion about whether the recommendation of the School Teachers Remuneration Body (the STRB) about the level of increase for teachers’ salaries will be fully funded by the DfE this year. Of course, it depends upon what you mean by ‘fully funded’.  If the amount set aside by the DfE is less than the total pay bill, then clearly it won’t be fully funded.

However, even if it is ‘fully funded’ at the overall level, will that mean it will be fully funded for each and every individual school? Such an outcome is highly unlikely. Consider two schools; one has many young teachers and a high annual turnover of staff; the other, has a settled staff, mostly being paid at the top of their pay grade. Now also assume the first school is a maintained school with no top slicing, and the other part of a MAT that both top slices and pool reserves.

Are the two schools funded differently, assuming they are in the same local authority, with no differences in area cost adjustments or other factors. For the most part they won’t be, because of the working of the National Funding Formula that is largely based upon an amount per pupil.

There was less concern among school leaders about whether the pay bill was being met in full when pupil numbers were on the increase: it becomes much more an issue under the National Funding Formula when rolls are falling, and, as a result, a school’s income is set to reduce going forward.  

How did schools get into this position? In the 1990s when budgets were being devolved to schools from local authorities, schools could for the first time use their new freedoms to set their own staffing patterns.

Before the changes resulting from the Education Reform Act of 1988, local authorities set the staffing patterns for schools. Each school was allocated a Group, mostly from Grade 1 for the smallest of primary schools to Grade 7 for the largest secondary schools. Each grade had a point score, and that related to factors such as the number of promoted posts, and whether the school could employ a deputy head or heads. Special schools had their own grading that reflected their more complex staffing structure. The local authority picked up the staffing tab, much as some MATs do today.

All this central funding largely went out of the window with the devolution of funding to schools, although the salary of headteachers – especially in the primary sector – remained largely tied to the former group sizes for many years, often until the uncontrolled introduction of executive headteachers.

In these days of modern technology, it would be perfectly possible for the DfE to provide an uplift of the percentage recommended by the STRB that was related to each school’s salary bill. This would meet the need to ensure no school lost out from an average pay increase for all schools, but would have other consequences. I doubt the DfE would allow schools complete freedom over their staffing structure that they currently enjoy. Perhaps we might even see a return to the sort of structure that disappeared after schools’ gained control of their budgets: now there’s an interesting thought for a Labour government.