Tag Archives: Spending Review

The Spending Review and savings

Posted on by
Reply

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?

Suggestions on Savings ahead of the Spending Review

Posted on by
Reply

How might the Chancellor save money on education? Apart that is from the possible pay freeze? Over the years this blog has explored a number of different possibilities for savings. Two obvious ones are in the teacher preparation market and the cost of advertising vacancies.

The DfE uses the Teacher Supply Model to identify how many places to fund for teacher preparation courses going forward. Each year, it seems to overfund the number of places in subjects such as history and physical education, so that there are always trainees looking for teaching posts at the end of the year. Should the modelling also take into account data about vacancies to match against that of the other inputs, such as pupil numbers and the proxies for vacancies currently used in the model? Possibly several millions could be saved in fees paid to universities.

The other saving championed regularly by this blog, albeit with a degree of self-interest, is the spending on recruitment advertising by schools. The DfE has made an attempt to reduce this expenditure, but it has been half-hearted at best, and lacking in understanding of how the market operates. In the spring I offered the DfE my help in making their site the ‘go to’ place for teachers seeking jobs, but was rebuffed. Fair enough, but it is worth reading my recent post of the £3 a vacancy cost for recruitment.

Supply teaching is another expensive cost to many schools, especially this year with teachers either self-isolating or off sick with covid-19. Could bringing this spending back ‘in house’ save money by removing the profit element from the cost? Worth a look given that perhaps there will be a million supply cover days this term across the country, if the estimate from one authority that I have seen is grossed up.

Procurement in general is a big area for savings, but like these other savings it challenges the assumption that market-based capitalism will regulate prices. That might be true if schools shopped around, but they don’t, and monopolistic suppliers, whether local or national, have few incentives to reduce prices and introduce new technological solutions that can cut costs for schools.

The whole area of leadership costs must be looked at. How many MAT CEOs do we need across the country? How much more does the system cost to manage than 20 years ago, and is any extra value for money as a result? May be the extra high paid jobs are an incentive for more teachers to stay in the system, rather than leave or better paid jobs elsewhere?

School need more funds, and it is worth reflecting what might happen if effective savings are not made quickly? Some small schools will close, some pupils where parents cannot afford to support the school will possibly receive a worse education than they would have do if funding had been better, and teaching will still not be a career of choice, except in a recession. Even then, it needs to be a global recession, as teachers can now find work anywhere around the world.