Tackling soaring inflation is more important than boosting school budgets, education secretary Gillian Keegan suggested today.
Speaking during a series of morning media interviews today, she said that unless the government prioritises tackling inflation, it will eat up any gains in government spending.
She was speaking as a NAHT school leaders’ union survey suggested that more than half of heads are looking at making staff redundant due to government underfunding and rising costs.
There are fears that the squeeze on school finances will be exacerbated as prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt consider up to £60 billion in tax rises and spending cuts for the autumn budget on 17 November.
Pressed on how to stop the financial situation in schools from worsening, Ms Keegan told Times Radio this morning: “I will always be a champion for all parts of our education sector, and schools are a massive part of that.”
No school funding promises from Gillian Keegan
But, she added: “We’ve said very clearly the number one thing we have to do in the Autumn Statement is to tackle inflation, because without doing that you cannot spend your way out of inflation.
“So, without doing that, any other discussion is kind of irrelevant, because inflation will just eat up any gains.”
Ms Keegan also said this morning that the threshold for free school meals eligibility is “always kept under review” but that no spending decisions will be made before the 17 November Budget.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Free school meals have been something that I was looking at recently, and actually it’s gone up by 300,000 in just the last couple of years.
“So it’s actually the largest cohort of children who now receive free school meals - about 1.9 million, more than a third of children.”
When it was put to the Cabinet minister that this means there are more people falling into poverty, she noted that children stay on free school meals for a number of years even if their circumstances change.
Asked if the threshold for eligibility will be changed, Ms Keegan said: “These things are always kept under review.”
She added: “You have to wait for the Autumn Budget for any of the answers on funding.”
A new analysis of budget information and survey data by the Confederation of School Trusts shows that, without further financial support, more than half of academy trusts could be in deficit by 2024-5, with the remainder down to “worryingly low reserves”.
