Local authorities still spend more than the Government says they should on education but the amount they add to schools’ budgets has fallen by more than a third since Labour came to power.
In 1996-7 they spent pound;647 million more on education than the Government allocated. However, this year councils will spend just pound;200m more.
The figures suggest that ministers have failed to force councils to pass on in full increases in their education spending allocations.
Stephen Timms, the schools minister, was responding to a question by Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Phil Willis. He said that over the same period the total education budget rose from pound;18.4 billion to pound;22.7bn.