Following her strong speech in
the House of Commons (attached) just before Christmas challenging the
Government to rethink the proposed new formula for school funding, Fiona Bruce
arranged for a delegation of Headteachers from Congleton, Sandbach and Alsager
to speak directly to Schools Minister Nick Gibb MP about the impact of these
proposals on local schools.
The meeting was joined by
Rachel Bailey, Leader of Cheshire East Council, Jacky Forster, Director of
Education at Cheshire East and MPs David Rutley Macclesfield and Antoinette
Sandbach Eddisbury.
Fiona
Bruce MP said “The
potential impact of these proposals putting schools in my constituency and the
wider Cheshire East area at the bottom of the schools funding league table if
they go ahead, required immediate challenge to Government to go back to the
drawing board and rethink them, which is why I arranged this delegation and why
the majority of High School Heads in my constituency travelled to London to the
meeting this week with the Schools Minister.”
Fiona
continued “The length of time
the Schools Minister gave to the meeting – far longer than usual for a
Ministerial meeting – and the manner in which he listened intently and agreed
to work further with local Headteachers on essential pupil funding levels,
shows that there is a case to answer for reviewing these proposals. The meeting
was a constructive start to making a case on behalf of pupils and schools here
in the Congleton Constituency and wider Cheshire East area.”
The
consultation deadline is 22nd March.”
ENDS
Attached
1.
Agreed
Statement from the Delegation
2.
Photo
of the delegation meeting Schools Minister Nick Gibb in Parliament
3.
Speech
by Fiona Bruce MP, House of Commons, 20th December 2016
1. Agreed
Statement
A
ten person delegation from Cheshire East comprising MPs, Local Authority, and
Headteachers met today (9th January 2017) with the Right Honourable Nick Gibb
MP, Minister of State for Schools to discuss the recent proposals from the
National Funding Formula. For historic
reasons Cheshire East has been poorly funded as a local authority for a number
of years. After vigorous campaigning
both as part of the F40 group (the lowest funded authorities in the country)
and as an individual authority, Cheshire
East Headteachers, Council Leaders and MPs hoped that the new national funding
formula would finally redress the legacy that had left Cheshire East pupils
receiving substantially less funding than the national average. However, the
new formula, released to consultation in December 2016, left Cheshire East as
the lowest funded authority in the entire country.
Fiona
Bruce MP spoke in the House of Commons in December and highlighted the
difficulties that schools in Cheshire East faced as part of the existing poor
funding and the truly devastating effect that the new proposed formula would
have on the quality of education across all schools in Cheshire East. Fiona also managed to achieve a very short
notice meeting with the Minister of State for Schools to allow him to hear
first hand how deeply damaging the proposed new funding plans would be on local
education provision.
In
attendance at the meeting were Nick Gibb MP; Fiona Bruce MP; David Rutley MP;
Antionette Sandbach MP; Rachel Bailey Leader of Cheshire East Local Authority;
Jacky Forster Director of Education and 14-19 skills; John Leigh Headteacher at
Sandbach High School, David Hermitt Headteacher at Congleton High School, Sarah
Burns Headteacher at Sandbach School, Richard Middlebrook Headteacher at
Alsager School and Ed O’Neill Headteacher at Eaton Bank Academy.
Rachel Bailey, Leader of
the Council says ‘We will work together with our local MP’s
and schools to ensure that the Minister is provided with some practical
solutions which will protect the current outstanding education and skills offer
across Cheshire East. Our children and
young people have a right to at least the same minimum national curriculum
offer and opportunities which other similar schools and authorities will have
the funding to provide.’
The
meeting, at Portcullis House in Westminster, was very focused and productive,
providing the Minister of State for Schools with a range of reasoned
points. These included the inequality of
the proposed funding, the seriously damaging effect on curriculum provision,
the attendant drop in teaching standards, vastly reduced extra curricular opportunities
for children and the economic reality of the unsustainable financial viability
of schools in Cheshire East. The minister offered a long period of time to
discuss and listened intently, a reflection of how seriously he was considering
the concerns. Everyone connected with
education in Cheshire East had expected that the fair funding process would
rectify the imbalance, not exacerbate it.
