Education Secretary Justine Greening told MPs she recognised there was concern over school funding and has announced schools will receive an extra £1.3bn over two years.

However this is not ‘new’ education money, instead it will be taken from elsewhere in the education budget including £280 million from the free-schools programme. In 2018-2019 the budget will increase from £41bn to £42.4bn and £43.5bn in 2019-20. The plans will protect per pupil funding in ‘real-terms.’ During the General Election school funding became a major issue, the Conservative manifesto pledged that no schools would see their budgets cut as a result of the proposed national funding formula, and to increase the schools budget by £4 billion by 2022. The Conservatives had promised an extra £1bn per year, which on top of planned increases, would have meant the core schools budget rising by about £4bn in 2021-22. Most of this extra funding was going to come from scrapping free meals for all infants, a policy which was then withdrawn. Earlier this month, Ms Greening had demanded that the government publicly commit, before the summer holiday, to give schools an extra £1.2bn. Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday Ms Greening said this "significant investment" would help to "raise standards, promote social mobility and to give every child the best possible education."

• Not new money from the Treasury, but money from savings within education budget
• £280m cut from the free schools budget and £315m from "healthy pupils" projects
• The DFE is promising £416m extra for schools from savings in 2018-19 and a further £884m in 2019-20
• A new minimum per pupil funding limit will be set in secondary schools at £4,800
• The Institute for Fiscal studies says the extra money is more generous than promised in the Conservative manifesto - and will freeze average school budgets at current levels over the next two years
• But in the years between 2015 and 2020, the IFS says school budgets will have declined in real terms by 4.6%

Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner accused the Conservatives of being in “full retreat from their own manifesto.” “Astoundingly, this has all been funded without a penny of new money from the Treasury – perhaps the Chancellor didn’t want to fund schools and thought that teachers and teaching assistants were just more overpaid public servants,” she said. Leader of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) Kevin Courtney said: "We have told the Government that schools are facing big real terms cuts. The Government has had to recognise that fact. 

This extra money is welcome but it is nowhere near enough.” Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, said that it is a “desperate attempt to pull the wool over people's eyes.” "Instead of providing the £4bn of extra funding promised in their manifesto, the Conservatives are recycling cash from the education budget,” she said. “It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Schools are still facing cuts to their budgets once inflation and increasing class sizes are taken into account.”  

A protest over school funding cuts was held in London at the weekend[/caption] Ms Greening, who addressed the cash as the biggest increase in schools funding in a decade, is a queue of ministers that have called for more cash for her department – but she has apparently failed to convince the Chancellor to provide extra funding. For many years there have been complaints that schools in different parts of the country were receiving different levels of per pupil funding. She said the new formula would go ahead and would address unfair and inconsistent levels of funding. Under the new arrangements, from 2018-19, the minimum funding per secondary pupil would be set at £4,800 per year. Details of an updated version of the formula, with budgets for individual schools, are being promised for the Autumn.

Pressure is growing on the Prime Minister to abandon plans to cut per pupil funding in years to come by protecting school funding by an additional £1.2 billion. There was no mention of whether schools would receive extra funding in the has requested a public statement over the coming weeks so schools know where they stand before they break up for the summer holidays.

The Telegraph reports Ms Greening has been alarmed at the way Labour was able to exploit the Conservative manifesto on education during the election campaign. "There was no getting away from the fact we were cutting funding per pupil,” said a senior government source. “We need to recognise that in the wake of the election, and we must address the concern."  

The Conservatives promised to increase the schools budget by £4 billion by 2022 in their election manifesto, published in May. However when inflation and rising student numbers were taken into account, the promise amounted to a cut in per pupil funding, a fact attacked repeatedly by political opponents. Ms Greening has told the Prime Minister and the Treasury that she wants to change tack after the election and make sure that per pupil funding does not fall. That means an extra £1.2 billion spending by 2022, according to the Institute For Fiscal Studies [IFS], with similar amounts in the years between now and then.  

Public Services Pay
This demand has led several of Theresa May’s own ministers to speak out in adding more funding into the public sector. Pressure is mounting on the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to relax austerity and put an end to the pay cap after the party disastrously lost its majority in the General Election to anti-austerity Labour, which has pledged to scrap the 1% cap. Theresa May faces a chorus of demands from her own MPs over public spending.  After a decade of public pay freezes, the average pay of teaching professionals has dropped by £3 an hour in real terms, £2 an hour for police officers, £8 per hour for doctors, £1 per hour for prison officers whilst nurses’ wages have stagnated. In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry on Monday night, Chancellor Philip Hammond said the government’s approach to balance the needs of public workers with those who had to pay the bill hadn’t changed. Hammond said he recognised that “the British people are weary after seven years’ hard slog repairing the damage of the great recession.” He also said the time had come for a conversation on the level of funding of public services but it had to be a “grown-up debate” – arguing that borrowing was simply passing the bill to the next generation and that taxes couldn’t always fall on someone else. The governments approach has always been to balance the needs of the public workers with those who had to pay the bill.  

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to demand a salary boost for NHS workers who have suffered for years under the Tories’ one per cent pay cap. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is the latest senior cabinet minister to put pressure on the chancellor Phillip Hammond and the PM to change the policy.  

