Telford schools set to get extra £9 million next year

Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet will be asked to approve a local funding formula for mainstream schools of £126m for 2020/21 when it meets on January 2.

A report to the cabinet says it is an increase of £9m compared to 2018/19, with more than £6m of that arising from a 5.4 per cent increase in funding per pupil.

It says some of the £9m increase arises from an increase in pupils of around 500, particularly in secondary schools.

The report continues: "Funding is allocated by the Department for Education on a per pupil basis, at a rate of £4,147 per primary pupil and £5,402 per secondary pupil.

"Pupil growth accounts for £2.6m of the £9m increase."

The report says prior to the introduction of the national funding formula, two-thirds of councils received more funding per pupil for their schools than Telford & Wrekin.

It says as a result the councils schools have been underfunded by central government for a number of years and additional funding over the last three years only brings them into line with the average funding received by schools from central government in other parts of the country.

Significant

Councillor Shirley Reynolds, Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet member for children, young people and education, said: “This is good news for our schools and vindicates our long-standing belief that mainstream school funding for Telford and Wrekin had previously been held at an unacceptably low level by the Department for Education.

“However, this extra money will only enable us to catch up with the level of funding received by other authorities and is not over and above what we should have already been receiving.

“It is a fact that pupil numbers continue to show significant growth, particularly at secondary age.

“A number of our schools have agreed to increase their pupil number intakes in September 2020 in response to demographic pressures and we plan to fund such schools using estimated pupil numbers.

“This means that schools do not have to wait for funding to reflect increased pupil numbers.”

It may be possible for the council to adopt the national formula in full as in the next financial year the Department for Education will complete the transition for previously underfunded local authorities – of which Telford was one.

The report says that the national funding formula is benefitting Telford and Wrekin schools, seeing an increase of 6.8 per cent per pupil since 2017/18.

In real terms, this has meant an extra £7m of additional resources each year.

This is in addition to increases generated by a rise in pupil numbers.