Nick Gibb, gave a clear commitment to work with Headteachers, the Local
Authority and MPs to explore a number of potential exceptional circumstances
that have created an ‘anomaly’ and civil servants have been asked to work with
the Local Authority and schools to model the minimum level of funding required
to operate schools of different sizes. The Minister was clear that this is a
genuine consultation and that there is an opportunity to influence the
proposals prior to the consultation closing in March.
Photograph
Photo shows
meeting in Parliament with Schools Minister Nick Gibb MP (centre) and l to r Richard Middlebrook, Head Alsager
School, Fiona Bruce MP Congleton, John Leigh, Head Sandbach High, Antoinette
Sandbach MP Eddisbury, Nick Gibb MP, David Hermitt, Head Congleton High, Sarah
Burns, Head Sandbach Boys, Ed O’Neill, Head Eaton Bank, Cllr Rachel Bailey
Leader of Cheshire East Council; David Rutley MP Macclesfield, Jacky Forster
Director of Education and 14-19 skills Cheshire East Council.
2. Speech
by Fiona Bruce MP – 20th December 2016
I want to speak today
about just one issue of great concern, which is how negatively the proposed new
national funding formula for schools will impact on schools in my Congleton
constituency if it is not revised. It is critical for the children of my
constituency that it is.
Prior to the
announcement last week, my constituency schools were already among the
poorest-funded in the country. We therefore expected a good funding increase.
After this announcement, however, headteachers tell me that theirs will be the
very worst-funded schools in the country. The most poorly-funded local
authority used to be £4,158 per head, but this will now be Cheshire East, at
£4,122 per head. Imagine my heads’ consternation last week when they discovered
that their funding will not increase, but actually drop. I use the word
consternation; they used the word outrage. No wonder that within 48 hours of
the announcement no fewer than five headteachers came to my constituency office
to express their utter dismay.
A year ago, I took a
group of headteachers to meet the former Education Minister, my hon. Friend the
Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), to ensure that he heard directly their
concerns on the poor funding for Cheshire East schools, and to implore him that
the new formula must address them. And this was after a similar meeting in the
previous Parliament, when Cheshire East local authority officers met his
predecessor for the same purpose. In addition, hundreds of my constituents
signed a petition for fairer funding. This issue is far from new, which is why
last week’s announcement was so shocking.
My headteachers are asking
how Cheshire East has become the most poorly-funded area, after they made such
a convincing case to the Minister at their meeting. They thought they had been
heard. I, too, find it difficult to understand.
What is particularly
concerning is that these are some of highest-performing schools in the country,
but there is a point at which their laudable level of achievement cannot be
maintained. Only yesterday, the Secretary of State said in this place that she
had been able to ensure that underfunded areas would be able to “gain up to 3%”
over 2018-19 and 2019-20. My schools are facing exactly the opposite—not a rise
of 3%, as the majority of my high schools face a reduction of 2.9%.
Before I relay some of
the unpalatable options facing headteachers in my constituency, let me set in
context last week’s announcement, because a number of other factors make the
funding reductions for my schools far worse. First, the National Audit Office
has said that schools face a reduction of 8% in funding in real terms by 2020,
due chiefly to unfunded increases in employer costs. That makes the average
savings to be found not over 2%, but over 10%. In addition, the reduction in
the educational services grant will mean a further hit for academies in my
constituency, which means all seven high schools. Even graver, there is still
no local plan in Cheshire East, which has led to hundreds of new houses being
built without additional funding for the proportionate increase in the number
of children attending schools. This effect of so-called “lagging” means that
schools are required to educate additional children with no additional funding.
What do headteachers
tell me will be the effect of this new formula on their schools? With reference
to the primary schools, Martin Casserley, headteacher at Black Firs Primary
School, says they will be forced into significant reductions, including
reducing support staff to help special educational needs children.