Boris Johnson believes the 1% public sector pay cap can be lifted in a responsible way.  Michael Gove, who has re-joined the Cabinet as Environment Secretary, urged the prime minister and the chancellor to listen to independent bodies that review public sector. He told the Sunday Times: "You've got to listen to the public sector pay review bodies. When they made recommendations on school teachers' pay I think I always accepted them. My colleagues who deal with these pay review bodies would want to respect the integrity of that process." A Number 10 source said the government was responding to the recommendations of public sector pay review bodies which are currently reporting to ministers "on a case-by-case basis.". But 1% rises for dentists, nurses, doctors and the military have already been agreed for this year, it added.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Nigel Lawson, a former chancellor to Margaret Thatcher, said it was Mr Hammond's job to keep control of public spending to avoid "economic disaster.” “It's not easy but it is necessary. People understand we need to pay our way on the road to economic success." Lord Lawson called on ministers to formulate the policy behind closed doors, adding: "Stop having this debate in public, it's ludicrous." 

When the matter was raised in the Commons, a minister said the government wanted to ensure "frontline public service workers" were "paid fairly for their work." Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said reports on the divisions within government over public sector pay revealed there was "turmoil" in the Conservative Party. "They're saying 'Wait for the pay review bodies', even though they're the ones insisting on a 1% cap," the Labour frontbencher told the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. "We're saying to the pay review bodies: 'Get rid of the 1% cap and give a fair pay rise.'" Asked what level of pay rise Labour thought was fair, Mr Ashworth said the pay review bodies should consider one in line with the rise in average earnings across the economy.  

Three teaching unions ATL, NAHT and the NUT have written to the Prime Minister Theresa May requesting for a meeting to discuss the school funding crisis. As a result of on-going campaigning supported by parents, teachers and schools, Education became a key topic in last week’s General Election and is still a key subject. £2.8 billion has already been cut from schools by the Conservatives and a further cut of £8.9 billion (when taking into account inflation and growing pupil numbers between now and 2021/22) has been pledged in their manifesto.  

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that there will be a reduction of 7 per cent in per-pupil funding by 2022. In reality 93 per cent of schools will, by 2022, experience a real-terms per-pupil spending cut. 8,912 schools (45 per cent) will receive no additional funding between now and 2021/22. One of the first acts of the new Government should be to publish its response to the fair funding consultation. But on current plans, unless the Government puts in new resources, this will lead to cuts in almost all schools. This simply cannot happen.        

Kevin Courtney, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Education was at the forefront of this election and many voters will have made their vote a vote for education. The Labour Party’s commitment to invest £4.8bn in schools, protecting school funding in real terms per pupil and protecting schools against inflation will not have been lost on the electorate. Theresa May has no option but to address this issue with urgency and ensure our head teachers have the money to run their schools properly without having to resort to begging letters to parents or cutting education provision. It is entirely feasible and entirely right that state education should be properly funded and resourced. The National Education Union will not let this Government destroy the education of a generation – education cuts never heal.”

Dr Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: “School funding was at the top of the election debate and the National Education Union will ensure that it stays in pole position in the months ahead.  If Theresa May thinks that education is expensive she should try the alternative. As the Brexit negotiations start, the need for the next generation to be well-educated becomes even more necessary, particularly if we are to compete in a global market and for the next generation to lead fulfilled lives. Education cannot be delivered ‘on the cheap’. The Government must commit to funding schools properly to give children and young people their birth right as citizens – the knowledge and skills to make the most of their talents and abilities.”

Should these cuts go ahead the ATL and NUT will continue their campaigning and along with the support of education professionals, parents, governors, MPs and local communities across the country this will intensify over the coming weeks and months. Once the formation of the new super union National Education Union (NEU) - the merger of the NUT and ATL takes place in September it will strengthen the union's position and the support for this campaign.    

The key to raising school standards is to ensure a high level of teaching is being delivered consistently and effectively. In order to achieve this the Department of Education (DfE) has said it is vital for all teachers to receive the necessary training, however the Teacher Development Trust have highlighted there are 20,000 teachers in schools across England who have no budget to train them.

David Weston, chief executive of the Teacher Development Trust, said the findings were "extremely concerning." The study reports 600 schools have simply had to remove their budget for professional development due to lack of funds. Rising costs and cuts in budgets has meant head teachers are having to juggle where money is being spent.  

The news could not have come at a worse time when the teachers leaving the profession is shamefully increasing year on year. "It is shockingly short-sighted for schools to be slashing these budgets at a time when there is more pressure than ever on recruiting and keeping staff," said Mr Weston. "We work with schools who have invested in this area and seen huge improvements in pupil results and teacher recruitment." He said that investment in professional training should remain a priority and that pupils deserved to be taught by teachers with up-to-date skills. The report found lower-achieving schools were less likely to spend money on training than those which were more performing better. Primary schools spent 0.65% of their budget on staff training while Secondary schools spent much less, 0.37% of their budget. Rising costs and budget cuts means leaves schools with a constant struggle in getting the right balance

Professor Robert Coe, director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University said funding levels for training were "pitifully low."

"Research evidence is very clear that investing in high-quality support for teachers' professional learning is not just one of the most effective things schools can do to raise standards, but one of the best-value choices they can make.” "Cutting spending on CPD, even in a time of tight budgets, would be one of the most counter productive, short-sighted and evidence-averse things a school could do." The deputy head of Quintin Kynaston school in north London, Ross McGill, said it was wrong for schools to be "squeezed into a corner, forced to make a decision to cut, or have no continuous professional development budget available to their staff." He said that the staff development budget was "always the first thing to be cut when unplanned financial circumstances arise throughout the academic year." "With rapid reforms in curriculum, examinations and assessment, every school will need to invest a huge amount of time for all staff to be one step ahead of their students in class," he said.

A DfE spokesman said: "Continued professional development is vital for all teachers to help improve their knowledge and skills.” "Thanks to our investment in school funding, which at more than £40bn in 2016-17 is at its highest level on record, we are giving all schools access to the resources they need.” "We trust heads to make the right decisions for their staff and use those resources to invest in high quality training and development."