The high schools will
lose £800,000 a year between them. Eaton Bank alone will face losses of
£300,000 over three years. Headteacher Ed O’Neill says this would be “deeply
damaging” and
“the removal of the
educational services grant…and the NAO-calculated pressures mean that total
savings of 12% will have to be found.”
Richard Middlebrook,
head of Alsager High, who was nominated for headteacher of the year and is a
national leader of education, says that the only way to survive would be to
open for only four days a week, narrow the curriculum or close the sixth
form—all completely implausible.
Dennis Oliver,
headteacher of Holmes Chapel High, also a national leader of education, is
looking at the removal of all teaching assistant posts, or the loss of all
technicians, or the loss of eight non-viable sixth-form groups, or removing
heating and lighting for a year or removing general resources for children,
such as paper and books. John Leigh, head at Sandbach High and a
long-established Ofsted inspector, tells me he risks losing his school’s
“outstanding” status. He now has a £200,000 deficit as a result of lagged
funding, due to new housing in Sandbach. He believes that the only feasible way
to run the school would be to remove the rich programme of extracurricular
activities, reduce the curriculum offer and/or reduce the number of sixth-form classes. He
is already teaching 12 hours of maths a week himself to help balance the
budget.
Sarah Burns,
headteacher at Sandbach Boys School, has calculated that losing the entire
music, art, business studies or geography departments could achieve the reductions,
but that is simply not possible for a school that is a regional leader in music
and the creative arts. She is concerned about the recruitment and retention of
key staff while managing a reduction of 2.9% and she calculates it will
actually be 5%, taking other factors into account.
David Hermitt, chief
executive officer of Congleton Multi-Academy Trust, of which I am a patron, is
facing a reduction of 2.4% at Congleton High, but he tells me that in addition
he has been educating over 50 children every year for free for the last three
years due to the increased housing nearby, equating to over £200,000 per year
of missing funding in each of the last three years. This has depleted healthy
reserves. He says the school has made every cut it can to ensure that it has a
balanced budget. He says that,
“we have increased
average class sizes, removed some subjects from our post 16 provision,
increased contact time for teachers and reduced the amount spent on books and
computer equipment.”
I am proud to be patron
for this well-run multi-academy trust, which is already helping to drive down
back-office costs for the three schools in the trust by providing central
services of finance and human resources.
Middlewich High faces
even deeper reductions as a result of the change in funding for children with
special educational needs and disabilities, for which it has a dedicated unit.
It is a lead school for emotional health, and Members may recall that during
Prime Minister’s questions recently, I drew attention to its outstanding work
with the most vulnerable students and families. However, Keith Simpson, its
headteacher, has said,
“as Head I have no
option but to reduce staffing from this area in order to meet a minimum number
of teachers to provide a curriculum.”
He added:
“This is alongside the
shortfall in SEND funding for schools that maintain a truly inclusive intake.
This short-term view will only store up problems for society and other services
in the long term. I feel that the holistic support for children and families is
being sacrificed and has no educational value in raising standards for our most
vulnerable students.”
Those headteachers,
whom I know well, are utterly dedicated and professional, but the concerns that
I have expressed on their behalf today have been increasing for several years.
They have concluded that the proposed national fairer funding formula is not
fit for purpose, certainly in Cheshire East. They are asking the Government to
go back to the drawing board after listening to the outcome of the current
consultation, and I am asking for the concerns that I have expressed today to
be included in that consultation. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House
will refer them to the Schools Minister, and will convey my request for an
early meeting with him to which those headteachers will travel at short notice;
and I hope that the Schools Minister will not just hear but act, by reviewing
the impact of the new funding formula on the schools in my constituency.
Without such a review, there will be grave implications for the education and
life chances of the children about whom those headteachers care so deeply.
I wish you, Mr
Speaker, and all Members in the Chamber a happy and restful Christmas.
